Anyone hear Vivid Audio Speakers? Considering Vivid Giya G1 Series 2 from Magico S5 MKII
@mheinze, I’m not dissing the A3. It’s a fantastic speaker and I thought it was going to make many people very happy. I’m just reporting my own experience from auditioning it. I’m hardly the last word on the issue. But at least when I auditioned the A3 it was set up by a very experienced Magico dealer, in a very good space, and he seemed happy with the set up. It excelled in transparency and could at times produce quite amazing detail in instrumental timbre. But, again, when I heard it, it didn’t sound dynamic from top to bottom. I’d put on something like Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon, which I play a lot at home and have heard on tons of speakers, and some of the percussion, synth parts, horns just seemed to "sit" there with little air-moving drive or palpability. When I got home and played the same tracks on my Thiels, all the instruments that sounded limp on the Magicos sounded dense and dynamic and drove the rhythm on the Thiels. If the Magicos are doing good dynamic things in your set up, that’s great. BTW, I don’t know why you think I seek the crude "smile" eq in a system, or engineered in to a speaker. Usually that’s as far from the case as possible. My Thiel 2.7s are very neutral from top to bottom, no sizzle on top, and even, firm controlled bass. My Waveform speakers are similarly extremely neutral. The Spendors I was listening to last night and loving also don’t have a "smile" eq built in to them. One of my favorite speakers, which I owned, are the Harbeth SuperHL5 Plus speakers, which as per the measurements here:
To my ears, the Harbeths seem to portray a more believably "organic" tone than almost anything I heard through the Magicos. Not that you should agree. Even the Devore speakers that I have enjoyed, while rich in the bass, don’t have a "smile" eq built in to them. And working in pro sound, I’m pretty familiar with neutral studio playback gear. Anyway, I would never find a speaker that actually sounded lifelike, dynamically and timbrally, to sound "boring." I find real sounds anything but "boring." |
It was me who deleted the post, I had a spelling mistake. In any case, we must have different priorities, as I truly don’t share your findings. I am very familiar with the Harbeths , and find them colored, and less extended when compared to the A3, they certainly don’t sound more “real” to me than the A3 (I should know I am a professional musician).They also change characteristics with volume changes, a problem with many speakers on the market. |
@mheinze (I should know I am a professional musician). I play piano/synth, guitar (acoustic/electric), bass, drums, sax. I come from a musical family - Dad was a jazz musician and music teacher. We had 3 pianos in the house in constant use, a trombone, various saxes, trumpet, clarinet, flute, guitars, drums, bass, you name it. Either my father was playing one of those, or one of us where playing instruments. I used to use recordings of real instruments I owned, and voices of my family, for live-vs-reproduced comparisons when checking out speakers.I still use those recordings sometimes to double check through speakers I have at home. (Not to mention, for my job I'm constantly recording real life sounds). A lot of us here have a good idea of what real instruments sound like. :) I'm not disputing that the Magicos sound more "right" to you, or that the Harbeths are "more right." No speaker is perfect and we all tend to focus on certain things that sound "right" to us when we choose our speaker. I loved the Harbeths and bought them to see if I could replace my larger Thiel speakers at the time. I sold the Harbeths because in direct comparison my Thiels struck me as a bit better in almost all areas, mostly "cleaner" and more precise - some of which I think was due to the "remove cabinet vibration from the design" in the Thiel strategy vs the "let the cabinet vibrate" strategy in the Harbeth. The Magicos would definitely, like the Thiels, sound cleaner in the sense of "less box" than the Harbeths. But, still, to my ears, almost everything sounded essentially "right" through the Harbeths in a way that escapes most speakers - just something about their way with instrumental timbres - whereas almost nothing sounded "quite right" in the sense of "could I believe this is a sax, or acoustic guitar in front of me?" when closing my eyes listening to the Magico speakers. The Magicos certainly presented something "super clear" in front of me, but it just didn't make me believe I was hearing the timbre of a real instrument in front of me. That was true again when I recently listened to a very nice Magico set up at a high end dealer. That said, when I auditioned the A3s, there were a few classical guitar pieces, and a soundtrack of closely-recorded woodwinds and brass, that sounded phenomenal through the A3s! But then, those tracks tend to make most speakers sound good. But I did leave thinking "those speakers are going to make lots of happy audiophiles." |
