@whitecamaross You’ve given a great overall summary of your most recent speakers earlier.
Would you mind specifically comparing the Wilson Sasha’s to the Soora 3s. It seems as if they might be in yet same league, but your experience is valuable to tease out the nuances btwn the two. Is there an overall winner of those two or is it a matter of taste?
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I would like to hear the
magico s5 mk2
with a Boulder 2060. It certainly has balls and got many awards in it's long run. I think the last year of production was 2013 so there is a new model but that doesn't negate the positives of this class A beast. Used models pop up occasionally in the 15K range.
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brhatten: The wilson sasha 2 uses a soft dome tweeter which makes the speakers more laid back when compared to the magico. The sasha 2 sounds huge, dynamic, never fatiguing regardless of the volume level and never strains. The only thing is that the sasha 2 relies alot on the room to give you accurate bass. If your room isn't the best then the sasha could present a problem when it comes to bass.
The magico s5 mk2 has more detail so it is more forward sounding than the wilson. I find it easier to place as well since it does not rely in your room too much in order to give you bass. Speaking of bass, you can not buy low powered amps with the s5 mk2. The Wilson's will forgive you and sound good with many low powered amps.
Both speakers are really good at what they do. It is a matter of taste at this level. |
ok guys, my Focal Sopra 3s have now been listed. For those of you who wanted to "verify" my ownership of what i talk about, you can see the magicos and the focals on the picture... Ref 10 in the back, mc601s on the floor, the gryphon, the simaudio..etc..etc...
Wasn't there someone in this thread who said they would buy my focals or magico once i was done with either one of them??? speak up , they are listed :) |
@whitecamaross Hi guys: just came home with a pair of amps I did not expect to bring back but I needed to try more horsepower on the magicos. Guess what ? I was damn right!
They need gobbs of power. I just strapped on a pair of McIntosh 601s and man the speakers just sound 30% percent better easily. They sound larger, the excess high frequency energy from some recordings has receded and now they sound much more dynamic. It’s as if they took a shot of steroids by getting more current from monos. I’m very happy with this result. I will keep listening and will report back.
I will try the focals at some point tonight. Let’s see !!! I notice that you are not really saying much about those MID-FI McIntosh MC601s Could it be that they really are better than you expected .Could it be that they are Damn Musical and you hate to admit it ?.........just my opinion, of course. But, I find it kind of odd that you have not really said another word about them, BUT. They are still there ! |
@grey9hound Very good point about the Mac 601s. Not only they are still there, but they also permitted WC to experience the Magico `s transparency and everything he wrote about them... They also permitted him to pinpoint the différences and choose between the Sopra 3 and the S5mkii. As he wrote, the Magico lets you ear every tweak or change in the system...and that was done with the amplifiers that woke them up...the McIntosh 601s !!! Not bad for mid-fi amplifiers...... WC, we caught you in the act of ``mid-fi love``... lol ;) |
Laughing... mid-fi love on a high-end budget? Happy Listening! |
guys,
the mcintosh 601s have more power than anything else have here. This is like you comparing a mustang 5.0 with 800hp vs a camaro ls1 with the factory 320 hp. Of course the 800hp will be more of a show. In order for us to gauge what the 601s are capable of we need to bring other monos that hover around the same price. I don't exactly expect the 601s to come within striking distance of the xa200.8s. I expect the 601s to melt on top of the massive heat of the xa200.8s. I am not even going to contemplate a shootout between both because you all will say "oh how can you compare an amp that is 42k vs 15k" etc blah blah blah... |
@whitecamaross
You need to.throw your expectations and pre-conceived notions out the window in order to give them all a fair shake ! |
Guys, I’ve owned the 601s before and the 200.5 Monos... it was not even close... trust me on this... |
Oh great, now we have two Sopra 2's and two Sopra 3's for sale here on Audiogon. Pick your color, shall we say? |
Anybody that would spend 40k on amps or speakers has way more money than they have sense anyway . Mc601s are probably as much as any sane person would spend on audio anyway.
I mean really think about it, would 40k amps really be worth 26k more than 14Kamps . What is your money REALLY getting you in improvement.... 20% ...at most . You really should Demo some gear that the average guy can afford. |
Im predicting the Gryphons well take the crown with the Magico,s.
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In my humble opinion I wouldn't change anything until you get a better room. At the level you're playing at, based on your pictures, your limiting factor is your room. Just a thought! |
The room can’t be done until later this year or early next year. I got many other things to do to my home that are a little more important. I’m not about to drop 10k in my living room with treatments, carpet or anything else when I’m planning to do that in my dedicated space. I gotta play in the room that I got. Each speaker will get judged in the same raw conditions you see. No speaker or amplifier will have any sort of help by my room. Either pass or fail. That’s all there is to it. Im gonna select what sounds best in the room that you see and that’s about it. You all know that many of you have the saaame damn thing I got in terms of a room. No treatment, no nothing.
All my gear is running a race barefoot and nobody is getting any damn shoes at all here. I think of it as those kids in South America that play soccer barefoot because they are poor and have no money to buy any soccer shoes but yet they still get discovered because you can see their talent even without any damn soccer shoes. It’s the same thing I’m doing. I can detect a good amp in rooms that aren’t the best spaces. I don’t need a perfect room in order to know if something has clear signs of greatness. I’ve been doing this since day 1 when I started this journey. I’m technically “used to playing without any soccer shoes. My feet are used to the rocks from the streets which cause me no pain anymore”.
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Greyhound: you can’t measure the improvement you get based on how much more $ you spend. I’m estimating that the pass labs xa200.8 will be improving things by about 30% and my Magico dealer said it will be a 50% improvement when I swap out the 601s.
I remember listening to the 200.5s: full sound with intense control. You feel as if your speakers are being pushed by an amplifier with turbos. They mangled the woofers and gave me full bodied sound across all frequencies.
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“Each speaker will get judged in the same raw conditions you see.“
Thanks for your candidness, WC. Readers should consider your findings as entertainment value only based on that.
Dave
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According to the reviews of the xa200.8s, each monoblock draws 750 watts from the wall ( I hope I am wrong ). I hope WC's house current can handle that. I would not be able get over the electric bill. Enjoy ! MrD. |
Like has been said many times, if you want to improve the sound in your room get the Lyngdorf. You seem to like to throw around money . Lyngdorf would be well worth throwing money at .It would be the BEST way to spend money. .. |
WC-
"All I’ve written about the XA200.8 up to this point are based on the use of the factory-supplied generic power cables, which I subsequently replaced with the MIT Cables Oracle AC II ($4,499, 2m) network power cables from the one and only Bruce Brisson. The amplifiers as powered by the MIT Cables delivered such signal to the speakers that the music took on a higher level of dynamic transients, spatiality and power. This was a new experience of high fidelity that caught me completely off guard. Retrospectively, the Pass Labs XA200.8’s sounded convoluted and restrained in retrospect when they were switched back from the MIT Cables to generic."
-C.Soo, Dagogo review XA200.8 |
WC, Did you tried ACCUPHASE amps? they have good repetition |
I think dagogo is being financed by MIT. I have tried many power cords with all my previous pass amps and I didn’t hear any difference. I then called passed labs about it and they said their amps are built in a way internally that powercords don’t make any difference.... sooo yes I’m not buying what dagogo is selling about MIT...
man if I was getting free gear by anyone I’d be typing all day about them as well... but there isn’t a free lunch here. |
I’ve not tried accuphase. I want to try them at some point. |
WC, thinking about your observations about bass from the Magico using low power amps. I have the wonderful audio-CD from Digital Recordings in Canada that tests hearing thresholds in 1 dB gradations from 20 to 20 KHz. From about 500 Hz to 7000Hz, a young person with good hearing has a threshold of 0 dB, which correlates with the fact that 85 dB is a satisfactory level of loudness for a lot of the music. But at 60 Hz, the threshold is up to 40 dB, at 40 Hz it is 60 dB, at 20 Hz it is 80 dB. So to barely hear the music, at 20 Hz you need levels of 100 dB, or 140 dB for a moderate amount of sledgehammer slam. At 40 Hz, you need 80 and 120 dB. At 60 Hz, you need 60 and 100 dB. The relatively small drivers of your Magico are probably not comfortable at these high SPL's even if you feed them very high power, but you will see if these high power amps satisfy you. Just be prepared to love the Magico for accuracy for the vast majority of music even if the sledgehammer aspect is not quite there. If you want sledgehammer effects also, then you could add 15" subwoofers just for a few musical pieces, and turn them off for most of the music to get the highest clarity and least interference. Also, the Pass 200.8 is not all that powerful, so it would be interesting to try the much cheaper Bryston 28B cubed or even the 7B cubed to save money. Audio Advisor currently has big discounts on both Brystons, with the advantage of a no risk trial. |
did you say the xa200.8 is not powerful? let me tell you something... the xa200.5 was a monster in terms of the sound i got from it. It sounded massively powerful. If the x200.8 can't force music out of the magicos with a sense of precision and power then i don't know if anything else will.
Lastly, i am looking to improve on what i have and yes i am quite happy with the magico right now after i added more power to them.
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You mean that you are quite happy with the Magico and the MC601s.
You can’t even allow yourself to say it ...LOL |
4500.00 power cords.
So great.
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I wonder if you have any thoughts on the Luxman M-900u vs the Esoteric A-02. Not sure if you have had one of those in your rig.
Many thanks.
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WC, based on specs alone, the Pass 200.8 is not as powerful as the Mac 601. Glad to hear that the Mac with the Magico gives you great satisfaction. But like the Mac, Pass in general rolls off the highs, and gives a fluid presentation that enables people to tolerate higher volumes. So the Pass will give you plenty of power and probably will give you more precision than the Mac. For even more precision, that's where the Brystons may bring the best out of the Magico, and give even more power, although there is the risk that with more HF content, you might not like the higher volumes with the Brystons. Still, James Tanner at Bryston said that the 28B cubed has the sweetest highs of the line. I heard the 4B cubed at home and found the highs to be somewhat sweet, although not as much as the Classe D200, consistent with your observations about Bryston and Classe.
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Never any esoteric amps. The only amps from esoteric that I’d buy are the grandiosos.
I don’t think the m900us will have the needed bottom end to get the magico speaker to give you that bass that punches you.
For now, I’ll lay low as far as any updates and just wait on the 200.8s. They should be here by the end of the month or first week in September. They take time to be built and pass labs builds to order |
I wouldn’t mind trying the 28b3. I just opted for the 200.8s instead. Maybe I trade my 601s for the 28b3s at some point. I was offered the 1.2kw at a hell of a deal but I owned them before and they did not best the 200.5s I owned. I also haven’t heard any great things on the new 611s or 1.25kw. I have access to 1.25kw right now but if i get them and don’t like them, I am stuck with them because my connection strictly said I can’t list them. It has to be sold without any internet. This is a challenge for me and so I didn’t want to try them.
I also wanted to venture with this line from the Czech Republic called BLOCK AUDIO. Not well known here but I keep hearing it kills gryphon. Heard it from 2 different people. They both told me it will demolish anything else I’ve owned.
For now, the magico will most likely be the speaker I go forward with this year. Maybe I upgrade to the m3 Magico at some point if a deal falls in my lap. Scary thing is that remember one thing guys, anytime I buy speakers of that caliber, It’s not easy to sell them later on. This is why I try not to cross a certain threshold with speaker prices. For instance, if I got the neoliths, how many people on this thread can honestly say they can go to the bank and withdraw 50-60k to buy them from me when I’m done ? I’m sure some can but the vast majority can only dream so the point is I kill many buyers once I get to that level. Then for me to sell them once I don’t want them anymore means I’ll have to almost give them away.
The neolith presents 2 challenges:
1. Most don’t have 50-60k laying around
2. Those that do will say the speaker is too big.
Thats really what’s going through my head. Hell, dealers can’t even sell many neoliths. I believe there’s only about 20 to 30 pairs total in the country. If I dealer can’t move them, then imagine me ? I’m not a business. I don’t take credit cards etc. There’s a point within this game that only dealers can enter and the average end user can’t unless he’s giving it away and well I’m not about to buy that speaker and give it away.
If you don’t play this game the right way, you’ll be in the corner asking for money come next week. It’s that devastating when you don’t know what you are doing.
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WC.
I have Revel Ultima Salon 2 speakers.
Just got rid of my Krell 402e.
Looking at M900-u or X260.8
Thoughts?
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900u but Monos.. won’t be cheap though.
What’s your preamp??
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WC
Have you looked into the Audia Flight amps like the Strumento or FLS4? Also for Magico the Constellation amps. |
No constellation for me. I’ve done my homework so it’s a no go. Too many risks with it. |
Same with Audia Flight? Constellation has a lot of model turnover just seems to be a standard recommendation for some reason. |
viber6
Much Thanks! for the Bryston mention. I am attempting to book a demo w/ the 4B cubed power amp soon. Happy Listening!
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Mauidj, what was it about the Krell 401e that wasn’t working for you? I would have thought this to be a pretty good combo with the Salons.
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jafant,
Call Audio Advisor about the Brystons. The 4B cubed is on sale for only $4K--can't beat that with a no risk 30 day trial. Even cheaper than the 3B cubed sale at $4400, although a review said that the 3B cubed is a little more precise and a little less warm than the 4B cubed. For detail, my 2.5 B SST2 was MUCH better than the 4B SST2, and a little better than the new 4B cubed. Soon I will try the 2.5B cubed, which got a great review in 10audio. |
WC, mainly agree with your strategy, except I wouldn't trade the Mac 601 for the large Brystons. The 601 has served you well, and there is a risk you might not like the highs of the Brystons although you would like the precision. That's why the Audio Advisor trial at huge discounts available now would be the best way to go. You are also correct about the difficulty involved with buying expensive speakers. I would rather first spend a little money traveling to a few dealers to hear them in various sized rooms. You can stay in a motel overnight and sleep on your observations, and return the next day to see that they are verified. I used to go to London, England to Sotheby's and Christie's violin auctions, try the expensive instruments for a few days, compare notes with other violinists, listen to them play the instrument that I just played under my ear, and then several days later attend the auction for serious bidding. I also went to a famous London dealer, played 2 instruments in his showroom, then took the instruments to the hotel room and cafeteria. My preference changed depending on the room characteristics. He had connections to get me into a concert hall for a trial, but I had learned a lot from my own hotel home trials, and politely declined. The moral of the story is that if you do the work involved in listening for free at retail spaces or even better in friend's places, you will save a lot of heartache from taking losses. Even if you think you are snagging great deals, ultimately you may take great losses.
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@spinaker01
It was a fine combo but I was having issues with it so decided it was time to move on. Sold my entire EVO system and am just getting stuff to get by with for now as we will be moving to Europe as soon as we sell our house. But gotta have some music!!!!
So bought a nice used Pass X1 and an Esoteric SACD player. Now need a power amp. Being scoping out the Luxman... (not sure why WC thinks I need 2 of them?) Also looking at an Esoteric A-02, Pass X260.8.
Many thanks for your input. |
Thank You - viber6
those are certainly some sweet amps at even sweeter prices. Happy Listening!
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@mauidj If you would ever pass by Montréal Canada, I could sell you my Luxman M900u at a very attractive price. ( just saying, I like changing gear often but I don`t like to ship a 100 lbs jewel like the M900u...always prefering local sale for that kind of gear but not many buyers here ) |
WC, I would stay away from the expensive and heavy Block Audio, based only on a review from SoundRebel. When both reviewers describe shorter decays, that is another way of saying rolled off highs, lack of spatial resolution, loss of ambient information, etc. The tonal signature is bass heavy, which leads to loss of clarity higher up in the freq range. Also, I would never buy anything super expensive from an overseas manufacturer. Shipping costs for repairs of this beast will be expensive, and resale value absolutely terrible. You are far better off sticking with your Mac 601's or any powerful Pass like the 200.8 or even the top 600.8. Any of these will probably have better sound than Block. (Don't trust most audio professionals who are just looking for people with lots of money to spend. An audio dealer and a violin dealer each asked me if I have any rich doctor friends.) Even the ML Neolith is a better value proposition than Block Audio. At least the Neo is a unique product, unlike Block Audio. For relative amp bargains, you can try the big Brystons no risk from Audio Advisor, which will probably give the best combination of every sonic attribute. Imagine, the 28B cubed, 2000 watts each into 4 ohms of your Magico for $12K/pair new, no risk! Even the 7B cubed, 900 watts each into 4 ohms for about $7K or so on sale. |
Neoliths are still lingering in my mind. Haven’t abandoned the idea 100%.
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Don`t do it, don't do it. You got Magico S5 MkII man !!!... |
The Neoliths might last as long as the Vivids........lol
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Pass labs 200.8s are next. I expect them to punish the 601s the way a pit bull would do to a chihuahua. If they fail, they will be gone faster than the time it took them to get here and at that time I’ll hit the brakes and begin to aggressively call every contact I know so they can snatch me a pair of agostinos. |
