New Magico speakers arriving 04/2015!

Mike said:
When they start making violins, guitars, pianos, etc. out of aluminum and carbon fiber, you will have my attention with these new materials. It's the resonances which give the music it's richness and as I like to say, soul. It's like comparing an electric keyboard to a Steinway. Some prefer the electric keyboard because it can do more and make different sounds. Others prefer the Steinway because of its natural sound and beauty.


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I'm affraid that does not make sense Mike.

Wood, brass, steal, ivory etc are used to create a particular resonance to give the instrument its sound. A loudspeaker is not supposed to have sound of its own.

Or are you saying that wooden speakers can only make wooden guitars sound great but do a poor job at reproducing steal guitars.

Comparing the cabinets of musical intruments to the cabinets of loudspeakers, makes zero sense to me.
 
Mike said:
When they start making violins, guitars, pianos, etc. out of aluminum and carbon fiber, you will have my attention with these new materials. It's the resonances which give the music it's richness and as I like to say, soul. It's like comparing an electric keyboard to a Steinway. Some prefer the electric keyboard because it can do more and make different sounds. Others prefer the Steinway because of its natural sound and beauty.


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Why would you want to add resonances to resonances? I thought that's what the original recording was supposed to capture? Wouldn't that be editorializing?
 
LVB said:
Ok, I will give it a try.
A lot was written about the pros and cons of sealed vs, ported. The bottom line is that all things equal, the tradeoff of a sealed design can be mitigated (bigger amp for efficiency).
The trade off of a ported design cannot be mitigated (higher group delay, port noise, linearity). If all is equal, a sealed design will extend lower, will be more linear and most important, will have less group delay, but it will be less efficient (get a bigger amp).
Not sure what Magico is doing with CF on the enclosure, but if it is similar to what WB are doing, it is indeed a good way to build an enclosure. It is not just CF, it is a sandwich design that is extremely stiff, and well damped. CF skin, on some sort of high density foam. The Airbus A380 is built like that.

According to Magico, it is 5 micron diamond deposit on beryllium so weight is not an issue. It is not a pure diamond tweeter which will be very heavy.

I did not claim that Magico has the secret sauce, and I will not argue their sound merits, people like what they like (look at the different reports from Axpona on the same speakers - go figure). But when it comes to technology I think that they are ahead of the curve, surely not trailing anyone I know.
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LVB, These are all good points. I would add that each Magico M Project weighs 400 lbs so the carbon fiber side panels were not used to make a light weight speaker. I think there is also an aluminum frame and perhaps panel underneath the CF sides. I've helped to move a pair of these speakers. The are not that large, but they are really heavy. Mass is certainly part of the design.

Yes, the diamond dust deposit is so thin as to not add much mass to the beryllium tweeter. Magico is not the only company doing serious research and development, but considering that they are only ten years old, their design and manufacturing efforts to date are pretty incredible. Just look at Jeff Fritze' factory tour photographs. They have an incredible production facility.

Mep can refer to me as a fanboy if he wants. It won't bother me a bit.
 
Mike said:
When they start making violins, guitars, pianos, etc. out of aluminum and carbon fiber, you will have my attention with these new materials. It's the resonances which give the music it's richness and as I like to say, soul. It's like comparing an electric keyboard to a Steinway. Some prefer the electric keyboard because it can do more and make different sounds. Others prefer the Steinway because of its natural sound and beauty.


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Mike,

This is why your Stradivari speakers are still world beaters after 10 years in production. Because they are designed to play like a Stradivarius Cello and embrace resonances rather than eliminate them.

Ken
 
asiufy said:
I used to think exactly like that!
But a violin is designed to RESONATE. It's SUPPOSED to. So it needs the material it's made of to cooperate, and resonate accordingly. Same for guitar, pianos, etc.
A speaker, OTOH, it's supposed to be neutral, and avoid distorting the signal, as much as possible. So, NOT RESONATE. Or at least that's the way I see them :)
I completely understand people (like MDP) that prefer the sound of wooden speakers. I also understand it's possible to get distortion on such a speaker down to very low levels.
I just think that a neutral speaker transmits more of the music (TO ME!), and allows downstream components to impose their sound, if necessary. Now, if the speaker itself is coloured, what hope do you have to judge components?


alexandre
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I was about to write something similar and then I came upon your post. I fully agree. Tannoy, which uses wooden speaker enclosures, goes to great lengths to reduce resonances in their designs. Obviously, Wilson, Magico, YG and Rockport do also.

Resonating speaker enclosures, of whatever material, add distortion and colorations to the reproduction of music. Wooden instruments, on the other hand, resonate precisely in order to create sound and tone. Musical instruments and speakers are asked to do completely different tasks.
 
Mark Jones said:
I'm affraid that does not make sense Mike.

Wood, brass, steal, ivory etc are used to create a particular resonance to give the instrument its sound. A loudspeaker is not supposed to have sound of its own.

Or are you saying that wooden speakers can only make wooden guitars sound great but do a poor job at reproducing steal guitars.

Comparing the cabinets of musical intruments to the cabinets of loudspeakers, makes zero sense to me.
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The speaker is an extension of the music. It is a tool to reproduce the music with the subtle nuances which give it soul and make us believe we are listening to a live performance and not some man made contraption. There are sonic traits, subtle sonic characteristics which cannot be properly transmitted or properly conveyed with all these man made metallic materials. You may hear it, but you will not feel it in your soul. There is no emotion. No passion. There is only left brain listening.

Just like a Violin is made of wood to deliver pleasurable resonances and become part of its sound, a speaker needs to breath and not be chocked to death by aluminum and similar materials. Why don't we see aluminum violins?

It's a fine line between controlling BAD resonances which negatively affect the sound and allowing some resonances so the speaker can ebb and flow with the music. Harbeth is a perfect example of tuning the cabinet to match the speaker. It is the opposite approach of all this aluminum/metal/carbon fiber approach.

One only needed to go between the EXACT SAME SIZED rooms this weekend which were only a couple of doors down from one another: Sonus Faber Lilium and Magico Q7. The difference was startling. One pulled you into the music. You could not only hear Neil Young's guitar, you could feel it. On the Q7's, you heard it, but felt nothing.

The left brain is the dominant side of the brain and convinces the right side of the brain that measurements, man made materials, yada, yada, yada are better. But when you let the right brain take over, you then, and only then, begin to become emotionally engaged in the music. You reach a whole new level of attachment to the emotion of the music. And with any luck, your left brain will help you understand why.
 
Alpinist said:
Mike,

This is why your Stradivari speakers are still world beaters after 10 years in production. Because they are designed to play like a Stradivarius Cello and embrace resonances rather than eliminate them.

Ken
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Exactly.
 
PeterA said:
I was about to write something similar and then I came upon your post. I fully agree. Tannoy, which uses wooden speaker enclosures, goes to great lengths to reduce resonances in their designs. Obviously, Wilson, Magico, YG and Rockport do also.

Resonating speaker enclosures, of whatever material, add distortion and colorations to the reproduction of music. Wooden instruments, on the other hand, resonate precisely in order to create sound and tone. Musical instruments and speakers are asked to do completely different tasks.
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Its not coloration, its a proper conveyance of the subtle nuances of the music. The soul of the sound.
 
I know it doesn't make logical sense, but I actually like some designs that utilize resonance. Why? Because Harbeth and Totem Acoustic.
 
PeterA said:
LVB, These are all good points. I would add that each Magico M Project weighs 400 lbs so the carbon fiber side panels were not used to make a light weight speaker. I think there is also an aluminum frame and perhaps panel underneath the CF sides. I've helped to move a pair of these speakers. The are not that large, but they are really heavy. Mass is certainly part of the design.

Yes, the diamond dust deposit is so thin as to not add much mass to the beryllium tweeter. Magico is not the only company doing serious research and development, but considering that they are only ten years old, their design and manufacturing efforts to date are pretty incredible. Just look at Jeff Fritze' factory tour photographs. They have an incredible production facility.

Mep can refer to me as a fanboy if he wants. It won't bother me a bit.
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Peter...it's eminently reasonable and actually perfectly ok to be a fan boy of a particular brand or company and to have pride of ownership in the wares of a premium quality producer of high-end audio gear, which Magico clearly is. It's eminently unreasonable to state that Magico is the only speaker company that is doing anything innovative and the only company that is at the cutting edge of audio engineering and that consumers of all other high-end speaker brands are being duped and paying premium prices for technologies that have been around for ages (like soft dome tweeters, aluminum drivers and wood enclosures etc...), which is what LVB was initially stating. Here is his quote:

There is no comparison between Magico level of technology then just about any other company in the high-end today. The only one that comes close will be Vivid, but with a much inferior enclosure. It is a shame consumers don’t seem to have enough understanding of these products and their merits to really understand what is real development and what is just smoke screens. Machining cones out of aluminum, using silk dome tweeters is VERY low tech, BTW (no matter what kind of fancy name you give it).
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And further he nonsensically states:

Most “mid-fi” companies like Ravel (Harman) and Paradigm have more technology in them then most high-end loudspeakers. However, since they are built to a very “controlled” price point, their execution leaves a lot to be desired (cheap materials and components, crapy cabinets, etc). The results can vary. Magico is the only company that I can think of that actually do have real engineering, real manufacturing and no, or minimal, price constrains. It is a unique proposition, and in my opinion the reason to their success.
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Wow. There's fan boy drinking the cool aid and then there's LVB who's lost the plot completely and reads Magico's press copy and surmises that every other speaker manufacturer is a sham, utilizing old and tired technology and charging premium prices for it, and Magico is the only that has real engineering, i.e., cutting edge technology.

I see he then amended his comments in a subsequent comment where he said:

I did not claim that Magico has the secret sauce, and I will not argue their sound merits, people like what they like (look at the different reports from Axpona on the same speakers - go figure). But when it comes to technology I think that they are ahead of the curve, surely not trailing anyone I know.
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Still drinking the cool aid but there is a subtle shift in his point. Not quite as dismissive of other high-end speaker companies and the consumers who buy their products but of course Magico still reigns supreme. I am ok with a person having that view point by the way. I am not ok with saying that none of the competing high-end speaker companies are doing anything cutting edge with driver technology, speaker enclosures, crossover networks, etc...because that is factually flat out wrong. From the top of my head I would say that companies like Raidho, TAD, Rockport, YG, Wilson, Sonus Faber, Focal, Kharma, KEF, Audio Physics, Ascendo, Steinheim, Zellaton, Evolution Acoustics, Revel, Tidal, etc...have all pushed the envelope on one or more aspect of speaker design and continue to do so based on core principles of engineering excellence, innovation, and a fanatical pursuit of quality production.

Anyhoo, it's all good. It's good to be passionate about the brands you own. I have no problem with that. But when you have to tear everybody else down to feel good about yourself, that's when it gets a bit sad. That's the only point I was trying to make. Had LVB just continued on praising Magico and Alon to his heart's content without adding in the dismissive and quite inaccurate remarks about all the other competing high-end speaker brands, than I would have never chimed in.
 
Mike said:
Its not coloration, its a proper conveyance of the subtle nuances of the music. The soul of the sound.
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My understanding is firstly, the musicians instruments create the tone and texture. Then it is the the job of the recording engineer to record and master the music faithfully onto a disc or HD file. Likewise, the ultimate reference speakers aim for neutral and to lower distortion as close to zero as possible to portray the live event as faithfully as possible. I understand SF and other manufacturers have a different point of view (which is fine). Personally I would rather use my amps, front end and cables to tune my system to my taste. It's just a different philosophy.
 
asiufy said:
I used to think exactly like that!
But a violin is designed to RESONATE. It's SUPPOSED to. So it needs the material it's made of to cooperate, and resonate accordingly. Same for guitar, pianos, etc.
A speaker, OTOH, it's supposed to be neutral, and avoid distorting the signal, as much as possible. So, NOT RESONATE. Or at least that's the way I see them :)
I completely understand people (like MDP) that prefer the sound of wooden speakers. I also understand it's possible to get distortion on such a speaker down to very low levels.
I just think that a neutral speaker transmits more of the music (TO ME!), and allows downstream components to impose their sound, if necessary. Now, if the speaker itself is coloured, what hope do you have to judge components?


alexandre
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I do agree , unfortunately each material has its own resonance and tone, this tone will be noticed differently from listener to listener , it's what appeals to their listening experience, in otherwards there is no best material, it's mostly about implementation , personally i don't care for the sound of alloy materials and alloy is not new for speakers , the first time i saw an enclosure made from aluminum was in the 70's , Solid marble i have seen also , inert..?

Aluminum changes tremendously with temp, so Alon stating 24 hrs to stabalize to room temp is believable, the speaker sonics will change with room temp, so I'm not surprised of the varying comments about the same setup of magico speakers at different times..

Some get rid of the box coloration all together ..... :)


Regards...
 
In these types of discussions it helps to remember exactly what a speaker, not driver, does. By speaker, I mean the entire box holding the drivers, crossover, and associated wiring. The driver is what makes the sound, and it does that by vibrating to an electrical signal. In the ideal speaker, only a driver vibrates for the signal, but we don't yet live in an ideal world. So, in many (all?) speakers when one driver vibrates, the other drivers vibrate, the crossover vibrates, and the speaker cabinet vibrates. All of these extraneous vibrations are distortion, and depending on the degree of vibration, will color the sound. While some might prefer this distortion, others don't. This is where Magico, and others, are putting their research to work.

When I was last at Magico I was looking at a Q7 being built, and it is incredibly complex and massive at 800 pounds. All this work is to eliminate those extraneous vibrations, and only let the correct driver vibrate. I would guess they use aluminum because it has the mechanical qualities they desire, but isn't out of the world expensive.

While there I asked why don't you take a solid slab of aluminum, just add a hole big enough for driver, and then you can get rid of all the bracing. It turns out that the open space behind the driver has to be the right size, and tuned to the driver for the driver to properly operate. I didn't know that, but then I realized how useful CAD software and measurements are now necessary for good speaker design.

This is the technology I see making a big difference between different manufacturers. Magico really seems to have embraced it, and I suspect this is how they have managed to create so many good speakers in a short time frame.
 
cmalak said:
From the top of my head I would say that companies like Raidho, TAD, Rockport, YG, Wilson, Sonus Faber, Focal, Kharma, KEF, Audio Physics, Ascendo, Steinheim, Zellaton, Evolution Acoustics, Revel, Tidal, etc...have all pushed the envelope on one or more aspect of speaker design and continue to do so based on core principles of engineering excellence, innovation, and a fanatical pursuit of quality production.
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Cyril, that's quite a who's who in the zoo! Yes, to greater and lesser degrees the above companies are pushing the envelope. Personally I just like the combination of qualities and value Magico are delivering, escpecially in the S series. The S5's were the most 'complete' speakers I found when I was looking at options, whereas many of the companies you mentioned do one or two things really well, but not all, or are too expensive. I suspect access to Dealers and pricing play a major part, as they did in my case.
 
Mike said:
Why don't we see aluminum violins?
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Lack of audible resonance and weight are just too reasons. Perhaps an ultra thin skin aluminum violin could make some sound. Some people think Harbath sound real, others prefer Magico.
 
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