@mheinze,
I’m not dissing the A3. It’s a fantastic speaker and I thought it was going to make many people very happy. I’m just reporting my own experience from auditioning it. I’m hardly the last word on the issue.
But at least when I auditioned the A3 it was set up by a very experienced Magico dealer, in a very good space, and he seemed happy with the set up. It excelled in transparency and could at times produce quite amazing detail in instrumental timbre. But, again, when I heard it, it didn’t sound dynamic from top to bottom. I’d put on something like Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon, which I play a lot at home and have heard on tons of speakers, and some of the percussion, synth parts, horns just seemed to "sit" there with little air-moving drive or palpability. When I got home and played the same tracks on my Thiels, all the instruments that sounded limp on the Magicos sounded dense and dynamic and drove the rhythm on the Thiels.
If the Magicos are doing good dynamic things in your set up, that’s great.
BTW, I don’t know why you think I seek the crude "smile" eq in a system, or engineered in to a speaker. Usually that’s as far from the case as possible. My Thiel 2.7s are very neutral from top to bottom, no sizzle on top, and even, firm controlled bass. My Waveform speakers are similarly extremely neutral. The Spendors I was listening to last night and loving also don’t have a "smile" eq built in to them.
One of my favorite speakers, which I owned, are the Harbeth SuperHL5 Plus speakers, which as per the measurements here:
"[The Harbeth SuperHL5plus] extends from 45Hz to 40kHz ±3dB—extension and linearity that are, in my memory, unprecedented. "
http://i.nextmedia.com.au/Assets/harbeth_super_hl5_plus_speakers_review_test_lores.pdf
To my ears, the Harbeths seem to portray a more believably "organic" tone than almost anything I heard through the Magicos. Not that you should agree.
Even the Devore speakers that I have enjoyed, while rich in the bass, don’t have a "smile" eq built in to them.
And working in pro sound, I’m pretty familiar with neutral studio playback gear.
Anyway, I would never find a speaker that actually sounded lifelike, dynamically and timbrally, to sound "boring." I find real sounds anything but "boring."