Stereophile and Magico
- Thread starter cannata
- Start date
Mike
we can always reassess the old Nature vs Nurture debate. The thesis of this person was that we, humans, are attracted to loud things. We would agree that all of us, audiophiles or not, tend to take it louder when we like it, e.g: You're alone in your car and one of your favorite tune comes on the radio .. reflex? You take it louder, often uncomfortably loud... then comes a song you hate .. back to the safe prescribed level and even below ... Of course there is more to emotional involvement than loudness.
Now getting back to the point I was trying to make. The better speaker tend to be truly loud before we realize that, The absence of distortion precluding us from realizing the SPL... it is not only from Magico but some other manufacturers as well.
Now I am not of the first-watt or synergy persuasion. Excuse my bluntness. Speakers and amplifiers must first match electrically By that I mean not putting a 8-watts SET on a revel Salon 2 or a Magico Q5, or An Apogee Scintilla on a Lamm 18-SET. Their first watt would be lost there .. The resulting reproduction will likely have no resemblance to the vast sum invested. The Jump factor as you call it is a function , IMO, of speaker sensitivity and match to the amplifier power. You won't be able to "jump" anywhere if you have an 8-watts SET trying the Q5. It may work with your speakers however or Steve's X-2 or even Dallas' JBL 4367. Better results will be achieved with more watts in any of those speakers BTW, not one of you is using 8-watters. Substitute those with one of those 110 dB/w/m horn speakers and the 8-watter becomes glorious. you may call that "synergy". I call that matching. We tend to want to think in term of very special matching but it is a matter of taste. Not 2 audiophiles on this board have the exact same system components and it is not a financial means thing or budget thing. There is always a variation. you would take the same speakers , amp, preamp and the cables will be different and the AC treatment will be.. That I call taste, preference. Not synergy.
There is another thing that I believe is at work. In the case of those speakers systems and similar: do strongly believe that most speakers power-compress in the bass. Even some celebrated ones. In the case of your speakers with their serious bass towers with 4 long throw drivers plus the multitude of other bass drivers in the main and great heat dissipation they would do 30 Hz at 85 dB all day long.. Heck! they'll do 20 Hz at 110 dB without breaking a sweat... Steve's X2 with the JL Audio, Jack VR-11 Tower with their tower subs, Rodney Gold 4 SVS (and Giya G1) , Dallas JL Audio (and JBL 4367) to name those few who come to mind will have their system basically idling when reproducing 20 Hz at 85 dB .. no high THD like most speaker would produce ... and that allow you guys to play at reduced volume and having a realistic reproduction (function of the music of course) linearity in the bass and elsewhere .. an ease to the sound.. I would suppose one get the same thing with serious horn speakers able to play 40 Hz with the ease known to horns combined with low wattage amp .. So I get back to electrical matching ... not of the first watt issue..
I'd agree with you Mike and also would say for all their strengths, this isn't Magicos forte.
Frantz,
IMHO you are misrepresenting the concepts that you state that do not persuade you. Even worst, you mix them presenting an erroneous perspective. The first watt was a concept due to Dick Olsher that applies as well to 10W as to 1000W amplifiers. It is not a measuring tool! And subjective synergy is not against electrical synergy - it applies on top of it. What many people - like me - question is the faith in oversimplified electrical synergy, such as a the x10 impedance rule to match source and load output and input impedance's, damping factor as an indicator of relative bass quality or the use of integer ohm's law and the speaker efficiency one figure numbers to evaluate relative performance.
The examples you present are just classical mismatches, known since long. However as soon as people say that the JBL 66000 (96dB/W) needs very powerful amplifiers to sound great things become more complicated.
Besides all that humans are attracted to gurus , know it alls and what not , why do a lot of people not just like what they like instead of depending heavily on a certain review / reviewers.
Why rely so heavily on whether stereophile gives an " okay " or not to a certain magico model
Why rely so heavily on whether stereophile gives an " okay " or not to a certain magico model
This is an interesting debate - I would contend putting 1000 watts on a Magico or other insensitive speaker fundamentally will have different sonics than a 10 watt FirstWatt on Avantgardes.
One reason for this is the 1000 watts needs a lot of transistors to achieve such levels. Similar to how ARCs best sounding amps aren't the 750s, but rather the lower powered amps with fewer tubes. Many think the Ref 75 is the best amp they make (on the appropriate speaker).
Efficiency comes at a great price (size, bass extension). All these Avantgardes or similar need a big SS to drive their bass module, and the ones who don’t, like the huge Cessaro in Munich, had no real low bass whatsoever (the S5 had much fuller bottom end, right next door to it). You can say the same thing for the big Wilson, you really need a sub to go along and that requires lots of power. It is simple physic, there is no free lunch here. MC, who, BTW, owns a pair of S5, point was made to illustrate the extremely low distortion the S5 exhibit, but I guess somehow that is not a good thing
I rarely play my S5 above the 90db, with occasional picks at the low 100db, does not feel like my Spectral is sweating at all. Plenty of enjoyment, jump and emotion and my hearing is still pretty good and in-line with my age (my wife will dispute this).
I rarely play my S5 above the 90db, with occasional picks at the low 100db, does not feel like my Spectral is sweating at all. Plenty of enjoyment, jump and emotion and my hearing is still pretty good and in-line with my age (my wife will dispute this
).
Last edited:
Efficiency has something to do with size ,and virtually nothing with bass extension , why do you think that ???
Hofman's Iron Law: "Hoffman's Iron Law states that the efficiency of a woofer system is directly proportional to its cabinet volume and the cube of its cutoff frequency (the lowest frequency it can usefully reproduce). The obvious implication is that to reduce the cutoff frequency by a factor of two, e.g. from 40 Hz to 20 Hz, while still retaining the same system efficiency, you need to increase the enclosure volume by 23=8 times! In other words, to reproduce ever lower frequencies at the same output level you need an extremely large box!"
Excerpted from http://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/13916-hoffman-s-iron-law
Iron law of who ?? is he a nobel prize winner/physicist ???
Efficiency is determined by wooferspecs and a woofers resonancefreq determines the lowest freq it can produce electrically , it doesnt matter that much how large you make the box , and yes i made quite a few boxes , it does make quit a diff how big and powerfull a bassnote sounds
The moment i started to design good speakers was when i threw overboard all the so called internet laws of physics on speakerdesign
Efficiency is determined by wooferspecs and a woofers resonancefreq determines the lowest freq it can produce electrically , it doesnt matter that much how large you make the box , and yes i made quite a few boxes , it does make quit a diff how big and powerfull a bassnote sounds
The moment i started to design good speakers was when i threw overboard all the so called internet laws of physics on speakerdesign
+1
Just ignore the weekend speaker builders, the amount of nonsense some people spew here is depressing...
Cannata good weekend to you too , you still didnt answer my question though ??`
Reading about Hoffmans " iron law " further , cut off freq of a woofer , usually woofers play with a natural roll off down under , who wants to cut off bass extension ???
With a subwoofer you might but not in a " full range " system, the lower the better
good weekend to you too , you still didnt answer my question though ??`Reading about Hoffmans " iron law " further , cut off freq of a woofer , usually woofers play with a natural roll off down under , who wants to cut off bass extension ???
With a subwoofer you might but not in a " full range " system, the lower the better
Last edited:
You present opinions.. what are the facts?
I am of the opinion that regardless of the sensitivity involved you need powerful amplifier too so ..?
andromeda
The size of the box in which you place a woofer determine the efficiency of the system ... It is not something you can go around.. Not an "Internet law" as you so casually and derisively put it. Verifiable, provable and proven. Prove your point with facts if you are able to.
The size of the box in which you place a woofer determine the efficiency of the system ... It is not something you can go around.. Not an "Internet law" as you so casually and derisively put it. Verifiable, provable and proven. Prove your point with facts if you are able to.
Efficiency comes at a great price (size, bass extension). All these Avantgardes or similar need a big SS to drive their bass module, and the ones who don’t, like the huge Cessaro in Munich, had no real low bass whatsoever (the S5 had much fuller bottom end, right next door to it). You can say the same thing for the big Wilson, you really need a sub to go along and that requires lots of power. It is simple physic, there is no free lunch here. MC, who, BTW, owns a pair of S5, point was made to illustrate the extremely low distortion the S5 exhibit, but I guess somehow that is not a good thing
I rarely play my S5 above the 90db, with occasional picks at the low 100db, does not feel like my Spectral is sweating at all. Plenty of enjoyment, jump and emotion and my hearing is still pretty good and in-line with my age (my wife will dispute this
you could cross a Magico over at 100 hz and it won't run successfully off 10 watts. there are clearly different goals from each designer, that's all I'm saying
Efficiency is the soundpressure level measured at 1 meter with one watt of power at a certain frequency
That is a spec of a certain unit , some have it specified at 82 db and some at 95 db , and to make it play louder you need to increase the wattage
That is a spec of a certain unit , some have it specified at 82 db and some at 95 db , and to make it play louder you need to increase the wattage
I think that having music sound exciting and involving at modest volumes does involve overall system frequency response headroom as you describe.
however; it's more than just that. I think it starts with how responsive the speaker is to the particular amplifiers first watt......how much micro-dynamic energy get launched, and then how effective the mid bass and lower (but not deep) bass is. do you get the transparent texture and 'jump-livelyness' in the 50hz-150hz range at these lower modest levels? that's where the ease and vividness comes from....since it's the hard frequency range for any speaker and where most of the distortion is.
this is a Magico thread and I'm no expert on Magico. maybe they do this too. that said, on my amp/speakers I can watch the RMS watts both peak and continuous in a read out on the front of my amps. and even at fairly vigorous levels of volume typically it's '0' to 7-8 watts. at low levels it's at '0' to 2-3 watts. I think part of it is so much driver surface in my -4- 11" woofers per side (30hz-250hz) and 96db, 6 ohm load to the amp. I don't hear that same modest level 'magic' in low efficiency speakers with mega amps no matter the amplifier. something gets missed.
system frequency response headroom and modest volume level realism are related but not the same thing.....in my experience.
Last edited:
All these things you are talking about have nothing to do with efficiency. If they did, we will all be listening to PA speakers.
really?
PA speakers have little to do with accuracy and everything to do with efficiency. PA speakers are not full range. PA speakers make music sound honky.
I'd say PA speakers only have a passing relativity to high end music reproduction.
music benefits from efficiency with linearity and full frequency.
Similar threads
 | Steve Williams Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator |  | Ron Resnick Site Co-Owner | Administrator |  | Julian (The Fixer) Website Build | Marketing Managersing |