Heard the Magico S5's yesterday

[MadFloyd]

Initially I (and 3 other listeners that accompanied me) were not impressed. Source was DCS Puccini into Constellation pre and stereo amp (with MIT cables).

We all were puzzled by what we were hearing. The sound was very diffuse, almost like it was out of phase (but it wasn't). Super clean, but thin and, well, diffuse.

After about 45 minutes we felt it was pointless to keep listening and were about to leave when Goodwins suggested changing to Spectral electronics.

The change was night and day. Wow. Now the system had presence, appropriate weight, imaged very well and was just as clean sounding with great timbre.

The weird thing was that I heard Constellation with Rockport Altairs in the same room back in August (with Lloyd) and they worked together really well.

I don't know how much of what I liked was the speaker, Spectral or Goodwin's wonderful large room. I'm sure all three. Along with a sampling of various types of music, I played MLP Copland Appalachian Spring and I couldn't believe all the detail I was hearing (along with the generous sense of space). I could have listened all day.

Magico S5's are very very nice.

 

[ack]

Wait till you hear the Q series

 

[DaveyF]

Mad, looking at that room, IMO even a pair of Bose would sound great.

 

[FrantzM]

Wait till you hear the Q series

I concur.

 

[MadFloyd]

Wait till you hear the Q series

I head the Q series - both the Q5 and the Q3 (on one of these occasions with you as a matter of fact).

If I only listened to classical music, they would be great, but I listen to a variety of music including rock and the Q series doesn't do rock in my opinion.

 

[MadFloyd]

Mad, looking at that room, IMO even a pair of Bose would sound great.

No doubt the room is great, but the experience yesterday with the Constellation amps tells me equipment does matter...

 

[still-one]

No doubt the room is great, but the experience yesterday with the Constellation amps tells me equipment does matter...

It is funny but I thought that Magico with Spectral was not very involving and boring. Later I when I heard Q3's and S5's paired with Constellation I could finally understand why some individuals get very excited by the Magico line-up.

 

[mbovaird]

I head the Q series - both the Q5 and the Q3 (on one of these occasions with you as a matter of fact).

If I only listened to classical music, they would be great, but I listen to a variety of music including rock and the Q series doesn't do rock in my opinion.

Very well said.

 

[mbovaird]

I listened to the same gear in the same room and my opinions are similar. I was underwhelmed with the Constellation amp (maybe it needed more break-in time I kept thinking). I loved the Spectral gear with the Magico's. But I kept thinking about all those MIT cables I would have to buy!

As for the Rockport Avior/Altairs - I heard them both, and quite frankly, they don't do it for me.

The Q series Magico to me is perhaps better balanced than the S series, but it also sounds a little more veiled. The S5's are just fun, musical speakers that do everything well.

 

[microstrip]

Initially I (and 3 other listeners that accompanied me) were not impressed. Source was DCS Puccini into Constellation pre and stereo amp (with MIT cables).

We all were puzzled by what we were hearing. The sound was very diffuse, almost like it was out of phase (but it wasn't). Super clean, but thin and, well, diffuse.

After about 45 minutes we felt it was pointless to keep listening and were about to leave when Goodwins suggested changing to Spectral electronics.

The change was night and day. Wow. Now the system had presence, appropriate weight, imaged very well and was just as clean sounding with great timbre.

The weird thing was that I heard Constellation with Rockport Altairs in the same room back in August (with Lloyd) and they worked together really well.

I don't know how much of what I liked was the speaker, Spectral or Goodwin's wonderful large room. I'm sure all three. Along with a sampling of various types of music, I played MLP Copland Appalachian Spring and I couldn't believe all the detail I was hearing (along with the generous sense of space). I could have listened all day.

Magico S5's are very very nice.

I am astonished - our distributor usually carries demos of the S5 using the Constellation Centaur and Virgo and I really appreciated it more than once. Surely not diffuse or thin - the solidity of image and bass was a noted aspect. Such a big difference when you switched amplifiers would make me suspect on the condition of the amplifiers or a real mismatch with the Puccini.

 

[Orb]

I read in various forums others did not like the Constellation/Magico combination (possibly depended upon speaker model as well).

Cheers
Orb

 

[PeterA]

I joined Madfloyd at the S5 audition at Goodwins yesterday. First, I should say that Goodwins was extremely accommodating to the four of us. We asked them to move around the speakers and switch electronics, and they could not have been more helpful. It was a most enjoyable and informative afternoon.

I have to agree with Madfloyd that the S5/Constellation combination was not very good. This may have been due to break-in of the new power supply for the Constellation amp. Regardless of where I sat, there was no image specificity at all. The sound was diffuse and thin sounding. It also lacked nuance and detail. The salesman moved the speakers closer together upon our request and this did improve the sense of midrange body and weight, but the lower frequencies sounded at bit blurred and muddy. It was disappointing.

The electronics were then switched to the Spectral 400 mono blocks and 30 pre amp. What a change. The sound was less sterile, more involving, better body/weight. Better imaging and much more nuance/detail/information. Harmonics improved, spacial information improved and the bass articulation and extension were extremely natural sounding. As Madfloyd mentioned, the Copeland violin piece was very good. This combination really expressed the potential of the Magico S5. I regret not bringing some of my LPs. The Sheffield Drum track would have been very revealing.

After that demo, I heard some sound coming out Goodwins middle room, and surprisingly, the Q3 was playing. I had heard the Q3 a year or so ago at its New Enland debut in the Goodwins larger room with Boulder amps and their Basis turntable. The sound was extremely good then, so I was now anxious to hear these speakers again in a smaller room and compare them to the sound of the S5. The system was a digital feed going into a Berkley DAC straight into a Hegel stereo amp. I'm an analog guy and completely unfamiliar with this gear, but I sat down to listen to some familiar music in digital. At that point, Madfloyd had left.

Here is how I would describe the sound of the two complete systems/rooms as I can't really attribute the sound to the two speakers specifically:

S5 system: Clear, clean and very BIG sounding. Excellent bass. Very good on classical violin symphonic music and with the Spectral gear, good tonal balance on the piano and Grant Green's guitar. Voice was good. Nothing harsh sounding and very coherent. Great staging in that excellent large room.

Q3 system: More detailed, more neutral tonal balance, more nuanced sound. Very little distortion, extremely coherent and transparent. Great on my preferred chamber and classical music and on older acoustic vocals, but the room and system were not optimal, so I only got a taste of its potential. Not as expansive a sound stage. This was probably due to the room and set up. But, I heard things in the Muddy Waters and Beethoven's violin concerto that I have not heard before. I'm giving the speaker some benefit of the doubt as I heard it sound fantastic at its debut. In this smaller room, I only really got a sense of the great tone, detail and transparency. Beautiful on violin and voice. There was also a very good sense of presence and palpability to the center image. Truly excellent.

I own the Magico Mini 2 and love Magico speakers, so as I told Madfloyd, I'm pretty biased. It was interesting to hear the different speakers so close to each other. I think for the music that I prefer, the Q series would be for me, but Madfloyd listens to a greater variety of music, and he is a bass player, so for him, I think the S5 might be better with its slightly different voicing and added bass slam.

The more I hear Magico speakers, the more I think they sound best with lots of good, clean power, and if it were me, it would be class A solid state. Based on just yesterday's listening, both the S5 and Q3 are very good speakers. Perhaps excellent speakers with very careful right set up and appropriately matched equipment. They are certainly coherent, low in distortion and revealing of upstream equipment. Compared to my excellent Mini2, it's clear that the newer generation of Magico speakers adds a level of detail and lowers distortion even more. They are also, obviously, more extended than the Mini2. It was a great afternoon of listening.

 

[mep]

The more I hear Magico speakers, the more I think they sound best with lots of good, clean power, and if it were me, it would be class A solid state. Based on just yesterday's listening, both the S5 and Q3 are very good speakers. Perhaps excellent speakers with very careful right set up and appropriately matched equipment. They are certainly coherent, low in distortion and revealing of upstream equipment. Compared to my excellent Mini2, it's clear that the newer generation of Magico speakers adds a level of detail and lowers distortion even more. They are also, obviously, more extended than the Mini2. It was a great afternoon of listening.

Outside of 100+ dB efficient horns, what speakers don't "sound best with lots of good, clean power?"

 

[PeterA]

Outside of 100+ dB efficient horns, what speakers don't "sound best with lots of good, clean power?"

I see your point, Mep. And I agree. I've just heard too many systems in which the owner has not appreciated how more power could improve his sound. I had that problem myself until I realized what a guy describing Pass amps once told me. He suggested I buy the largest Pass class A amps I could afford. Every time I got more power, I was surprised at how much better the system sounded. I don't know the details about the impedance curves with the S5 or Q3, but the efficiency ratings may be deceiving. I don't think they are easy to drive speakers.

 

[Dre_J]

Outside of 100+ dB efficient horns, what speakers don't "sound best with lots of good, clean power?"

Probably none if the speaker actually can use the extra power.

I can think of one exception. That would be a speaker you don't particularly care for regardless of what's driving it. In that case the speaker would sound best with no power...

 

[microstrip]

Outside of 100+ dB efficient horns, what speakers don't "sound best with lots of good, clean power?"

Mark,
Although there is some truth in your comment people should include room and placement in the equation. I have seen rooms that sound powerful and loud with medium power amplifiers and others that could "eat" very powerful amplifiers, using the same speakers.
Besides, as many people acknowledge and others disagree, not all watts are alike - and you have some very special ones at home ...

 

[mep]

Mark,
Although there is some truth in your comment people should include room and placement in the equation. I have seen rooms that sound powerful and loud with medium power amplifiers and others that could "eat" very powerful amplifiers, using the same speakers.
Besides, as many people acknowledge and others disagree, not all watts are alike - and you have some very special ones at home ...

Thanks Micro. And you are right, not all watts are created equal in terms of sound quality. And the old saying is true that if the first watt sucks, why would you want a bunch more of them? However, if you truly like the first watt, having a bunch more of them is comforting and most speakers benefit. Far more drivers are blown due to underpowered amps clipping than by clean amplifiers having more power than the maximum recommended by the speaker manufacturer.

 

[MadFloyd]

I am astonished - our distributor usually carries demos of the S5 using the Constellation Centaur and Virgo and I really appreciated it more than once. Surely not diffuse or thin - the solidity of image and bass was a noted aspect. Such a big difference when you switched amplifiers would make me suspect on the condition of the amplifiers or a real mismatch with the Puccini.

For what it's worth, the amp had recently been upgraded and supposedly needed something like 800 hours to fully break in. Not sure how many hours were on it but sometimes during the break-in period the sound can vary up and down...

 

[stereo]

For what it's worth, the amp had recently been upgraded and supposedly needed something like 800 hours to fully break in. Not sure how many hours were on it but sometimes during the break-in period the sound can vary up and down...

As you hint, I believe there was a set up problem. I have heard many time the S5 with Constellation. There are many amps I prefer (also over the latest Spectral which is very good), but it is not a bad amp, and it works well with S5.

 

[BlueFox]

If a speaker needs a specific amp to work its best, or an amp needs specific speakers to work its best, then there is a major problem with both designs. Most likely there was some other factor coming into play in this situation.