Magico Comparison

The Q3 is one of the poorer speakers Magico has made...not that I really like any of them. Audio is such a "what's new, I'm bored already" world these days, so the Q3 got lots of news. Wolf proclaimed to the top of his voice how much better the Q3 was over the M5. In reality, the M5 is a lot better in a musical sense and is one of the better Magicos ever made, maybe the best.

The Q3 will soon be yet another abandoned speaker by Magico, so the value there will suffer as much as the M5. M5 sounds better, better deal, nicer looking.

Inspect the M5 for delamination of the stacked ply, there was a problem with this on several units and he cannot fix them.

Mapman says:
"OP, what difference does it make what others think or like?"

When one is buying an expensive item, listening to what a broad group of folks say are negatives can be valuable so that one can go listen for those purported weaknesses, which might have slipped under the radar, to see they might become bothersome. Very often, where there is a lot of smoke there really is some fire.

If after scrutinizing the product to see if you notice what the major complaints are, and you don't, sure, after buying it makes no difference what anyone else says.

Marin26, and many others, are not really paying attention to that which they do not want to admit: the possibility that there are some true sonic characteristics of Magico that put off some listeners in a major way. Some aggressive types frequency response anomolies and/or distortions really stand out to many folks. That many others do not hear these characteristics does not mean that they are not there, it means that certain listeners are not sensitive to them. And the fact that those sounnds so irritate some people results in frustration that others do not hear it and note it.

If it were just that Magico is expensive then the same sort of vitriol would be present with Rockport speakers, which reach as high as Magico in price and have so for a longer period of time. But we do not see those very negative comments toward Rockport. Neither do we see that polarized response toward the Vandersteen model 7 or the Revel Ultima Salon 2. How about the super expensive large Focal? They do not represent state of the sound to many of us, but they do not become targets of such vocal derision, I believe mainly because their faults are not ones of an irritating, somewhat aggressive sonic nature. How about ESP, for another brand? Never do I hear "they are awful, they hurt my ears, they are full of distortion."

We can name too many brands of prominent, highly reviewed, expensive speakers, such as I started naming above, that are not attacked. I think folks should consider that quite possibly there really are some negative sonic traits of the Magico models that do represent some distortions or problems that make sensitive listeners ears hurt.

Onhwy61 says: "From reading this thread I've concluded that Magico is the new Wilson."

Right on! Not too refined (mass market does not need to be, but plenty of tizz in the treble, they reach out and grab you, and ads and reviews (is that redundant, "ads and reveiws"?) built the house.

Mass market product, pushed hard by $$.

Well said, Magico is the new Wilson. The Olive Garden of speakers.