What is your experience with Magico A3 or A5 speakers and the company as a whole?

As an aside, I only wanted the grills because we have cats and a dog. While it is a no pets dedicated music room, one will occasionally follow me in there and I didn’t want to risk an accident. If not for the pets, I wouldn’t bother with covers.

As a somewhat recent owner of the A5s (since 2023), coming from a Chario (silk dome tweeter) with dual REL subs, there were are few considerations I had to explore before purchasing the A5s.

1) Room size - given you have B&W 802 they are relatively modest in height and girth.  the A5s are comparable vs the A3 which is smaller and probably won’t do the same job in bass, sound stage presence/size and imaging as the A5 (others have commented about this too).

2) Electronics - Magico speakers are what I call "transparent", in other words they sound like what they are being fed - source through to amplification and cables.   As you know, electronics sound different. Some do not sound as smooth/delicate and full (or palpable) on the midrange to top end, more 2 dimensional or edgy.  Magico speakers are revealing of everything in the signal path including the source - good recordings/mastering vs crap.  Garbage in = garbage out.  FYI, I’m running a MSB Premier DAC, Rowland preamp and roland amps in bridge mode. I do like the sound very much, but I’m currently exploring Burmester and MSB amps to hear the differnece.  I feel there is more umph/definition on the bottom end as well as improvements in mid to upper range and fullness of the instruments/vocals.

3. I asked about the tweeter too - Peter McKay is the rep who can answer all of your questions. I bought the grills for cosmetic purposes, but hardly put them on.

I saw a couple of people using Burmester with A5s - would like to hear from you on which amp and how it sounds. 

It's all so very subjective.  My experience with the A6's made be buy a set of Wilson Sashas. But I like French Vanilla and you may like mint chocolate chip. 

Most people have not heard A5’s at their best.  They have a high ceiling performance wise, and to reach it takes top level electronics and sources.

I was driving mine with an Audio Research Reference 5SE preamp and Pass mono amps, thinking the sound was very good but a little dark and reserved.

Then I bought a preowned Gryphon Antileon EVO amp from a friend and substituted it into the system.  WOW is all I can say: the system suddenly came to life and everything was substantially improved.  I never would have bought such an expensive amp but used it was barely doable for me and thankfully I pulled the trigger.

Bottom line: A5’s are near top level sound wise, but as stated require top amplification or you’ll never get there.

Good luck!

@onehorsepony 

I auditioned the A3s long and hard because I wanted them.  One- they are made by Magico and Two- the bass and scale were excellent as was the imaging and sound stage. 

Unfortunately I could not make the deal.  The sound was a bit sluggish and too laid back for my preferences. 

There are other speakers in their price range that sound better to my ears.