To these ears, they sound better than ML in a lot of respects, save perhaps for speed in the midrange and up, although I am hard pressed to find differences there too with the Q5. Ultimate tweeter integration is what I could find to be a Magico Q's "issue", up to the Q5, and even that's debatable.. Keep in mind that anything that vibrates makes sound; for MartinLogan, start with the stator (touch it when playing loud), then feel any panel support pillars, then finally the woofer enclosure. No ML that I know of is immune to all of these. I have gone to extremes to tame such resonances in mine (and about to complete floor decoupling mods), with exceptional results, but still fall far short of a Magico Q. And then, there is also the crossover...