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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
sciencecop
180 posts
 
Haters will be haters 😉
Dark/bright, fat/lean, colored/dry, etc…   So many conflicting reports, some still don’t get it, these are the most transparent transducers around. What you hear is what’s playing through them, the good and/or the bad. Audiophiles are so used to speakers coloration that once it is gone they don’t quite know what to make of it.
The A3 is a remarkable achievement in its price point, it requires some serious “unawareness” not to acknowledge that.      



fleschler
2,041 posts
 
I never heard the A3 so I withold comment on it.

There are many deaf or deluded audiophiles who listen to sound and not music. My recent acquaintance who has a $850,000 audio system sounded awful (disjointed frequencies, blaring highs, muddled mids) from a pair of Avantgarde Trios with 3 pairs of Basshorns) due to some bad electronics (Ypsilon) and worse cabling (High Fidelity). We fixed the electronics and cabling for a 10th of the price. Now he has music playing in this room.

My friends are world famous remastering engineers and they share my sentiments concerning Magicos (and Steve Hoffman used the Focus for much of his DCC remastering work). If I hadn’t heard how uninteresting to just bad sounding Magicos are so often, I wouldn’t have made a comment. This applies to every other Magico speaker at a much higher prices, the Q1 to the S7 and Q5. So, if they finally made a palatable speaker for music, great.

My wife who has very critical hearing, nearly ran from the Walker room at the LAAS show after listening to Magico S5 with a VAC IQ 200. She liked the amp in other systems but disliked the speakers at the show (the worst was hearing Magico with Jadis equipment and a big pair of unknown SS amps making a guitar sound like a ukelele).

sciencecop
180 posts
 
There are many deaf or deluded audiophiles who listen to sound and not music.

Yes, so many deaf or deluded... not to mention ill-advised that unfortunately insist on advising.
BTW, my wife also has " very critical hearing" that is why she never listens to me ;)

Post removed 
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Fleschler your a audio expert so you must be right(NOT).Its very hard to make a great speaker sound great in a hotel room.Whatever speaker i ever had it took me years to make them sound there best,All the MAGICO owners out there should let you know what they think DUDE!!!!!!
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