When I started with thread I owned Magico S5 MKII speakers and loved them.
I knew they were fantastic speakers but for me and my evolving my taste I wanted to consider other options.
Only after owning multiple pairs of Magico’s over a few years had I leaned that a speaker with a little more bite and rougher edges may be more to my liking. A little less polished and polite speakers.
Now the Magico is only polite compared to a more raw and brighter speaker and I don’t think it can be called polite unless compared to a such a brash speaker. That is why I considered YG. I found YG - Magico and even more so with Rockport are all refined and sophisticated musical devices.
I found I like the sound of the French Focal better. It’s a more raw - needs taming type of speaker as it can be ear bleed bright if not matched up properly. The others really will never be too bad. I found Focal to be easier to drive with quicker stops and starts and much hotter. The tweeter can be brutal but also when tamed with a tube DAC or tube preamp and matched with excellent solid state output power I find to be the perfect sound for me.
Now I guess the Magico M series is a more raw and transparent speaker like this but way out of my price range. I never owned a Focal speaker before and ran into them by accident. I know the build quality of Focal is nothing like the others but I only need them to be built well enough to be good sounding speakers and to last so long like 20 years or so and not built like a Magico or YG to last a thousand years.
I found Focal speakers paired with Ypsilon electronics to be my cup of tea.
