Rockport Atria II or Magico A5

I am willing to bet that none of you actually heard the A5.
If there were any reservations regarding Magico, the A5 addressed them all. And at an unbelievable price point.

I asked this question on another forum and was immediately flamed...so I will put on my flame suit and ask it here...How much power is required to truly drive the new A5's? IOW, for those with SET's or low powered amps...say below 50 watts/ch, are they a non-starter?

Pass would be a great amp 350.8 350ch the speakers need at least 250 watts i am a Magico owner on my 3rd pair.Tube amp should be at least 150 watts channel Set amps will not work well on Magico.If ypu have Set amp look at Horning speakers as i do not like horns.Good luck!

I would not use any tube amps under say 90watts P/P.   I would not use any SET, even a powerful 50 Watt SET amp.

My Jadis 90 Watt PP I-88 integrated lights up the A5s in a fairly large space.

I think a good quality 100 Watt SS or 90 Watt PP tube amp, DEPENDING on the size of the room and how loud one listens, would be sufficient for most listeners in regular size rooms.

I probably prefer 200 Watt SS into 8 ohms, 400 Watts into 4 ohms.  They sound REALLY GOOD with this type of power.

No doubt they DO respond to GOOD power.

I am actually in a similar position. I went to audition both the A5 and Atria II as a replacement for my Magico S1MKII. I am fortunate in that my local Magico dealer is also the local Rockport dealer. I was able to hear them back to back on the same gear. I auditioned both with a Hegel H390 as i currently have a Hegel H360 this is the closest I could get without bringing in my amp. The dac was a moon cd dac combo that I don’t feel is on the same level as my dCS Bartok but it is still better than the dac that is built into the H390. 

I have a JL F110v2 paired with my S1MKII and it fills out the bass nicely but I am still left wanting more in terms of scale that the S1 can’t provide. I started off listening to the Atria II and found it to sound more natural than the S1. The bass was obviously deeper and more impactful than on the S1 by themselves. It is really close to what the S1 do with the sub woofer.  The resolution was on par or better than the S1. 

I went on to the A5. The first take away from the A5 is bass. Wow it is deep controlled and impactful. It should be considering that it houses 3 9” woofers. The imaging was not as good as the S1 and is not close to the Atria in my opinion. The off axis listening is also lacking to me. The S1 is incredible in this regard and I was disappointed by the A5. I know that everyone is raving about the new midrange driver but i find that the S1 and Atria were more natural in this regard. I would say that the S1 is more refined than the A5 and is a better looking speaker. The A5 is incredible and could easily wow folks that have never heard a MKII S series speaker. I would choose the S1MKII with a pair of subs over the A5 for my taste. I think that the S series is where the Magico magic really starts.

I left and decided to pick-up an additional F110v2 sub. It improved the stage of the S1MKII. At the end of the day I have just placed an order for a new pair of Rockport Atria II. I am hoping that they will be delivered early next week. I will update once they are delivered and in my room.