2. speakers
  3. 136873-45461

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
Post removed 
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Wow bad rap magico A3s over 700 pairs sold people LOVE dark.They are back ordered until Aug.What other speaker can say that??
jkscherk
43 posts
 
As another actual A3 owner, I'd also attest to the POV that they are not dark at all.  As one other member said, they do not have a tipped up high-end of the spectrum to make them sizzle like many of their peers do that get much of the attention and adulation.  Those might be great to make you take notice, but listening to them for extended sessions will make your ears hurt.  I can listen to the A3s for hours.  I've gone through lots of speaks from conventional drivers to planars to electrostatics.  So far these to me are the best balanced transducer I have found.  Anyone shopping in this price range should try to give them a listen;  but make sure they are broken in and have a well-matched setup upstream.  That doesn't necessarily mean high $!

I have seen a common theme of people hearing them with Constellation gear and coming away with that 'dark' sound feeling.  I wonder if that's a bad pairing?  
pwhinson
158 posts
 
I really would like to get to the bottom of this because what I heard was just so profoundly out of balance on classical, again way too much bass on a relative level, and the dealer shook his head in agreement essentially with me, although this is the first A3 this dealer has received.  I guess I'll never really know but I trust dealers to KNOW how to setup and demo what they sell.  They specifically setup this for my appointment with electronics they thought were compatible (a Constellation integrated).  Perhaps we should have listened using other amplification...I think they had some solution pieces around but their main line is VAC (tubes of course).  I dunno.  Color me puzzled by the huge variation in opinions here.  I don't want to sound like a classical music snob here but with classical music which is ALL natural unamplified acoustic instrumental music it is incredibly important to get some semblance of balance through the range of the music.  Balance was 100% absent from my demo.  Very very dark.  Clearly that's not the experience of other listeners in the thread.
jkscherk
43 posts
 
I am really looking forward to what the setup at Axpona is going to sound like.  I'm sure they'll have some A3s around there somewhere.  Those rooms are notoriously bad so it will be good to see how they interact.  I'm still lovin' mine!  :-)
More to discover