Auditioned Magico A3 - VERY DARK...


So today after waiting for months to try and listen to the Magico A3, I went to Scott Walker audio at Anaheim and listened to the Magico A3, connected to some VAC Tube amp, being fed from a Sony audio streamer, here are my impressions:

- They look fantastic, I wish they made them in silver too, but they are just great in brush black aluminum
- They're quite small and could fit everywhere
- Fit and finish is impecable
- The bass they generated was nothing but amazing for such a small cabinet, you could hear the drums, the down beats and incredible depth of bass at an amazing level
- Imaging was INSANE, you could literally place everyone and everything...
- Sound was VERY VERY DARK!!! This was a bit of a surprise, the top end lacked for my taste to a quite a degree
- I felt like the combo of the Tube amp and Magico lacked resolution, while bass and mid was great, the top end absolutely lacked resolution
- The sound was extremely laid back, again dark
- It does NEED POWER, like he had to crank the volume up, to get good sound out of this, so be aware of that

Overall, I "personally" did NOT like the sound, it lacked details and resolution at the top end, while it was great at the bottom end.  Now, the rep and I think this is mostly due to Tube amp, and connecting it to a solid state amp would bring back resolution, but we simply didn't have time to do that today.  I look forward to listen to these at another time with some decent solid-state amp, but as-is, I was NOT as impressed as I expected and wouldn't have purchased one and I strongly believe Tube and Magico A3 do NOT go well together! 

Anyone else with similar impressions?! Curious to know what others may think, or maybe there was something else in play?

Thoughts?
alexb76
Impedance curves I've seen in Stereophile's measurements of several other Magico speakers all show a peak of 9 to 12 ohms or so in the area of 2.5 kHz, followed by a rapid descent to 3 to 5 ohms throughout almost all of the treble region.

Currently produced VAC amps provide three output taps, designated as either 2, 4, and 8 ohms, or 1-2, 2-4, and 4-8 ohms.

Given the 4 ohm nominal impedance of the speaker my guess is that the dealer was not using the lowest of those three taps. And, assuming the A3 has an impedance variation that is similar to the other models I referred to, if he had been using the lowest of those three taps the darkness would have been significantly reduced.

Regards,
-- Al
I can’t find any impedance curves for the A3’s, by the way.

As the salesman had to crank the volume up on the tube amp to get decent output, that tells me the A3’s were underpowered.

It could be:

  • Speakers are tuned to play loudly, so lack emphasis in treble for low volume listening
  • Low impedance in tweeter area depresses output for high impedance amps ( i.e. tubes)
Overall, 88 dB sensitivity, these speakers are not bad, certainly better than the S1 Mk II.

I do kind of agree with the statement that power doesn’t matter, but output (amplifier) impedance does. Often these go hand in hand. Really hard to find a 30 W amplifier with low output impedance.

I have said this elsewhere, that for the price, I expect the A3s to kill a lot of other speakers in the market, especially the Focals. They are also going to be much, much better value than the S1 Mk II. 
Hi guys, I am considering buying the A3s but I believe they do not support biwiring/biamping - is that a disadvantage? I thought most speakers in this price bracket would have that capability. Could that be why the OP had that impression? Thanks
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erik,

Having auditioned the A3s I agree they have at least the potential from what I heard to be class leading in their price and something of a giant killer.

Though it feels a bit odd to see myself write that insofar as they didn’t actually turn my crank at all. I much prefer, for instance, the Joseph Audio or Devore O series speakers I’ve just been auditioning. For instance, all the same drum tracks on the Devore speakers sounded significantly more "like drums" in terms of tone and character than through the A3s.  And the Joseph speakers had a similar sense of clarity, lack of grain (actually better than the A3s in that regard) and transient precision (though smaller sound), yet voices had an incredibly authentic sounding warmth of timbre, making voices sound "real" in a way that I never heard once through the A3s.(I'm always comparing real to reproduced.  


For instance a recording I often play for evaluating male voice is The Beast In Me from Johnny Cash's american recordings.  It's an amazing, bare recording of his voice with super soft guitar, that can sound startlingly real and in the room on the right system.  When I play it auditioning speakers it's often with someone else in the room, usually a salesman who I might talk with.  And when the recording is playing I listen carefully to the qualities of the "real" male voice vs the reproduce male voice - does the voice coming through the speaker have that same warm, damped, organic human quality and timbre I'm hearing from the real voice?  Johnny cash through the JA speakers were seemingly bang on.  About as close as I've ever heard.   As I said, I never got that from the A3s for whatever reason.

Also, whenever I audition speakers I investigate the sound from many angles and distances, to see where they integrate, sound most lively, or most rich, to move in or out of room nodes, etc.

I did find the A3s (driven by a solid state amp I can no longer remember) could sound a tad "dark" from a number of positions, not quite having the sense of "air" of some other speakers (which could just be in their frequency variations of course). Though in some other positions the tone sounded less dark and more natural to me (actually moving further or closer did this, in my audition).