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Magico S5 review

I've been auditioning the Magico S5's on loan from my dealer Scott Walker Audio of Anaheim for several weeks now.
The S5's are an all aluminum cabinet, a trickle down version of the Q series. They are 90 DB, 22HZ-50KHZ, 190#,and sell for $28,600. After some considerable work by Scott he got the speakers locked in perfectly.

My current system consists of Focal Nova Utopia BE speakers
($45,000), An Ayon CD-5 cd player, An Ayon Triton 2 amp,Grand Prix Monaco racks,and a slew of Synergistic Research equipment: Tranquility bases,Migs, Hologram A,D, and AC Precision power cords, Element interconnects,an 11 piece Acoustic Art system, SR fuses and even the new Ayon BT KT-88 SX tubes made in the Czech Republic

I thought I had a pretty great system......Until the S5's came into the picture. The first thing you notice about these speakers is their sealed rather than ported bass. Oh my god! I am not a bass freak but the Magicos had incredible bass.....taut with a visceral punch to the stomach on the right tracks. And this with a tube amp.On certain bass heavy tracks it was like having two subwoofers in the room.

The tweeter was smooth and delicate and completely integrated with the midrange.....it was like one driver.

The midrange is where the Magico Magic comes in.....a strong center vocal image (I like female vocalists), not only more "there" than my Focals but violins had more sheen, cellos sound deeper and you could hear deeper into the subtleties and nuances of the human voice. The tonal characteristics were denser and more real.

The real surprise came when I put the Focals back in the system. I was disappointed. Very Disappointed. The Focals bass in comparison to the Magicos sounded flabby and weak,midrange presence was lessened along with the Magicos wonderful tone. It was easy to discern that the Magico S5's sounded more holographic, 3D, with a smoother yet more detailed mid and top end.

Things I particulary liked about the music reproduction of the S5's:

Dark Side of the Moon: Listen to the bells and the cash register on the song "Money" Stunning.

Warren Zevon, Life Will Kill You: Warren knew he was dying and wasn't in great shape vocally but when you hear the title track you can hear EVERY nuance in his voice....you can hear all his despair and humor.

Sarah McLachlan, Surfacing: I was amazed at how good this Cd sounded, absolutely gorgeous. I heard guitars, Synths, and faint almost out of hearing range background vocals by Sarah. I heard sounds on this Cd I have never heard before.

Melissa McClelland,Thumbelina's One Night Stand: A cd with country folk sensibilties but with a sort of Southern guitar crunch to it. Listening to this on the Magicos was like having Melissa in the room.....Holographic, real vocal tones, and absolutely haunting.

So after saying all this what's an audiophile to do?
My dealer Scott Walker is taking my Focals in on trade along with a check. I understand the S5's take two months to build and get here so Scott is loaning me his demo pair for the duration. That will certainly make waiting for the next two months a lot easier.

mreapoe100
sarcher30
596 posts
 
Audiooracle is just mad he did not make a sale. It's funny he would be worried about this being an ad when just about every post of his is an ad for the gear he sells.
audiooracle
387 posts
 
To Sacher

I could not make a sale to this gentleman he is in a different state! Not going to happen! I have no skin in this game.

The point I am making is how so many people will extoll the virtues of a product that they have experienced, when they have not done fair comparison's under identical conditions, of the competition.

Judging speakers at a show is not the same thing as hearing them at home! This gentleman was fortunate enough to be able to get a home demo of these new Magicos. The point I am making is perhaps some other speaker might also be way better than his 10 year old Focals, and without doing a similar comparison with the rest of the $30k speakers he may or may not have purchased the best possible speakers for him.
audiooracle
387 posts
 
Dear Mreapoe,

if you are judging on what you heard at an audio show vs a pair of speakers on loan in your own room, you have no idea if the other speakers you were looking at at the Newport show might outperform the Magicos.

I have almost never heard a product at an audio show give its best nor would you be making a valid comparison between two products set up in exactly the same way.

Please understand this is not an attack on you or your purchase, I am always amused at posts like yours which exclaim the virtues of one products without really knowing what the true performance of any other products unless they are under identical conditions.

Now the Magicos may be the best speakers for you, your taste and equipment, if it was me I would draw up a list of contenders and if possible get an in home audition of those speakers as well before I would commit to such an expensive purchase.

It will be interesting to see how well the new kid on the uber speaker block does compare with the Wilson, and the Blades.

Personally I think a well set up pair of Blades can outperform almost any Magico and all the Wilsons' except for the X2. Howerver, room setup is crucial, in my showroom very little bass, in the NY audio show huge bass, so as with anything else you have to weigh all the factors.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,233 posts
 
I disagree with the notion that hifi shows are useless for comparison and evaluation of audio components(why would companies invest the time,effort and expense?). It is`nt realistic to buy/borrow every piece of equitment(especially speakers) to hear them in your own system for the vast majority.

Why does he need to compare to Wilson,KEF or any other selected brands to validate his preference? Who made them the standard? I`ve heard excellent sound in various rooms at shows,some get it right and others don`t. These systems are selected and set up by rhose who presumably know them best.Certainly the enviroment is`nt ideal, but for most people this is the only practical way to hear many components up close.

At RMAF 2011 the Concert Fidelity/Silicon Arts-Kaiser Kawero room was fantastic!Enough rooms had good sound to make the point that it`s achievable and not a ready made excuse for poor sound(I realize there are exceptions).
Regards,
french_fries
815 posts
 
Well for me the value of the review is the astute observations of a person with trained ears that can appreciate the differences between IMHO a great set of Focal speakers and a product even more transparent. i am not as concerned about something being 10 years old as the articulate descriptions this person offers. when i first started out i had real trouble hearing a lot of the subtle differences between components, and felt i was being taken for a ride by some
unscrupulous salespeople as well as other "very fussy" audiophile types.
Then one day i sent a dedicated TRANSPORT back to the manufacturer for updating and substituted a Denon CDP while i waited to get it back. Holy %#^#!!!
I couldn't listen to music anymore- it sounded really artificial. People were even arguing at the time that a transport COULDN'T make a difference in the sound quality if it was just transmitting ones and zeros over a cable. this and other similar experiences made me "keep my mouth shut" a lot of times when i "thought" discussions of audio equipment had reached the rarified level of the Tice-Clock conundrum.
but here we can at least assume that Magico certainly knows what they're doing, albeit for a big bunch of money. OTOH all i can say is $10K ought to buy
you a really great pair of speakers that can do a lot of the things mentioned in this piece. AND $30K should (SHOULD) be more than enough to buy an entire system that can reproduce music on this level. Oh, there i go again....
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