Magico M9 The new 'norm' in speakers

Years ago we had a tv commercial in my country about a couple that won the lottery. You see them driving their newly purchased Lamborghini Countach in a typical suburb. The authorities have strategically placed ’bumps’ in the road in such areas to limit traffic speed. Next shot you see the happy couple stop their new supercar in front of one of these bumps (I’m sure there’s an official term for these things, but it escapes me). The iconic door swings open, after which the wife crawl out of the car with several grocery bags. This lifts the car just enough for the driver to ’take’ the bump. Then the wife gets in again and they drive on, most likely to repeat this procedure at the next bump. End of commercial.

I was reminded about this when I first heard one of those big Wilson speakers (the model before the Alexias, can’t remember their name). They were at a dealer demo room after a weekend show, with Peter McGrath playing some of his own recordings. It was loud and sort of impressive, even in a fully packed room. On Monday my friend who worked at the dealership allowed me a few hours alone with these things. I brought a stack of my own cd’s and we listener together. Most of these normal commercially available cd’s just sounded terrible, so both of us were very underwhelmed to say the least.

So we came to this conclusion: such extreme speakers are great for only the very best recordings, like an F1 car is made for the race track. But they’re totally unsuited for average recordings (the overwhelming majority), just like the Lamborghini was a painfully wrong choice for that suburban environment.

I’ve heard many of these extreme speakers (including Magico’s) over the years at shows and demo’s and always came back with that same feeling. If you are an audiophile with a wide musical taste who puts music before sound, such speakers are pretty useless.

@edgewear You bring up an interesting point. As your system gets more and more resolving and accurate, you will unfortunately hear more of the recording, warts and all. Since the vast majority of recorded music is done so poorly, you are now stuck listening to only the best recordings in order to fully enjoy the music. BUT if you are trying to re-create as close as possible to the sound of real 'live' unamplified instruments in your home, this is one of the downsides of that goal, IMHO.

@daveyf, these extreme speaker designs seem to prove you can go too far in the quest for ultra high resolution. If you are in this hobby to enjoy music of all sorts you’re looking in the wrong direction. The aim for highest resolution turns into an extremily complex balancing act, which can be very easily disturbed. This explains the endless serial upgrading, audio nervosa and other audio related mental states. It’s a dead end, unless you enjoy sitting in front of a million dollar system and two dozen recordings that sound really good. Of course I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea.

In my view this forum should be about building a system that sounds most convincing to you with all types of music you enjoy. Nobody seems to perceive sound exactly the same, so there’s no objective reference to start with. This approach comes down to system synergy tailored to your personal taste, which is one of the fun parts of being an audiophile.

It shouldn’t be about ’whatsbest’, which usually comes down to ’whatsmostexpensive’. In that universe 750k speakers are probably perceived as a new ’norm’. To me it’s just another level of lunacy. But there’s a rich sucker born every day (not minute, I’ll give you that), so there’ll be plenty of demand for these things.

@edgewear  I think that a speaker and a system that is ultra revealing is in fact a major plus. While this system will sound horrible on a lot of poorly recored music, it will also sound amazing on well recorded pieces. Therefore, I believe that one should not be looking to dumb down the system, as you seem to be implying, but instead should be looking to get the best recordings--and encourage the release of these recordings.  

@daveyf no, dump down the system is not what I'm implying. But I am suggesting that reaching for ultimate resolution can interfere with the enjoyment of the music. I look for the best recordings (or pressings) like any audiophile, but at the end of the day the quality of the music itself and/or the performance is most important to me.

Let's face it, there is so much great music in rather mediocre sound quality you will have to make a choice. Build a system that enables you to enjoy most of the music out there, or focus on building a system that will make the very best recordings sound even better. There's no right or wrong here and your idea of the pursuit of happiness will determine that choice, along with the ability and willingness to pay for it all.