Mike, oh Mike. have you been drinking the " Natural Sound " kool aid?
Pretty sure your speakers and system you have now more than competes.
Magico M9
- Thread starter Bobvin
- Start date
Mike, oh Mike. have you been drinking the " Natural Sound " kool aid?
Pretty sure your speakers and system you have now more than competes.Mike Lavigne
Member
Mike, oh Mike. have you been drinking the " Natural Sound " kool aid?
thank you for the kind words.
not sure which part (M9 or those others?) you are referring to.
i do believe that if you just plunk the M9 and appropriate hardware down in some pretty designer room and expect it to surpass my room and system i agree with you that i got it equalled or bettered. the best speaker many times does not equal the best sound. but if someone as serious minded as myself optimizes the M9 then my expectation is that it's ceiling is higher (not sure i would view either Wilson that same way). in between those two realities it's a crap shoot. effort and relentlessness matter a lot. but......i respect the heck out of the M9 and it's capabilities.
yes, i am satisfied with my set-up.
and i have been amused by the 'Natural Sound'. lots going on there.
mep
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2013
- Messages
- 5,074
What do you expect people who can't afford the M9 to learn from the M9 that is going to be applicable to them in their audiophile journey?
Mike Lavigne
Member
if it was a $750k turntable that would get the natives restless, and you could not shut people up. super-uber turntables are sexy, sexy, sexy. especially if it was established as a true performer. there would be line to buy them..
1000 pound,7 foot tall speakers......not so much. i own 7 foot tall 1500 pound twin towers. that kick ass. almost zero interest. and they are really amazing.
just the way it is.
Bobvin
New member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2013
- Messages
- 1,068
- Thread Author
- #28
I like to say “you don’t know what you haven’t heard.” My own audiophile journey has had more to do with exposure than about anything else. Listening to different brand’s offerings at brick ‘n mortar stores — I only heard what they carried. Some gear I never listened to simply because the people in those stores were jerks.
Then I began to branch out, and seek out other less “popular“ gear. Then I had a good fortune to visit Mike Lavigne‘s room. It was quite a memorable and remarkable occasion. Am I willing to go that far myself, probably not. But it did show me a glimpse of the view from the top of the mountain. Another similar experience was my visit with Alon at Magico & the M9s. I have not enjoyed the occasion to listen to Mike Lavigne‘s system with, say, a different set of amplifiers. Same with the M9s, I heard a system. But in both instances I was gobsmacked.
Having heard a couple of amazing systems, as someone on my own audiophile journey, I can say I have an appreciation for what is possible, and it makes me curious about other systems and how they might compare. So while those speakers or systems are outside my personal financial abilities, it does influence decisions I make towards approaching that level of reproduction. I personally believe you can get >95% there for far less money. But if you have the resources, and the last few percentages is worth it to you, then you should hear systems that offer a view from the top of the mountain.
The real challenge, in my opinion within this hobby, is learning and deciding which components contribute to the sound you hear, and the sound you desire.
mep
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2013
- Messages
- 5,074
So you are basically advocating for audiophiles that can't afford M9s to go to Magico and listen to them?
Bobvin
New member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2013
- Messages
- 1,068
- Thread Author
- #30
Yes. And the big Wilsons, and AvantGard, and Living Voice, and any manufacturer’s top offerings. Then you might come away saying wow, how close can I get to that with my own budget? Or you might say “I prefer something a little more intimate, less over-the-top.”
It is my opinion exposure is the limiting factor to many audiophiles journey. Limited exposure can lead to constant upgrade-itus, as each thing that is heard that is better than what you have creates desire to have that in your system. But hearing many systems you can develop a sense of the value proposition of different products. Hearing some of the very best is essential for calibration.
MPW
Member
The problem with all of this is that it is so gear focused. A big reason why some of these elite systems sound the way they do is that they are in dedicated, treated listening rooms that have been set up properly for an optimal experience. Just listening to better equipment is not, in my mind what most audiophiles need. What they need to hear are more modest systems that have been properly set up. This is what Jim Smith has dedicated himself to. You can throw all the gear you want at a system, but if it is not optimized to work within the listening environment in which it is placed, the results will be substandard. I am not saying that people shouldn't visit these systems to get a baseline as to what is possible, but they should understand what else beyond the gear is making the sound so great. They likely won't get that from the gear manufacturers as they want people to continue to turn their gear over in search of nirvana.
Mike Lavigne
Member
20 years ago i was in a small room (12' x 18' x 10' den) with a fairly formidable system. i had tweaked and pushed that room as far as it could go as far as potential gear performance (Rockport Sirius III tt, Kharma Exquisite 1D speakers) and was at a crossroads as to whether i would change the room, or stop my system building progress, sit back, and enjoy.
i convinced my wife it made sense to change homes, found one with a barn, built a clean sheet of paper---purpose built room, and went to work. it only took me 10 years of work and tweaking to recover what i had in my small room, then move way beyond that in the new room.
my previous smaller (normal residential) room was amazing, i had spend 7 years tweaking that room before i left it, and occasionally i wonder how it would have worked out if i had been satisfied staying there.
we all have our decisions to make and path to travel.
i convinced my wife it made sense to change homes, found one with a barn, built a clean sheet of paper---purpose built room, and went to work. it only took me 10 years of work and tweaking to recover what i had in my small room, then move way beyond that in the new room.
my previous smaller (normal residential) room was amazing, i had spend 7 years tweaking that room before i left it, and occasionally i wonder how it would have worked out if i had been satisfied staying there.
we all have our decisions to make and path to travel.
Bobvin
New member
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2013
- Messages
- 1,068
- Thread Author
- #33
I agree with this, Mike Lavigne‘s system is clearly a “system” which includes his room, same with the M9‘s at the Magico facility which is in a well-built room. There’s no doubt the room is a major contributing factor. But there are different speakers that will play more favorably in different & less treated rooms.
It is completely possible to build a very satisfying system without major tweaks to a room. A horn/open baffle speaker like the Diesis, or a panel like the Alsyvox will play in a room very differently than a ported speaker like a Wilson or even like the Bayz omnidirectional, (which is ported for the bass) but not hearing those speakers, you might spend a crap load of time and money trying to optimize a room that wouldn’t work well for your chosen type of speaker. So I still argue exposure is critical, then a collection of well-chosen gear and a well optimized setup will get the most out of the “system“.
greystoke4
Member
Hi, as a matter of interest, does anyone have the measurements of the magico room, and a few photo's would be good, i'm guessing this room would have been optimised for the M9, and where are the M9's, placed, thanks
GSOphile
Active member
From a Mono & Stereo article on the new room: "This monumental endeavor aimed to ‘eliminate’ the room from the listening experience so we could hear what the speakers, and only the speakers, actually sound like."
I don't think it was aimed specifically at the M9's, although this has likely been the most challenging test case to date.
Couldn't agree more!
NekoAudio
New member
There are the photos from my visit, The Absolute Sound, and Mono & Stereo.
I don't know the exact dimensions, but you can probably make a rough guess based on the size of the equipment and furniture in the photos. As GSOphile mentioned, the room design was based on the goal of making it so you hear the speakers and not the room, and not specifically for the M9.
cmarin
New member
- Joined
- Jun 14, 2016
- Messages
- 195
Having recently gone through the eye-opening experience of having my system setup by Stirling Trayle, I can unequivocally state that yes, the room is important, but so is the elimination of “noise” in the system, and the placement of the speakers - so that in the end the speakers are working not only with the room, but also with each other; with the latter point being especially critical in extracting the maximum engagement from the system.
Stirling set up my system pre-covid for the equipment I had at the time.
Since then, I added a different server (Taiko Extreme), amplifiers (CH Precision M10/L10) and cabling (Nordost Odin 2).
To my ears, the system sounded significantly better than the pre-covid version - by a lot. Engagement was effortless and through the roof.
But I knew that the speaker placement was not optimized for the new gear. So I engaged Stirling to work his magic two weeks ago.
Over a period of three days, Stirling cajoled a system he initially classified as confusing, to one that has jaw dropping engagement.
This was accomplished by first introducing noise reduction steps in the electronics; and second, through a series of speaker movements, often times involving only micro displacements (along the x-y-z axes, as well as rotations about them).
The end result, would have been difficult to imagine after hearing the
Improvements brought about by the new gear, and which speaks to Bobvin’s exposure comment.
And it was brought about in large part in the end, after establishing a baseline for the system noise, optimizing the placement of one speaker, and then positioning the second speaker so that it was working not only with the room, but just as importantly, working together (not against) with the other speaker.
It was a revelatory experience.
So yes the gear is important but not as much as the room, the noise level, or the speaker setup.
But just as importantly, if not more, by having an expert that has heard and setup hundreds of high end systems, and knows not only how much better a system can sound, but also what needs to be done to get there.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Stirling set up my system pre-covid for the equipment I had at the time.
Since then, I added a different server (Taiko Extreme), amplifiers (CH Precision M10/L10) and cabling (Nordost Odin 2).
To my ears, the system sounded significantly better than the pre-covid version - by a lot. Engagement was effortless and through the roof.
But I knew that the speaker placement was not optimized for the new gear. So I engaged Stirling to work his magic two weeks ago.
Over a period of three days, Stirling cajoled a system he initially classified as confusing, to one that has jaw dropping engagement.
This was accomplished by first introducing noise reduction steps in the electronics; and second, through a series of speaker movements, often times involving only micro displacements (along the x-y-z axes, as well as rotations about them).
The end result, would have been difficult to imagine after hearing the
Improvements brought about by the new gear, and which speaks to Bobvin’s exposure comment.
And it was brought about in large part in the end, after establishing a baseline for the system noise, optimizing the placement of one speaker, and then positioning the second speaker so that it was working not only with the room, but just as importantly, working together (not against) with the other speaker.
It was a revelatory experience.
So yes the gear is important but not as much as the room, the noise level, or the speaker setup.
But just as importantly, if not more, by having an expert that has heard and setup hundreds of high end systems, and knows not only how much better a system can sound, but also what needs to be done to get there.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I would love to do something like this, just looked at Stirling's website and it's really well put together, credible and professional. Everything you say he did makes perfect sense, and near impossible to do without that kind of experience imo. Consumers can only get so far, I suspect. I have so many limitations to what can be done though, as it's not dedicated listening space, it's probably not worth it until I have more adjustable elements. Not to mention he's in Cali. One day perhaps...
brad225
Well-known member
I can't wait to hear the Clarisys Audio products. 