Steve,
I understand your policy and I don't know PhilipK. But it seems you are particularly paranoid about anybody posting positive comments on Magico.
I remember when I signed up for the first time to share my impressions on my Q1, it didn't take 10 days to get a private email from you stating that my profile was suspicious... I don't know, do you have the same policy with the tons of people posting enthusiastic messages on Wilson? Did you ask the same to Champ04 who is posting enthusiastic statements on all EA products, with technical comparisons against Q1 which don't make any sense?.
Also, did you do anything to mike Lavigne after he sent me a threatening email when I dared posting that I preferred much more my Q1 than the Evolution Acoustics MM3 I had for 4 years before? Did you impose him to disclose the nature of his relationship with Jonathan? Is there anybody naive enough to believe he pays full price on his equipments, 90% coming from Jonathan?
It is good to have forum rules but we should apply them consistently across the board.
It seems to me that Magico being the most innovative player of the past 6 years, a lot of people are targeting them: Wilson fans for fearing that Wilson will lose their leadership. People like Jonathan because it is a cheap marketing strategy to target the industry reference and have unsubstantiated claims that their 3k mdf speaker is better than what a lot of industry insiders consider the best speaker today, the Q7. People who don't have the money to buy a pair of Magico because it makes them feel they are not missing anything.
If you want to have WBF gain more credibility, and allow more civilized discussions, why do you let manufacturers directly targeting products of competitors with negative statement as a way to sell their products? I have been a customer of Jonathan for several years, and am still happily using some of his excellent products (Dartzeel amp), but I have to say that the type of guerrilla marketing he has been using recently is not very inspirational. This doesn't make me willing to spend a lot of time on this website, and a lot of money for the products he distributes... I appreciate when manufacturers talk about their design, where they spent money and what they are trying to achieve... but of course it is much more difficult than bashing competitors.
WBF should be about people sharing their PERSONAL experience about products they listened to or lived with. It is a way for audiophiles to discover new products they never had the chance to hear. I much prefer Magico over Wilson, but I don't post about it because the last time I owned a pair was more than 8 years ago, so my personal experience is not relevant. I post on Magico and on EA, because I owned both, listened to them in the same room, and have therefore a relevant data point for potential buyers. I post on other speakers brands I liked when auditioning at dealers or at shows (Rockport, Giya, TAD...), but I mention it when it was in shows conditions (i.e., not so reliable).
Right now i have a pair of S1 and a pair of Q1. Both of them are vastly superior to the EA MM3 I sold 6mths ago: quality of fabrication, transient, imaging, precision, accurateness of tones. Only criteria on which the EA is superior is of course the lower octave (different driver size!). So I am sorry for people who believe they discovered with the latest EA the magic product who beats it all:
- there is a reason why Magico spends 30 times more on enclosure manufacturing vs. a basic MDF (not including the cost of anodizing finish which I estimate at more than USD1300)
- there is a reason why they use neodymium magnet vs standard ferrite (20 times cheaper)
- there is a reason why they use a beryllium tweeter 4-5 times more expensive than the one of the micro, which looks a lot like a Chinese version of the cheap Mundorf tweeter (around 60USd for the Mundorf one I believe).
- there is a reason why the Mundorf crossover components of the Q1 cost more than the full bill of material of the Micro.
- there is a reason why manufacturing in China costs less than US, and why some companies like Magico don't want to move production in China
- there is a reason why Magico developed their own woofer rather than using a standard Accuton that you can probably source for 4 or 5 times less.
- there is a reason why Magico went from a garage shop to one of the industry leaders in less than 5-7 years. They invest in R&D and in better components, they design the whole speaker by themselves, to get better sound. This costs money.
In my job I do a lot of product tear down for redesign to cost for (big) consumer electronics players. The level of sophistication of Magico designs is crazy expensive, but it translates into better sounds because they don't make compromises. I am ready to bet that Jonathan makes much more margin on a pair of MM3 than Magico on a pair of Q1. Happy to do a tear down if somebody wants to donate his speaker ;-)
Not to say that the Micro is a bad speaker (it is a good one), but there are no miracle. Based on what I heard twice at CES, it competes well with 4-5k speakers (because they sell direct and you are therefore saving on distributor margin). I believe it is better than my 2k pair of Usher Dancer, but that's it. It even doesn't compete with a S1, by far, and whoever disagrees with this statement is welcomed to visit me and bring his micro to do a side by side comparison in my dedicated, fully treated room.
Now it is time to go back to listening to some music...
