True Sound Works Apogee Diva Ultimate - Any Good?

I own Duetta Sig's with a rebuilt crossover (and no buzz). I drive them with a McCormack DNA500 amp but there are tubes upstream. Yes, these speakers are magical.

In fact, I just came back from a weekend listening to various Magico speakers driven by a variety of different high priced electronics, including Audio Note Kondo's and such. The sound was good, but it didn't have the magic of my Duetta's.

About the only thing I can say is lacking in the Apogees is that they don;t necessarily have that "punch you in the chest" bass kick that you can get from a good cone speaker. Though the rebuilt ones with updated ribbons from graz do come close.

I don't mean to diss Magico, but I spent a lot of time at a recent CES with the Q7s, and I just don't get it. I came back several times as they swapped out amps. Sure, trade show conditions aren't optimal, and all that, but they had a decent room and plenty of top-flight megabucks electronics. The Q7s did all the audiophile things right: Deep and powerful bass? Check. Relatively uncolored midrange? Check. Airy highs? Sort of, check. Imaging? OK, check. Etc, etc, etc. Check, check, check. Magic? Uh...

There was simply no "magic" in Magico, even with these mighty Q7s. With bigger Apogees set up and driven properly, you can find yourself immersed in a "reality distortion field" with palpable instruments playing in front of you. All clean, pure and relaxed. That's the way I'll take it, thanks.

Magico is not alone. There are plenty of megabuck contenders to the speaker throne. It's just that Magicos, particularly the Q7s, are so very ambitious and costly, and TAS praised them so enthusiastically. I had high hopes for them, but as has often happened with new shiny audio things, I was disappointed.

Brian_beck, this was my experience with Magico as well. I heard a couple of their smaller speakers with a variety Bryston amps. The small was small for one of the speakers & there was bass overhang. If I discount that effect, I would say that these Magicos came up way short on the 'magic' factor esp. considering their price.
FWIW. YMMV. IMHO.

Mgattmch,

I can't comment on Divas, but I have a pair of 1-ohm Scintillas which I bought secondhand, and I'm pretty sure they were refurbished by TSW. I drive them with Ken Stevens' JL-3 Statement monoblock tube amps, and I am one happy camper. I never thought anything would surpass my Acoustat Spectra 66s, but the Apogees are so clean, they make the Acoustats sound "veiled" in comparison. BTW, the tubes drive them to crescendo leevls, even at 1 ohm.

I auditioned the Divas with Krell stuff back in '88, it was one of the best auditions I have had to date. Which leads me to believe that audio hasn't really progressed all that much since that time. Anyway, I picked up a pair of Stages a little while later, and I had tons of problems with them; blowing tweeters and woofer panels. I had enough juice via a Mark Levinson No. 23 amp. Then the frames managed to come apart when I was moving them around. I ended up throwing the damn things out. Due to this bad experience with Apogee product, I'll never bother with them again. But, I'll never forget that time with the Divas...they were truly awesome!