Magico S1 Mk II - The First Review

Read the review.  Talk about pulling punches.

Btw, Eric, I read your other thread about speaker voodoo and at some level agree.  I think there's a lot of speaker hype out there.  And unfortunately, given the cost of most high-end speakers, their consider bulk and weight, ... home auditioning is difficult if not impossible.  Further, as many others have already said, speaker performance is highly dependent on one's sound room set up and ancillary equipment compatibility.   Talk about a crap shoot.

I dunno, this punch connected pretty hard:

" If you truly need speakers to act as transparent windows into a recorded environment that can be listened to for hours and never tire of I think you'll find these speakers too hot and seasoned for your needs unless you have matching hearing loss in which case they may actually be perfect."

Shorter Nigel - good for the semi-deaf!

I would not call this a review. It’s a useless piece of crap with its only virtue being that it’s the first assessment of the speakers. It’s a blog, not a review. The blogger is in an unfamiliar room with equipment he’s likewise unfamiliar with, and there are no other speakers used for comparison purposes. And we don’t even know if the blogger was familiar with the recordings that were being played. Further, we don't know how long the listening session was or if the speakers were completely broken in.  In my opinion this guy has no business asserting that his conclusions are valid in any way, and he doesn't even mention that all these variables may have affected what he heard.  Say what you will about the more established review publications pro or con, but at least most of the time you’re getting a review based on a known room with the reviewer’s own equipment, their own music, and their own speakers for basis of comparison. With all the variables involved and the lack of rigor on the part of the blogger, I would put zero credence in any conclusions drawn from this thing.

I just looked at the blogger's other "review" of some Focal speakers.  His ONLY other "review."  In this one he whole-heartedly recommends the Magico speakers, that he wasn't overly impressed with, over the Focals.  Huh.  The fun thing is that it's not evident he ever even listened to the Focals.  The whole assessment seems based on videos and measurements taken by another publication.  Apparently we cannot only accurately assess the performance of a speaker in a strange room with unfamiliar equipment, we can just do away with the whole listening process altogether and make judgements on paper.  Who knew?  I feel like an idiot wasting so much time using my ears.