Magico S5 mk2

kevinkwann said:
Toole is no Heyser. He's just kind of...a Toole.
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Heyser was an admirable man. A scientist and technocrat extraordinaire with the humility to recognize the human mind's complexity and the limits of measurements in isolation. Even though Toole's motives as a Harmon employee may have been as equally commercial as those he denigrates, I personally believe he simply lacked the foresight and humility possessed by Hayser. Technocrats so often fail too see the forest through the trees but they sure can measure them trees.
 
Tom, believe it or not I am not a Magico hater, I have just tried to articulate my experience over the years matching Alons designs to my tastes. That said, as a polymer guy that uses carbon nano particles in the materials I process for my customers, it may be relevant to point out that while carbon nano particles physical properties are indeed singular they are also receiving intense scrutiny in the consumer product regulatory environment as a potential carcinogen similar to asbestos when air born. Many of my customers, particularly the Europeans, have started to back off their use. It is a concern I face given my Boat Anchors use a 10 micron diamond vape which is still 5,000 times larger than the thickness of the average graphene platelet. And the there is that..........
 
@Vapor:

Thanks for the link and in no way am I suggesting you couldn't use a 2500 /6db xover , I was( i do favor 6db slopes when necessary ) suggesting the thd would be higher (relative) than say a 12db or with networks ..

Nice looking speakers BTW

Regards
 
@Paul, I would think the same rules apply when kids (big and small) are around Magico speakers; don't stick a fork in the beryllium tweeter and graphene drivers please, and you'll be just fine...:peace:.
 
Here is the S5 Mk2 in M-cast Bronze! I bet Adam will be drooling ;)

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Tom Z said:
@Paul, I would think the same rules apply when kids (big and small) are around Magico speakers; don't stick a fork in the beryllium tweeter and graphene drivers please, and you'll be just fine...:peace:.
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No I am talking about Regulatory Laws, recalls etc. A lot to be flushed out re nano particles.
 
Hey Tom another fun fact, I am on the record around here recently saying I want to play around with a couple of Magico Subs (with Nyal's help) to augment the bottom end of my Boat Anchors. I do have high regard for Alon's engineering prowess I just feel my historical differences have been ones of personal taste. I have never said the his speakers aren't phenomenally well engineered and manufactured and obviously they maintain a huge following of sophisticated users. So there is that too.......
 
Tom Z said:
Hi Ken,

Thanks for your interesting views on tweeters. I'm just wondering if you've had the change to listen to the Magico S7 or S5 Mk2's modified diamond-coated BE tweeter? And if so, how did it rate against the other tweeters you mentioned?
Btw, slightly :offtopic:, but from my auditions of various high end speakers over the years, this would be my list of the best tweeters i've ever heard -

1/ Acapella High Violin which uses a horn-loaded Ion tweeter with no mass. Incredibly fast with seemingly unlimited dynamics. It is the best tweeter i've ever heard, and blended well with the horn-loaded midrange. Thought it should be noted the High Violins had bass integration issues due to the incredibly fast tweeter & midrange.
2/ Crystal Arabesque which uses a custom version of the superb RAAL 140-15D ribbon tweeter. This tweeter sounds incredibly natural, smooth, fast and has wide bandwidth & excellent off-axis response. Gabi has also done a great job of integrating the RAAl tweeter with the custom Scan-Speak Illuminator bass/midrange drivers
3/ Magico S7's which use a MBD26 diamond-coated BE tweeter. Combined with the new 6" graphene-carbon Nanotube midrange & integrated midrange enclosure; the sound is completely seamless as Mike described, with excellent resolution, balance & sense of 'ease' which allows the music to flow. The S5 Mk2's MB7 diamond-coated BE tweeter should have similar performance.
4/ Infinity High Energy Emit which is a planar-magnetic ribbon tweeter. This newer tweeter was used in the classic Renaissance 80 & 90, IRS-Sigma, Omega & Epsilon models. Having heard my friend's Ren 90's, I was amazed how fast, smooth & resolving this tweeter was & how well it blended with the High Energy Emim midrange. In particular the Ren 90's had excellent off-axis performance & threw a wide, holographic soundstage.

Side note: I would expect the 28mm Diamond-coated BE tweeter used in the Magico M Project & Q7 MkII to be better than the S5 Mk2 & S7, and likely one of the best tweeters in the world, but I haven't heard those models.

Cheers,
Tom
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Hi Tom,

Thanks for your tweeter post, your choices are very interesting and some of the speakers I've not had the opportunity to hear for myself, so it's great to get your opinion on them.

I had a 3 hour audition of the Magico S7 with Spectral gear and $50,000 of MIT cabling in a carefully set up listening room with at least 20 tube traps. Please keep in mind that this is just one person's opinion. The S7's new diamond-coated beryllium tweeter is a HUGE improvement over the S5 Mk1's beryllium tweeter in 1) Ease, 2) Transparency and 3) Resolution. On 75% of the music I auditioned, the tweeter blended seamlessly with the midrange and produced an accurate, transparent and musical presentation, which overall was highly enjoyable. However, on about 25% of the recordings, there was a hard edge to the treble, which made me notice the tweeter and detracted from my overall listening experience. Mike felt this could have been caused by the Spectral gear, which is entirely possible, but what I can tell you is that Overture has put tremendous care into designing this system and room. This, what I will call, unforgiving nature of the tweeters on these particular recordings, made the speakers a "no go" for me. Please...no tomatoes!!!

Best,
Ken
 
Hi Ken,

Thanks for your thoughts on your audition of the S7's & opinion on the diamond-coated BE tweeter. Spectral amps are super-fast, but paired with the wrong speakers can sound bright and analytical. I've heard a couple of Magico Dealers spruik that as a good combo, but i've got to say Spectral would be down near the bottom of my list of amps to match with Magico.

The new S5 Mk2's (like the S7) have even greater resolution than the S5 Mk1 and are a bit more neutral in tonal balance, so they benefit from warm, tube-like ss amps which match them for resolution, speed and bandwidth, but are a bit forgiving. And some tube amps pair well also. The best ss amps i've heard with Magico are Vitus and Soulution. I haven't heard Pass amps before, but I trust Mike's view on that. Whilst CAT, Absolare, CJ Art/Gat & Tenor in tube/tube-hybrid amps have proven synergy.

You're always looking for a good marriage between your loudspeakers, amps, front end, cables, ac power & room. The S5 Mk2's & S7's are already detail champs, they just need a little softness, warmth & tube-like liquidity to balance them out. For me, i've found that happy balance with Vitus.

Cheers,
 
Alpinist said:
Hi Tom,

Thanks for your tweeter post, your choices are very interesting and some of the speakers I've not had the opportunity to hear for myself, so it's great to get your opinion on them.

I had a 3 hour audition of the Magico S7 with Spectral gear and $50,000 of MIT cabling in a carefully set up listening room with at least 20 bass traps. Please keep in mind that this is just one person's opinion. The S7's new diamond-coated beryllium tweeter is a HUGE improvement over the S5 Mk1's beryllium tweeter in 1) Ease, 2) Transparency and 3) Resolution. On 75% of the music I auditioned, the tweeter blended seamlessly with the midrange and produced an accurate, transparent and musical presentation, which overall was very enjoyable. However, on about 25% of the recordings, there was a hard edge to the treble, which made me notice the tweeter and detracted from my overall listening experience. Mike felt this could have been caused by the Spectral gear, which is entirely possible, but what I can tell you is that Overture has put tremendous care into designing this system and room. This, what I will call, unforgiving nature of the tweeters on these particular recordings, made the speakers a "no go" for me. Please...no tomatoes!!!

Best,
Ken
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Similar to my experience with the S5 mkii but I really think this must be a peculiar high frequency sensitivity that some people have that others clearly don't. Not sure why that would be. Genetics, ear damage, brain damage, who knows what my malady may be; in fact, for me it could be all the three.
 
Tom Z said:
Hi Ken,

Thanks for your thoughts on your audition of the S7's & opinion on the diamond-coated BE tweeter. Spectral amps are super-fast, but paired with the wrong speakers can sound bright and analytical. I've heard a couple of Magico Dealers spruik that as a good combo, but i've got to say Spectral would be down near the bottom of my list of amps to match with Magico.

Cheers,
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Interesting --as I recall Magico used a Spectral Amp in one of their Demos at RMAF or Newport--I may have the photo of the room on my HD

Yes the sound was not the best with that combo

Bruce
 
Tom Z said:
Hi Ken,

Thanks for your thoughts on your audition of the S7's & opinion on the diamond-coated BE tweeter. Spectral amps are super-fast, but paired with the wrong speakers can sound bright and analytical. I've heard a couple of Magico Dealers spruik that as a good combo, but i've got to say Spectral would be down near the bottom of my list of amps to match with Magico.

The new S5 Mk2's (like the S7) have even greater resolution than the S5 Mk1 and are a bit more neutral in tonal balance, so they benefit from warm, tube-like ss amps which match them for resolution, speed and bandwidth, but are a bit forgiving. And some tube amps pair well also. The best ss amps i've heard with Magico are Vitus and Soulution. I haven't heard Pass amps before, but I trust Mike's view on that. Whilst CAT, Absolare, CJ Art/Gat & Tenor in tube/tube-hybrid amps have proven synergy also.

You're always looking for a good marriage between your loudspeakers, amps, front end, cables & ac power. The S5 Mk2's & S7's are already detail champs, they just need a little softness, warmth & tube-like liquidity to balance them out. For me, i've found that happy balance with Vitus.

Cheers,
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Hi Tom,

I totally agree with you about the amp matching. I think the amps you mentioned would provide more synergy with the S7 and produce a more forgiving treble and overall more enjoyable sound. IMHO, while the S7 tweeter is dramatically improved, I still believe there is some room for additional improvement. After all, nothing is perfect in this world! My guess is that with Alon's next tweeter iteration, even with Spectral gear, the treble will have no edge on 99% of the recordings. The funny thing was, all of my recordings sounded perfect on the S7. My listening room tends toward a brighter treble, so all of my top recordings are not at all bright in the treble. It was actually all the recordings the owner played for me that had the treble edge! But back to your point, with proper gear matching, this tendency I noted should be correctable.

Ken
 
Bruce said:
Interesting --as I recall Magico used a Spectral Amp in one of their Demos at RMAF or Newport--I may have the photo of the room on my HD

Yes the sound was not the best with that combo

Bruce
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Thanks Bruce for that info. I believe this is the reason that Alon showed the S5 Mk2 with CAT amps at Axpona. He was looking to produce a more organic sound to draw in a larger segment of the audiophile population, which prefers this sort of presentation.

Ken
 
Bruce said:
Interesting --as I recall Magico used a Spectral Amp in one of their Demos at RMAF or Newport--I may have the photo of the room on my HD

Yes the sound was not the best with that combo

Bruce
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Magico have had an interesting journey with their show demo's since the inception of the S series, going from Devialet, Spectral and Constellation to Soulution, Vitus & CAT.
 
Alpinist said:
Hi Tom,

I totally agree with you about the amp matching. I think the amps you mentioned would provide more synergy with the S7 and produce a more forgiving treble and overall more enjoyable sound. IMHO, while the S7 tweeter is dramatically improved, I still believe there is some room for additional improvement. After all, nothing is perfect in this world! My guess is that with Alon's next tweeter iteration, even with Spectral gear, the treble will have no edge on 99% of the recordings. But back to your point, with proper gear matching, this tendency I noted should be correctable.

Ken
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Ken, I think your observations are probably correct. The ultimate application of Magico's diamond-coated BE tweeter are the more comprehensive 28mm tweeters found in the M Pro and Q7 Mk2, but of course that would not be possible in the S series on the grounds of cost. Re; the next tweeter iteration, based on the product life of the S5 Mk1 which debuted 4 years ago, I don't think we're going to see a new tweeter variant in the S series anytime soon. I think my earlier ranking of the S7's tweeter is appropriate. There are better tweeters, but for the money, with this level of integration, it's damn good :amazing:.
 
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