Auditioned Magico A3 - VERY DARK...


So today after waiting for months to try and listen to the Magico A3, I went to Scott Walker audio at Anaheim and listened to the Magico A3, connected to some VAC Tube amp, being fed from a Sony audio streamer, here are my impressions:

- They look fantastic, I wish they made them in silver too, but they are just great in brush black aluminum
- They're quite small and could fit everywhere
- Fit and finish is impecable
- The bass they generated was nothing but amazing for such a small cabinet, you could hear the drums, the down beats and incredible depth of bass at an amazing level
- Imaging was INSANE, you could literally place everyone and everything...
- Sound was VERY VERY DARK!!! This was a bit of a surprise, the top end lacked for my taste to a quite a degree
- I felt like the combo of the Tube amp and Magico lacked resolution, while bass and mid was great, the top end absolutely lacked resolution
- The sound was extremely laid back, again dark
- It does NEED POWER, like he had to crank the volume up, to get good sound out of this, so be aware of that

Overall, I "personally" did NOT like the sound, it lacked details and resolution at the top end, while it was great at the bottom end.  Now, the rep and I think this is mostly due to Tube amp, and connecting it to a solid state amp would bring back resolution, but we simply didn't have time to do that today.  I look forward to listen to these at another time with some decent solid-state amp, but as-is, I was NOT as impressed as I expected and wouldn't have purchased one and I strongly believe Tube and Magico A3 do NOT go well together! 

Anyone else with similar impressions?! Curious to know what others may think, or maybe there was something else in play?

Thoughts?
alexb76
@jtgofish I can’t agree with your comments sorry. They just fly in the face of the my own experience and the vast majority of commentary on Magico, Vitus and Audia Flight gear, all of which i’m very familiar with. Let’s just leave it at that.
Im using a TW Acustic RPS100 Phono stage which is far superior to any Supratek phono of this I'm sure.It uses 4 tubes and has a separate power supply which is solid state.I listen to vinyl a great deal with my TW Acustic AC 1 turntable with TW 10.5 tonearm Transfiguration Proteus cartridge.
Just one more thing then I will shut -up.The Supratek Cabernet preamp and the Audio Flight Strumento preamp are really in the same approximate price category.Just that you can buy the Supratek at wholesale price direct from the maker and thereby  avoid having to pay both a distributors mark-up and the typical retail mark-up which for high end products multiplies the final cost by of a factor of 2-3 times so that equates pretty closely to the $22000 Australian retail [the price of the Strumento pre] if it was marketed in the same manner.Of course you would have to be pretty silly to pay the full retail price for the Strumento preamp anyway so the difference in real price is probably more like double than triple.
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@jtgofish Those mark up rates are what Raidho would quote, not reputable brands like Vitus, Magico or Audia Flight, lol! Now hopefully you will honour your promise to shut up and allow this thread to get back on track.......