Quandry: Used Magico V2 vs. new S1

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.

Usermanual, It was indeed maybe the setup, which was quite different than the setup with which the Q3 was heard.

I give it another chance next week, when I am going to listen to S1 and S5 on the D'Agostino Momentum/ARC Ref 5SE/MSB set, so S1 will show it's capabilities much better.
S1 did not play in the S5/Q3 league however!