Tidal Piano Cera or Magico S3

I would recommend your friend should listen to the KEF Blades as well, the Blades are an amazing speaker for the money and will outperform the Magicos. They will not have as much treble resolution as the Diamond based Tidals but other than that it is is very hard to beat the overall level of performance you get in the Blades

Thank you for the advice, a local dealer is selling the Blades so I’ve heard them and my friend separately too (with Esotric and Pass electronics). Both of us were not very impressed with the listening, quite good but not outstanding and not worthing the selling price of 26000 euro ( official price of the S3 is 23000 euro, Tidal Piano Cera 15500 and about 26000 euro for Tidal Piano Diacera or Tidal Contriva, 14000 euro for B&W 802 Di, 13700 euro for Thiel 3.7).
My friend was vey impressed by the Magico S5 he heard at the Mubich Show two years ago, he could not go there this year, but will go later in the year to a show in Zurich, so any advice for speakers that worthing to listen is welcome.

Audiooracle,

How exactly will they out preform the Magico? These speakers completely falls apart when played above 90db, have no low bass to speak of, and sound opaque. They do look cool, but that’s about it. Completely different league then an S3 or the S5. I would even take the S1 over these.
Are you a dealer of KEF?

I heard both the KEF Blades and Tidal Contriva Diaceras in in long back to back listening sessions and thought the Blades were very fine speakers. Not the equal of the Tidals, but in no way did they "fall apart" at over 90 db. levels. Nor did I find them unbalanced sounding as far as bass. (They were driven by Ayre MX-R amps.) Just goes to show how different we all hear things. The fact that the Blades have a very sculptural presence in a room as opposed to what most loudspeakers look like (no matter how expensive) gives them an aesthetic edge in a high end interior.