New Magico Speaker Break-in Question

@jmeyers --  How are things with the new A5s?

For those who are interested, here is an update. The best news is that, after about 100 hours of breaking in, the A5s are beginning to sound noticeably better. One of my most challenging demo tracks is the 176/24 version of the famous "Take Five" piece. At this point, the drum play sounds terrific, as does the piano. The one aspect that still isn’t as good as it ought to be is the tenor (or, maybe alto) sax. The loudest notes still have a bit of harshness to them that is not present in real life. [Recently, I went to a jazz club primarily to hear live playing to both types of sax. Even when played at "full volume", I did not hear that edge of harshness present on the recording -- of which, thanks to Tidal and Qobuz, as well as my CD, I have lots of versions.] Another thing about the A5s is that, despite their three 9" woofers, bass output really falls off a cliff. Playing Stereophile’s original test CD, here are the db levels in my closed 22x21x16 media room at various Hzs: 160 Hz - 63 dB; 125 Hz - 62 db; 100 Hz -53 db; 80 Hz - 48 db; 63 Hz - 48 db; 50Hz - 42 db; 40 Hz - 36 db; 31.5 Hz - 32 db; 25 Hz - 30 db; 20 Hz - 32 db. Fortunately, I own two of the new SVS SB17 subwoofers that have six separate parametric equalizer bands. Integrating them with the A5s, I have a flat (+/- 2db) frequency response (at 70 db) all the way down to 31.5 Hz, and then down 2 db at 25 Hz, and down another 1db at 20 Hz. This integration took me around six to seven hours over two days!

Responding to other comments made recently, my Wireworld Silver Eclipse speaker cables are silver over copper, in an unusual (and patented) strand size and configuration. Previously, I found them to be incredibly neutral. As for Akiko Audio Tuning sticks, I certainly will look into them, and I thank classic8 for the suggestion.

It looks like this thread has finished since it seems the OP's A5 speaker situation has improved as they break in. If it might provide some benefit to others, I thought I'd add my experience with speaker break-in to the others already posted.

Some background ...
My wife and I decided to treat ourselves with a retirement gift. My career has been in the music business as a musician (trumpet player) and for the last 45 years as a musical instrument designer (my own business for the first 20 or so years then for Yamaha) and since we love listening to music, we decided a cool gift to ourselves would be to finally buy a dream 2 channel system. The goal we had was to create a listening experience that was as close and as accurate as possible to being at a live concert. After hours and hours of listening to different speaker/amp combinations, I made my selections. The system I chose includes, Magico S3 2023 speakers, McIntosh MC611 mono amps, McIntosh C12000 preamp, Berkeley Alpha DAC Reference Series 3, Aurender N20 Music Server/Streamer. Yamaha GT5000 Turntable, DS Audio 003 cartridge and matching equalizer, Power cables, Speaker cables and interconnects are Synergistic Research, power cables are plugged into a SR PowerCell 8 SX which is plugged into a 10 gage dedicated circuit. At my dealer's (Scott Walker Audio) listening room, this was the combo that gave me what I was hoping for and on April 26, I installed it in our new home.

Initial Reaction
It was generally good out of the box but as the OP experienced, I felt the treble was too bright, especially when pushed. The bass sounded tight and a bit restricted. The speakers in general sounded directional and were not very transparent as compared to what I heard in Scott Walker's listening room. Scott told me to expect the need for a break-in period. He said I could expect to hear improvements at 50 hours, even more at 100 and that the improvements would continue to 500 hours, which is what he felt was needed to fully break in the S3's. I worked with Scott on a system in our previous house so trust him based on that experience.
 

500 Hour Break in Finished -- My Reactions
Firstly, adjusting speaker placement, especially towing out the speakers in the beginning really helped to mitigate some of the overly bright highs I heard initially and that helped with the speakers being too directional. So where did we land after 500 hours of break in? Scott was absolutely correct with his estimation for the time needed to fully break in the speakers (whole system, really). Over that time, there was constant improvement. The trebles are not harsh at all now, the mids are beautifully organic with vocals being especially real, the bass is now open and relaxed while retaining definition. They reach surprisingly deep and faithfully reproduce bass sounds that are very realistic. Acoustic bass sounds like the real thing, same with electric bass and EDM style bass. It can be powerful with great punch when the music calls for it or produce that beautiful woody sound that comes from an upright bass when the bow is pulled across the strings at softer volumes. All in all, the S3's are remarkable and now disappear in the room. They are completely transparent in the room with good recordings. After listening to more recordings than I can count, I can say that the Magico's will reward great recordings with an incredible listening experience (close your eyes and you are right there in that club, concert hall or other music venue). But they will not rescue the bad recordings. They are very accurate and the whole system is highly resolving so poorly recorded and mastered recordings are revealed as such. All in all, I could not be happier with the whole system, especially the S3's.

Long story short, my advice is to not judge a system too harshly when it is new out of the box, especially if you've heard it somewhere before where it caught your ear and made the hairs on your arm stand up. If you've chosen your speakers and other components wisely and placed them in the room properly, be patient, time will be your friend and you'll end up with something very special once everything fully breaks in. Hope my recent experience helps a little to others regarding the break-in question.