I was extremely impressed with the combination Soulution/Magico in Munich. I am currently driving my S5 with a complete set of spectral, and much as I like my set up, I see there are improvements that can be made. I wondered how much of what I've heard at the show was due to Soulution or was it the Q5 I was impressed by. Any thoughts?
Soulution & Magico
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imho it always has to do with the room, the speakers, the electronics, the cables, the isolation devices, the power.....one can change one of these variables and it could either "lock in" or the opposite.
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Stunning speaker when properly driven... Easily one of the best speakers I have yet heard... Did not have me wanting for the Q7... Really waiting for the update.. A re-work on the sensitivity and impedance curve without losing that stunning level of resolution and absence of noise would make of it The speaker to beat. As it is it is fully competitive with several TOL speakers some costing many times more.
Frantz,
Although I would also love to have a Q5 with high efficiency and nice impedance, I find this statement somewhat strange. We have many great SS amplifiers with lots of power costing a fraction of the price of these speakers. Why do you have the desire for higher efficiency and nice impedance? My first answer would be easy - to use it with tubes , but as far as I know it is not your case.
BTW1, although I do believe in the stereo illusion, I do not believe in stereo miracles - do not expect for such update so soon.
BTW2, contrary to what we could expect from the specifications owners of the Q7 report they need very powerful amplifiers.
I don't agree that the Q7 needs powerful amplifiers. 150W into 4 ohms is more than enough. I reckon 50W of tube power should be enough as well.
alexandre
alexandre
Thanks ALexandre. Magico specifies the Q7 as having 94dB/W - I would not expect it to need 150W at 4 ohm. As far as I have been told the DartZeel NH108 (200W at 4 ohm) was not enough for them. IMHO "tube power" can be a misleading concept - we really do not know what it means unless we state the brand and model.
BTW, in my view, more than 100W is a powerful amplifier. YMMV.
You don't NEED 150W, I said it's "more than enough". The 108's 160W @ 4 ohms were more than enough for the Q7, when I heard them both. Played loud too.
alexandre
microstrip
I have heard reports of the Q5 shutting down powerful amps. That would suggest a tortuous impedance curve. Additionally, its sensitivity is very low. Lower than the quoted (and already low) 85 dB, if we remember it is after all a 4 ohms speaker. I would venture 80~82 dB. That is darn low. Too low in my book and IMO one thing that has limited this speaker wider recognition as one of the great out there. Heard Soulution a few years ago and liked what I heard.. I also believe there are competitive and IMO superior less expensive products out there: Spectrral comes to mind but also Bryston whose TOL big monos are the real deal.
As for high power SS amplifiers, it is true that there are these days quality amps out there costing less than the Q5. I tend to think that the Q5 may not play nice with my amplifiers of choice
. I have however not heard them together.
I have heard reports of the Q5 shutting down powerful amps. That would suggest a tortuous impedance curve. Additionally, its sensitivity is very low. Lower than the quoted (and already low) 85 dB, if we remember it is after all a 4 ohms speaker. I would venture 80~82 dB. That is darn low. Too low in my book and IMO one thing that has limited this speaker wider recognition as one of the great out there. Heard Soulution a few years ago and liked what I heard.. I also believe there are competitive and IMO superior less expensive products out there: Spectrral comes to mind but also Bryston whose TOL big monos are the real deal.
As for high power SS amplifiers, it is true that there are these days quality amps out there costing less than the Q5. I tend to think that the Q5 may not play nice with my amplifiers of choice
. I have however not heard them together.microstrip
I have heard reports of the Q5 shutting down powerful amps. That would suggest a tortuous impedance curve. Additionally, its sensitivity is very low. Lower than the quoted (and already low) 85 dB, if we remember it is after all a 4 ohms speaker. I would venture 80~82 dB. That is darn low. Too low in my book and IMO one thing that has limited this speaker wider recognition as one of the great out there. Heard Soulution a few years ago and liked what I heard.. I also believe there are competitive and IMO superior less expensive products out there: Spectrral comes to mind but also Bryston whose TOL big monos are the real deal.
As for high power SS amplifiers, it is true that there are these days quality amps out there costing less than the Q5. I tend to think that the Q5 may not play nice with my amplifiers of choice
According to published measurements the impedance of the Q5 is not too low (less critical than most Wilson's) and measured sensitivity is 84 dB/W. I have owned and re-listened regularly to the great Dynaudio Consequence mk2, that had 83dB/w and 4 ohm impedance. Although they loved power, many 200W amplifiers could sound great with them.
I have to say I do not understand why many people seem to love so much (almost idolize) the Q5 sound and are not prepared to buy them. If it was not for my preference for tubes I would easily have considered them a few times. Unfortunately my dream tube amplifiers - the Audio Research REF750 - heat a lot and have a too high re-tubing cost.
BTW a 6dB/W factor is equivalent to factor of 4 in power. Should we think that there is some magic factor that makes high power amplifiers sound less good than their smaller cousins?
The key phrase here is "PROPERLY DRIVEN." As a q3 owner, I've auditioned the q5 for a possible upgrade. The q5 is superior to the q3 but to enjoy its full potential, everything must be spot on, from the recording down to the spades you choose to terminate your speaker cables! If there's any example of a ruthlessly revealing speaker, this is it. It's my hunch that Wolf and Co realized that not to many audiophiles could live with such unfettered truth, which is why the q3 and to an even greater extent, the S5, have a somewhat gentler nature at the expense of some of that naked transparency the q5 is capable of.
Somewhat is only relative.
I don't know about the Q3 but so far my experience with the S5 is make one change with the speaker and two changes elsewhere in the system.
Cables, connections, SRA, tubes, it's all revealed. I think it's: in part the speaker's revealing nature; in part their ceiling of opportunity; and in part their linearity. That high ceiling of opportunity is in large part a function of the speaker's quietness and settling time. There's just a point with many other speaker where changes cease to result in any further improvement.Somewhat is only relative.
I don't know about the Q3 but so far my experience with the S5 is make one change with the speaker and two changes elsewhere in the system.
+1. My priorities as "audiophile" completely changed once I got the S5 in my system. However, I was very surprised to hear the Q5 to the show. I was not expecting to hear this level of neutrality, control and transparency, especially what I'm used to. Even I did not feel there were issues of "power", and we were playing loud. Spectral is a very good in these departments, but perhaps the Soulution is much better? Or, as some of you are saying is that the speakers ... Also, I noticed this http://magico.net/index/index.php. I cannot find any information about it, does anyone know what it refers to?
This is exactly what happened in Munich. I have witnessed the 711 monoblocks switching off - first one channel, then another. It happened on The Wall album, on the loud bass whacks.
Thankfully, the Q5 replacement is expected this year. At least this is what my dealer have told me.
no 'magic' factor involved.
and the idea that high powered amps sound less good than less powerful amps has some basis....although the reasons that some share that perspective are complicated.
i think that within the same designer's products more powerful = more expensive = better performance. if there are different type circuits from the same designer often the more expensive, less powerful amp, sounds generally better. Lamm is a good example of this....even though you could make a case that the amps sound different.
in fact, i think price is a much larger factor (but certainly not any assurance) on amplifier sound quality than power. and when looking at hard to drive speakers it's more that some amplifier choices are taken off the table that is the issue.
i think many times these perceptions have to do with what people hear at brick and morter dealers or at shows. where big hard to drive speakers are paired with mega amps, and there are simply so many moving parts to those set-ups that they rarely connect to the listener in ways more modestly power amps and more benign speakers can connect when properly set up.....and those systems maybe fit the space better too.
i think that amps with simpler circuits and the best quality build and pieces used sound the best. mostly those minimalist amps are modestly powered, but not always.
there are quite a few very good sounding mega powered amps, but also plenty of decent sounding mega powered amps which don't sound their best when they are really pushed. so a speaker which is a tough load does demand not only lots of power, but also a very 'happy' amp at that high power to succeed. so that tough load speaker that is ultra detailed and knife edged does end up getting extreme reactions since the balance is delicate.
I am not sure you can blame the speakers for this. The Q5 measurements do not indicate a more difficult load then say the Sasha’s but they do go quite low, perhaps the 711, being a bridged amp can’t handle that?
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