New Magico speakers arriving 04/2015!

[Mark Jones]

I am not talking Harbeth or Magico or any brand.

I am not saying aluminum is better than wood.

What I am saying is there is no logic behind saying if Violins are made from wood then so should speakers.

If so, then would steel guitars sound better on steel speakers, brass better on brass speakers, etc....

 

[Mike]

I am not talking Harbeth or Magico or any brand.

I am not saying aluminum is better than wood.

What I am saying is there is no logic behing saying if Violins are made from wood then so should speakers.

If so, then would steel guitars sound better on steel speakers, brass better on brass speakers, etc....

Steel guitars? Pedal steel? Dobro? If you mean man made materials vs wood is like comparing an electric guitar to an acoustic guitar, then I agree. I prefer acoustic.

If you don't believe the speaker is an extension of the music, then you can never understand what I'm trying to say. But if all this aluminum and man made materials was so important, than we would be seeing it used in recording studio speakers, live performance speakers, etc. We don't. A properly tuned wood cabinet can provide another dimension to the music - it can convey the passion, soul. It lets you feel the music. Over damping a speaker is the exact same result as over damping a room or over like sticking a sock in a saxophone. It removes the life. You can never hear it, but you can feel it. This weekend we were treated to the ultimate A/B test. There was a cello performance that was so incredible that when you heard it on the Liliums, you could feel the strings against the wood, you could hear and feel that cello cabinet singing especially in the lower notes. On the Magico Q7's, nothing. I heard it, but felt nothing. They failed to convey that other dimension.

We will probably never agree on this point, but if you're going to build a musical instrument, you don't build a rocket ship.

 

[asiufy]

Fully agree, Mark.
There are no violins made of aluminum because it'll eliminate completely the purpose of the violin, which is to propagate the resonances of the strings! An instrument, any instrument, when played, propagates sound, and it uses its body to help in that task. Again, it's SUPPOSED TO resonate.
A speaker, OTOH, is not. If you want to get to the real "soul" of the music, what was REALLY recorded, you can't editorialize, add resonances, different sounds to what was in originally captured.
As I said, I understand if people dig the colorations, the frequency deviations, the distortions, etc. If that's what makes them feel closer to the music, more power to them! It's clearly a very valid path, otherwise there wouldn't be so many wood/MDF speakers still being made today. If aluminum was the only valid way to go, CNC machine manufacturers would've been very happy


alexandre

 

[Mike]

Fully agree, Mark.
There are no violins made of aluminum because it'll eliminate completely the purpose of the violin, which is to propagate the resonances of the strings! An instrument, any instrument, when played, propagates sound, and it uses its body to help in that task. Again, it's SUPPOSED TO resonate.
A speaker, OTOH, is not. If you want to get to the real "soul" of the music, what was REALLY recorded, you can't editorialize, add resonances, different sounds to what was in originally captured.
As I said, I understand if people dig the colorations, the frequency deviations, the distortions, etc. If that's what makes them feel closer to the music, more power to them! It's clearly a very valid path, otherwise there wouldn't be so many wood/MDF speakers still being made today. If aluminum was the only valid way to go, CNC machine manufacturers would've been very happy


alexandre

Well said and I agree. And as to the belief that coloration is "bad", I'm just glad we don't live in a black and white world. Color to me is like flavoring on a food. Who wants to eat bland food?

 

[asiufy]

Mike,

I never said coloration is bad! I just think people need to realize what they are, and what effect they're having on the final result they hear...

Since you mentioned a real situation (AxB) from Axpona, allow me to mention something that I saw in my store...

Person A comes in, sits down at the YG Sonja 1.3 system. Runs away in disgust after 5 seconds, only to find comfort in the Evolution Acoustics MMthree system, in a different room (same darTZeel amp.)
Now, person B comes, and listens to the YGs for many, many hours. According to him, it's "spooky real". We then take him to the MMthree room, that he likes, but says are a not as good/transparent/real/natural/etc as the YGs.

So what do I make of this? People not only hear in different ways, they are more or less susceptible to the different issues within the sound presentation. You can't please everybody, simply because our hearing is not homogenous. What's "bland" to you, it's "neutral" for others. What's "colored" for A, it's "real" for B. Come to think of it, it's the same thing with food! For some people, just a touch of pepper in food could turn it inedible. While for others (me, for example), the more pepper the better!

The biggest manifestation of what I said above just happened, with the show reports from Axpona. How else would you explain such disparate reports, from the same actual rooms/systems?


alexandre

 

[Mike]

I agree Alexandre to a point, but there was a general consensus about Axpona.

I believe we pick speakers which sound the most pleasing to us and this is based on our own experiences with music. As a musician, I know what things should sound like and I gravitate towards that type of sound knowing that no system can ever reproduce the level of dynamics of live. But at least I know tonally what a sax sounds like, what a guitar sounds like, etc. and I use that as my reference. Obviously, others have differing views of what they perceive as real and that's what makes the world go around! [emoji7]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Smile]

Would humidity variance change the resonance of wood speakers?

And don't different sax and different guitars sound different from each other?

And, as noted in this thread, rooms can make or break the experience to the point of perhaps having a far greater influence than the cabinet material?

Toss in our individual preferences and biases, and these discussions seem oh so academic- not information I can go shopping with.

 

[Elberoth]

I am not talking Harbeth or Magico or any brand.

I am not saying aluminum is better than wood.

What I am saying is there is no logic behing saying if Violins are made from wood then so should speakers.

If so, then would steel guitars sound better on steel speakers, brass better on brass speakers, etc....

Great post.

Many people like the sound of the distortion the wooden box gives, as that is what they have been accustomed to for many, many years (in fact forever). They do not realise that the sound they like has nothing to do with how the instruments sound in real life, as they do not know the real sound of instruments.

PS. Thsi is a general remark, not directed to any specific user on this forum.

 

[Mike]

Looks like we will never agree on this topic, and that's ok. Calling the tonality and richness wood gives, "distortion" is proof again you are all left brain in this matter - and that's ok. I speak of emotion, you speak of science. I'll take my goosebumps over white papers and marketing BS any day.

 

[a.wayne]

You could certainly add KEF and B&W. But the real point is the new technology available to and being used by the best speaker companies today and the improvements in sound that has resulted. But this technology doesn't come cheap and there are many roads that lead to Rome. In the past, I could count the number of speakers that I could own on one hand. That number has increased in the last couple of years.

Myles could you be more specific as to what new technology Magico is bringing to the table, while one could consider what they are doing to be technological , it's not entirely new or uncharted , especially if you compare what they are doing to past manufacturer"s over the many decades, like B&W, KEF, Harmon, Focal, Dynaudio, to name a few.


It's Building block science and Magico has taken a different path in an attempt to control cabinet coloration, it's different not non-existent, anti-box people will still hear the box, vented people will hear lean bass, sealed box types hear the port, planer hear slow, active types hear the xovers...


Such is the tale ....



Regards..

 

[Mike]

Myles could you be more specific as to what new technology Magico is bringing to the table, while one could consider what they are doing is technological , it's not entriely new or uncharted , especially if you compare what they are doing to past manufacturer"s over the decades, like B&W, KEF, Harmon, Focal, Dynaudio, to name a few.


It's Building block science and Magico has taken a different path in an attempt to control cabinet coloration, it's different not non-existent, anti-box people will still hear the box, vented people will hear lean bass, sealed box types hear the port, planer hear slow, active types hear the xovers...


Such is the tale ....



Regards..

Well said.

:audiophile:

 

[a.wayne]

Steel guitars? Pedal steel? Dobro? If you mean man made materials vs wood is like comparing an electric guitar to an acoustic guitar, then I agree. I prefer acoustic.

If you don't believe the speaker is an extension of the music, then you can never understand what I'm trying to say. But if all this aluminum and man made materials was so important, than we would be seeing it used in recording studio speakers, live performance speakers, etc. We don't. A properly tuned wood cabinet can provide another dimension to the music - it can convey the passion, soul. It lets you feel the music. Over damping a speaker is the exact same result as over damping a room or over like sticking a sock in a saxophone. It removes the life. You can never hear it, but you can feel it. This weekend we were treated to the ultimate A/B test. There was a cello performance that was so incredible that when you heard it on the Liliums, you could feel the strings against the wood, you could hear and feel that cello cabinet singing especially in the lower notes. On the Magico Q7's, nothing. I heard it, but felt nothing. They failed to convey that other dimension.

We will probably never agree on this point, but if you're going to build a musical instrument, you don't build a rocket ship.

+1

I tend to prefer the sound of wood or MDF myself for cabinets, is it better , no , just more inline of what we hear naturally and become accustomed to ...

 

[a.wayne]

Great post.

Many people like the sound of the distortion the wooden box gives, .

As oppose to the distortion Aluminum Box speaker gives ? then why not eliminate the box, Panel speakers for everyone...

 

[cmalak]

We could argue about YG (although I personally disagree on that) but ... Rockport ?

What is especially innovative or hi tech about Rockport ? Don't get me wrong - those are wonderful sounding speakers, I have heard both Atria and Avior and liked them a lot - but there is nothing really extraordinary in them in terms of technology.

Wilson has been using phenolic resin enclosures for years (and those are only used on the two most expensive Rockport models - cheaper ones are made of MDF), the tweeter is a standard Scan Speak model and even mid / woofers with diaphrams made of carbon fibre are nothing really special today.

Adam (and LVB)...can you please tell me what technical innovation Magico has brought to the table? I would argue that everything Alon has come up with has been done before. What he has done is taken known design principals and taken each one to their next evolutionary stage and taken them to more precise engineering tolerances. I am sorry to say there is nothing innovative or new in what he has done (including diamond coated beryllium tweeters where the vapor depositing of the diamond coating at 6 microns has reduced weight by 30% and improved stiffness by 300% - see I can quote press copy too - nor aluminum enclosures nor the recent use of grapheme in the midrange drivers, a more advanced form of his nanotech carbon fiber composite materials). Aluminum enclosures came out as early as 1990s with Krell's LAT speakers. Diamond coated beryllium tweeters have been around for quite a while yet his latest version is probably the lightest and stiffest variant thus far. Graphene, made possible today by the latest industrial 3D printers, has been around since 2004 and contrary to his claim that his will be the first commercial product to use it, it actually was used by an LED manufacturer before him to bring down the cost of LED light bulbs. His use of CAD and FEA modeling been around for years in speaker design circles and in fact CAD and FEA modeling have been the basis for any mechanical engineering field for 30 years+. So if some one can point me to his new innovations I would very much appreciate it? Has he taken all these known and existing principles to their next evolutionary level of development and applied tight engineering tolerances in their execution and production? No doubt. But he has been able to do that because he operates at the high-end of speaker design, charging a hefty premium for his speakers and has successfully built a prosperous business to boot. This gives him the luxury to invest in tooling (CNC machines and the like) to build his products to high levels of finish and engineering tolerances. By the way, he does not do the vapor depositing of the diamond on the beryllium tweeter dome, nor does he do the grapheme depositing on his nanotech cone drivers in house.

So just trying to understand where the innovation is:

Engineering excellence? yes
Production of components and speaker enclosures to high tolerances? yes
Engineering driven to evolve and enhance existing designs? yes
Should all of the above engender high levels of pride of ownership by Magico customers? Yes

Innovative? Not sure I see any new ideas here. And guess what, I am not sure the industry as a whole has seen any new ideas in terms of application of new technologies or design principles in speaker design in decades.

I would be happy to be proven wrong...

 

[Mike]

Cyril - you forgot one:

Marketing? Yes. Champs.

As for production of components, are you referring to drivers? I don't think Magico builds and manufacturers their own drivers. Oh, by the way, according to Lars, the drivers in the $2500 Scansonics come from the same factory as the Magico drivers.

 

[Face]

The purpose of speakers are for playback of music, not the altering of music. If you choose a speaker who's cabinet has audible resonances, that is called distortion.

As for materials, it is possible with enough bracing to produce a speaker out of Baltic or Finnish Birch with adequate bracing and panel damping that will have no audible resonances, aluminum isn't required. Although, if I had access to a CNC mill, I wouldn't mind having my own speakers made out of Al.

Regardless, no speaker is perfect. It would be nice to see some of the features of KEF, TAD, or Revel added to Magico's designs...especially how each of those brands deal with diffraction.

 

[LVB]

Adam (and LVB)......including diamond coated beryllium tweeters where the vapor depositing of the diamond coating at 6 microns has reduced weight by 30% and improved stiffness by 300% - see I can quote press copy too -

Actually, it is the new graphene based woofers cones that are lighter and stiffer...

From your argument, one can claim that the new F35 fighter plane has no innovation in it since the Wright Brothers flown a plane 100 years ago.

So if that is you qualification of innovation, then yes I will give you that, Magico have not found a new way to produce sound. But it sure found many ways to reduce the common issues loudspeakers have. If you are dismissing these facts (see objective data in many publications), this conversation can’t really go anywhere.

...I would be happy to be proven wrong...

You clearly will not be happy to be proven wrong so lets just move on...

 

[LVB]

The purpose of speakers are for playback of music, not the altering of music. If you choose a speaker who's cabinet has audible resonances, that is called distortion

+1

As for materials, it is possible with enough bracing to produce a speaker out of Baltic or Finnish Birch with adequate bracing and panel damping that will have no audible resonances, aluminum isn't required.

Not sure. The structure can be very stiff, but the Young Modulus of birch ply is still much lower than aluminum. There is a reason they don't make airplanes from Birch ply

 

[Face]

Not sure. The structure can be very stiff, but the Young Modulus of birch ply is still much lower than aluminum. There is a reason they don't make airplanes from Birch ply

It probably has something to do with constrained layer birch ply being more suitable for a tank than airplane. FYI, Panzerholz, which is a bit beefier than BB, was used in WWII tanks.

 

[LVB]

It probably has something to do with constrained layer birch ply being more suitable for a tank than airplane. FYI, Panzerholz, which is a bit beefier than BB, was used in WWII tanks.

A good one :rofl: