Andrew,
thanks for your explanation. I have checked your website and you sell a lot of amps I am not too familiar with. Would appreciate your opinion on which of the brands you distribute work best with the S1 and Q3 you have on show?
thanks
I think that the most important thing in pairing Magico with anything is understanding what Magico speakers do. I've been following the line for years online, in print, and in person and if you take every snippet written about their sound and boil it down to one word you'll get cold, musical, accurate, dynamic, warm (yep, I've seen that one a few times), fast, dry, smooth, brittle, coherent, disjointed, dark etc. In fact, the most interesting thing about the line is the vast array of opinions which seem to run the gamut of the audiophile vernacular. So perhaps we're all approaching them with a lot of bias, or we all have vastly different hearing, or we all assign different meanings to all of these words, or any number of other possibilities. Frankly, in diving deeper into some of these evaluations it becomes apparent that for a lot of people commenting on Magico they forget that they are listening to an entire system made up of disparate components and instead assign their evaluation to the speakers. Perhaps that's a correct approach and perhaps it's not, but it's obvious that Magico is a lightening rod for controversy.
From my own assessment I find that across the board Magico speakers are incredibly transparent and more than most others on the market they are going to reflect and even magnify the characteristics of the upstream components that are feeding them. In looking through various threads here it would appear that the most enjoyable auditions are had by those who have witnessed very carefully matched systems. This may seem obvious, but all too often I see people playing a very precarious balancing act with their component choices. A _warm_ digital source to balance out a more sterile power amplifier with a smattering of different cables thrown into the mix to clean up various details. This works, but any minor change in this type of system can result in wild swings in the sound that is output.
So... what amps work with Magico? From my perspective any amplifier which can provide enough power and remain stable will work. The ones which excel are the ones which follow the common ideal of passing the signal unmolested. This seems to be most critical with Magico as the speakers almost seem to amplify the character of what they are fed with. Pick something dark and syrupy (say a '90s Rowland) which can sound great with certain speakers and you'll likely find that character almost exaggerated when played through a Q series and possibly worse through the S series. If you think of the various colorations that we all always talk about as forms of distortion and acknowledge that Magico has the uncanny ability to reproduce minute detail with extremely low distortion then you can intuitively see how these colorations can go from being a characteristic of a system's overall sound to being a focal point.
Of the lines we carry I obviously love all of them equally....but understand that they can't all be everything to everyone. Within the context of Magico I've developed the following _personal_ preferences.
In alphabetical order....
Aesthetix - The Atlas (either the Signature Stereo or Mono versions) sits just to the warm side of neutral and in some ways may obscure the last level of detail in comparison to others out there. They've been an absolute blast to listen to on just about anything we've paired them with. They can do extremely well with Magico (especially the Q series) as they have a musical flow which the Magicos allow to shine through in full glory. One caveat here is to choose upstream components wisely as it's very easy to swing the whole system too far to the warm side at which point it starts to sound dark and closed-in.
Boulder - This is my personal reference standard now and they've proven to be a good tool for enjoying music as well as evaluating components. The 1000 series is excellent and is a workhorse of a solid state amp. I wouldn't call them anything but dead neutral and they have very good resolving power. The 2000 series (now discontinued) adds a very slight sweetness and a sense of unlimited power and control. The 3000 series takes the sense of unlimited control to an extreme and builds on the character of the 2000 with much more top and bottom end extension. The 2100 series, which is just barely starting to ship, is unknown to me now but based on the reports I've heard they produce a very similar impression as the 3000 series, but on a smaller scale. These have me really excited and I can't wait to get our demos. The nice thing about Boulder is that upstream changes won't have as big of an impact on overall system character. You'll hear every change, but you don't have the problem of adding a warm source to a warm preamp and a warm power amp. You can choose sources based on how you want to flavor the system and as long as you go for "just a taste" of the character you're looking for you'll be very pleased.
conrad-johnson - Unfortunately, I don't have enough experience with c-j and Magico paired to be able to offer any guidance. I'm slightly concerned that the pairing may not be successful save for c-j's top end GAT and ART. This is one that I plan to experiment with more when I have the time.
VTL - I have run VTL in my system in the past (with Rockport) and the overall results were very good. I had some issues with heat generation in my room which is part of the reason that I finally gave in and moved to solid state. The beauty of VTL is that you get all of those positive qualities of tubes combined with very high power and few of the tube drawbacks. They're extremely tight and controlled with a fairly even tonal balance across the board, but they still have that midrange air that is so nice to listen to. This is a tube pairing that I really like with magico as they are generally neutral (aside from some of the tube euphonics) and never develop a sense of darkness or slowness. If you look at some of the solid state pairings with Magico as being a bit sterile then I highly recommend trying VTL.
This is what I have right now, but I'm keeping my eye on a few others.
Bricasti - This is primarily a digital source company and we carry their DAC. They showed a pair of monoblocks at RMAF and all of the accounts that I heard were very positive. The interesting thing here is in the history of the design. The Bricasti guys are all ex-Madrigal and the basic design for the monoblocks was in process when Harman shut down Madrigal, fired everyone, and moved operations. The design should have had a Levinson logo on it and should have been the real successor to the 300 series, but Harman literally threw away the design and went in a different direction with some outside design help and moved forward with the 400 and 500 series. I haven't heard Bricasti's amp (although lasercd may have by now), but this has the potential to be an excellent match. Supposedly very open and transparent with excellent control. At some point I'll get my hands on a pair to try out, but probably not for a few months.
Luxman - I haven't heard these in a few years, but when I did they were paired with Wilson MAXX2s and W/P 8s. Beautiful sound in those systems and performance that far exceeded their power ratings. I'm not sure how these would pair with Magico given the fact that they may be slightly too warm, but I'm looking forward to trying them out.
Hope some of this helps someone...sometime...