Quandry: Used Magico V2 vs. new S1

Melbguy, Pass Labs is another amplifier brand that sounds great with Magico.

Hi Peter, yeah I'd believe that as the smaller Pass amps in particular sound warm and a bit tube-like. The new XA.8 series is apparently very good, though as far as integrateds go, Pass don't have anything to compare to the SIA-025.

Golden ears my butt (with all due respect)…..I've spent 4 decades in some of the most respected recording studios in the world. Consider this. Pick a vocalist. In the most basic studio recording set-up, he/she would sing into a maybe an $8000 condenser microphone which is connected to (usually) a $100 Mogami cable which is plugged into a pre-amp and then an EQ device and then a compressor, before going into an AD converter thru the computer software and exiting into a DA converter……at this point, the audio could easily run thru 3-4 additional processing devices before traveling on the final cable to the speaker monitors.

And this is the point where the engineer wants to be absolutely sure that Luciano Pavarotti SOUNDS like Pavarotti sounded when his voice was entering the studio microphone!!! Pavarotti's voice travels thru many hardware devices and many feet of cable, again, all of which is generally inexpensive (by home audio standards) but excellent quality Mogami cable. ANY cable should properly address issues of impedance, capacitance, resistance and Rf Shielding. Hence, an inexpensive copper cable that effectively addresses these issues can sound as REALISTIC by studio standards as Nordost Odin for example. AND THE ISSUE BECOMES THAT OF REALISM - What one person considers "realistic" will be very different from what others consider "realistic" because we've all been conditioned to hear differently. Even two people with identical hearing characteristics (as measured by an audiologist) will hear a given system differently due to psychological and learned perceptual characteristics.

What most so called audiophiles are doing, with tweaking cables with various components and speakers, are merely seeking out a PARTICULAR SOUND that is pleasing to their ears……some like warm and lush while others like bass slam and some prefer brightness with hyper detail (like myself who's lost much frequency resolution as I approach 60 years).

I'm simply saying that no one is right or wrong. Only you know when you hear a combination of gear (and cables) that you like. Whether you have achieved your quest for the ABSOLUTE SOUND, that is purely subjective for EVERYONE INCLUDING THE BIG TIME REVIEWERS.

Lastly, on the Magico topic, I perceive the Magico S1 to be tonally accurate and pleasing by my listening standards recognizing the inherent volume and deep bass limitations of the sealed cabinets.

I've been to a hundreds and hundreds of Symphony Concerts in the last 60 years which were not amplified.
I know what they sound like and my system is designed to come very close.
Instrumental separation and location are the hard part, and for that you need to know how the hall sounds and lose the recordings that miss that.

no disagreement from me Schubert. My only argument is that you ATTEMPT to duplicate at home what YOU hear at a live concert. I could be sitting right next to you at the concert and hear something slightly different from what you're hearing. Duplicating that experience for different folks might involve Magico, Rockport, Raidho or even B&W.

As I've said, I've lost some high frequency acuity. At the same concert, you are likely hearing more sizzle in the cymbals, violins, oboes than I am. Hence, many of us are inclined to build and tweak our systems to compensate for our personal hearing differences/deficits. And the recording process is a tricky proposition balancing acoustical science with subjective creativity that rarely captures all attributes of the performance.