Quandry: Used Magico V2 vs. new S1

I listened to the used V2's and was surprisingly underwhelmed. Bass was shallow and flabby and top end lacked sparkle. Would be a step down from my VSA VR5 HSE's. heard the Marten Django's and they were very good, but huge -- too big for my LR.

Will try to audition Magico S1's someday. Thx.

Neal

I heard the S1 with Vitus integrated and higher end Ayon cd.
I was also really underwhelmed and stopped listening within 10 minutes. To much low and high which did not sparkle either. The midrange was fairly ok. In total I found it not balanced out.
It did not help that the Ayon was not fully broken in.

A whole other level was Magico Q3 with ARC Ref5SE, D'Agostino Momentum mono's, MSB dac/Powerbase/transport, Transparent Reference.
Easily the best sound I ever heard, very lifelike, at another pricelevel also.

Hmm, there seems to be a pretty big discrepancy in opinions on the S1. I will just have to hear them some time for myself.

Strange comment. I own both speakers, and yes the Q3 are much better, but it is not a night and day comparison. You can clearly hear that these are of-the-same family. Particularly the highs, which have the same amount of sparkle. Sounds to me like there was something wrong with the setup you heard.

I auditioned the S1 5 months ago. The stage is like all Magico's very deep. I also heared the S5 and it gave the same deep stunning sound. I did not find them were wide according to the stage. This serie does not have a very fast respons of the low freq. like some other Magico's can. The S1 is a good looking speaker. The S5 is by far not that good looking.