Magico M3

PalletFork

New Member
Oct 2, 2016
3
0
0
I would recommend going back when the M3's have a few hundred hours on them. Did the dealer have the wheels or the Mpods set up on the M3s?

Bass is so room/placement dependent, would not be surprised if the dealer just got them in if the set up has not yet been optimized regarding placement.

Evaluating speakers that "that just came in a few days ago" is fun, but is not very meaningful.

They had the mpods on them yes. I didn't know until I arrived that it only came in 48 hours prior. From what I heard that day I would not be convinced to switch speakers but maybe that will change after a month.
 

PeterA

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2011
12,522
10,688
3,515
USA
I was wondering if anyone has had enough experience with the m3 throughout the break in process. The reason I ask is my local dealer just got in a pair in the last few days. From what I heard I was impressed with the resolution,timbre , clarity and speed. What I didn't see was precise imaging, solid sound stage as well as missing bass in below say 40hz ( guesstimating).

Suspect this will resolve as crossovers and drivers get worked in over time , is this the case?

Told the dealer Iwould come back in to give it another shot in a month.

I agree with rvisinta. Break in is likely an issue, but so is placement and proper set up. Imaging, solid sound stage and missing bass are all effected by placement/set up of both the listener and the speakers. Great idea to go back in a month. They will be more broken in and the dealer may have experimented more with the set up.
 

ksalno

Well-Known Member
Mar 29, 2015
71
2
238
I have decided to replace my somewhat problematic Raidho D-3's with Magico M3's. Ordering a new design speaker without an audition or a review was breaking new ground for me. I have to wait until October for delivery. The dealer is helping ease the pain by loaning me a pair of Magico S1 Mk II's. I'm going to pick them up next Saturday. There were some very good conversations on the Magico line of speakers here on this forum. I joined just now to continue the dialogue. Hopefully my experiences with the S1's and the M3's will be of value to other members.

Cincy

I have been looking at options to replace my Raidho XT-3's. I heard the M3's today at RMAF in combination with a pair of QSub15's and all I can say is I've never heard a more natural and life-like speaker. I've only heard the MPro's once and that was not in a great room, so I can't really compare but there were times today when I actually was startled by the sounds coming out of the M3's, they were so realistic that the percussion and canon cracks sounded like they were right in the room. I think the M3 is a speaker I can buy and be happy with for a very long time.
 

cannata

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2014
510
64
263
Italy
I have been looking at options to replace my Raidho XT-3's. I heard the M3's today at RMAF in combination with a pair of QSub15's and all I can say is I've never heard a more natural and life-like speaker. I've only heard the MPro's once and that was not in a great room, so I can't really compare but there were times today when I actually was startled by the sounds coming out of the M3's, they were so realistic that the percussion and canon cracks sounded like they were right in the room. I think the M3 is a speaker I can buy and be happy with for a very long time.

http://www.stereophile.com/content/ja-discovers-great-sound-rmaf

Must have been really good, I do not recall JA giving Magico best sound at any show (I may be wrong, and I apologies in advance, but nothing comes to mind).
 

ksalno

Well-Known Member
Mar 29, 2015
71
2
238
http://www.stereophile.com/content/ja-discovers-great-sound-rmaf

Must have been really good, I do not recall JA giving Magico best sound at any show (I may be wrong, and I apologies in advance, but nothing comes to mind).

JA and his party were sitting in front of me in the Magico room. I didn't know it at the time. I figured it was a reviewer and photographer from some magazine but I didn't know which one or who. When I read his review I knew it must have been him because I recognized all of the tracks he mentions.
 

stevelgbch

New Member
Aug 18, 2013
29
1
3
Long Beach, CA
I would recommend going back when the M3's have a few hundred hours on them. Did the dealer have the wheels or the Mpods set up on the M3s?

Bass is so room/placement dependent, would not be surprised if the dealer just got them in if the set up has not yet been optimized regarding placement.

Evaluating speakers that "that just came in a few days ago" is fun, but is not very meaningful.

I just listened to the M3's. Wow! I've almost always thought my system at home was about the best I've heard anywhere. I have Magico Q3's. The the new speakers are lustful with the right equipment and room. My room is not that great, the equipment very good. BUT, they are VERY EXPENSIVE! What I was wondering is can I get along without the M-Pod feet for the time being? That saves about $10 grand for now. But will I lose the "magic"? Would be dipping into retirement savings, but darnit I'm worth it.

So are the M-Pod feet absolutely necessary, or can I put off buying them later or when I win Powerball?
 

Cincy2

VIP/Donor
Jun 2, 2016
116
183
220
Tampa, Florida
My M3's are in place and singing. I wanted to share a few thoughts on them. First.... a huge thanks to Mike B at Suncoast Audio in Bradenton Florida for the assistance he provided in getting these into the house and set up properly. Changing speaker brands is as stressful as divorce and remarriage...maybe more so. While I was waiting for the M3's Mike lent me his S1s for three months to keep me occupied during the build process. This act went above and beyond the call of duty and the generosity is unmatched by any dealer in my 25 years with this obsession. Having that experience made the exchange of massive amounts of coin of the realm for M3's much easier to endure. I developed faith in the Magico brand and their marketing and grew excited to hear the M3's after the extremely positive experience with Magico's "entry level" model.

Packing. Each speaker comes in its own crate standing upright. One side of the crate converts to a ramp to permit the speaker, when it's restraints are removed, to be wheeled off the elevated platform. From there it is an easy trip to the music room where the wheels are removed and replaced with Mpods. This is a three person task. Two to tip and hold the speaker and the third to manipulate the wheels / Mpods. We managed to get this done without any medical or pharmaceutical assistance. Very cleverly thought out packaging. If they got this right, what about the speakers?

The S1Mk2s are a sealed design and were easy to place in my room. They threw a wide and deep soundstage once I got the wall treatments right. The trebles were rich, saturated and natural. Bass was tight and substantial for a single driver speaker. They amazed me. I went to the Magico plant and listened to the M3's in their room. They were impressive but there are so many variables you just never know until they are in your room with your front end and cables and your butt is in the sweet spot.

Right from the first track I could hear the improvements over the S1. The S1 trebles that I already loved were more relaxed and dense from the M3's. The percussion on several tracks was more lifelike (a feat believe me). One track from a Mapleshade Redbook file with a harmonica and "bones" was so startlingly realistic I got chills. My xylophone jazz tracks and solo piano defined "percussion" instrument. Bass heavy tracks produced more bass volume than the S1's but it was not intrusive or out of context with the rest of the presentation. I know the "correct" volume for my critical listening tracks and I had to crank it down for the M3's. Very efficient design.

Soundstage: Even wider (I didn't think that was possible) than the S1's. Where the S1's appeared to be wider than the speaker placement, the M3 stage appeared to me to be wider than the room boundaries. The individual images (voice or instrument) had more air around them and were larger within the soundstage than the S1 presentation. I heard that in Magico's room at their factory when I visited which was understandable in a room the size of a warehouse. I wasn't expecting it in my 14 X 19 foot room. Very nice.

Bottom line. Best speaker I've owned by a mile. They are fullly up to the task of handling my front end and amps. A lot of the credit for the rich sounding presentation goes to the D'Agostino amps. The speakers perform nicely by getting out of the way. There were times with my previous ported speakers where I was ready to give up the hobby forever I was so discouraged. Not any more my friends.



Cincy
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0448.jpg
    IMG_0448.jpg
    134 KB · Views: 1,180
  • IMG_0810.JPG
    IMG_0810.JPG
    789.7 KB · Views: 1,697
  • IMG_0813.JPG
    IMG_0813.JPG
    670 KB · Views: 1,212
  • IMG_0816.JPG
    IMG_0816.JPG
    685.5 KB · Views: 1,185

Elberoth

Member Sponsor
Dec 15, 2012
2,007
253
1,170
Poland
Wow, congrats !

I'm lusting over the M3s as well ... oh well, maybe some day :)
 

Cincy2

VIP/Donor
Jun 2, 2016
116
183
220
Tampa, Florida
Voicing the M3's in my room.

I’ve just had the very pleasurable experience of having Jim Smith of “Get Better Sound” voice my room with my new Magico M3’s. It was a long day! The first question to answer is why hire someone else to do this. The answer is simple for me. I consider my music to be a very personal hobby. I don’t go to audio shows. I don’t have audio buddies. I have one chair in my room. Therefore the only reference I have for what constitutes good sound is whatever system I had before I upgraded. Without a knowledgeable outside party to evaluate the total room/system performance in absolute vs relative terms, I would never know if my current system and setup had achieved its full potential.

Enter Jim Smith. Career audio subject matter expert and great guy. I’m not knowledgeable enough to describe everything he does and the logic/technology behind it. He has done that elsewhere himself on audio forums and in his books/DVD’s. What I can do is recap his basic process in layman’s terms.

1. Evaluate the starting system / room for an hour or so using Jim’s sound files
2. The next day, utilize a portable Real Time Analyzer and pink noise track to graph the room response and find the peaks and nulls with emphasis on the bass.
3. Adjust the listening chair fore and aft to maximize flatness across the band particularly in the bass register. (Compromises had to be made. More on that later). Evaluate with music tracks. Adjust and repeat as necessary
4. Breakout the lasers. Find room center. Move the speakers to roughly Jim’s desired position based on his experience and the listening we had done the previous night. Likewise adjust the speaker toe in. Play music. Adjust. Repeat (many times). Measurements are made to the 32nd of an inch!
5. Tweak the room treatments for diffusion / absorption and position to take care of sidewall reflections and related issues. Test with music again. Adjust. Repeat.
6. Check all measurements one more time to insure nothing has changed.

When the process above was completed we had made the following changes to my set up: The speakers were moved almost two feet further into the room (19’ L x 14’ W x 10” H). My chair went back about a foot and a half towards the rear wall. We made multiple minor adjustments to the speaker distance from room center and speaker toe in until we had a fairly flat response between 40Hz and 20KHz. The very bottom end would not give up a 20-25dB suckout between 20 and 40 Hz no matter what we did. Jim optimized the rest of the spectrum and left the low, low end problem to be solved by me with a set of subwoofers at a later date.

At the end of the session, Jim let me listen to some of his evaluation tracks from the sweet spot. All I can say is that after starting this process with sound I thought was the best I had ever experienced, I heard things I didn’t think possible from two channel stereo. Deep, deep, did I say DEEP soundstage. Black Hole kind of dense mid-range for instruments and voices. Hubble Space Telescope type precise images for percussion and voice. Quark size, subtle dynamic changes. On one jaw dropping track of his, I heard sounds positioned a few feet on either side of my shoulders. How is that even possible???

Bottom Line: I’m a happy camper. I can confirm the consensus that a session with Jim is the best value in audio today. Anyone can move speakers and chairs. Jim uses his data and his years of experience to determine how much and when to stop. And that has made all the difference.
 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,351
2,730
1,400
Amsterdam holland
Good job . sounds like a good mix of listening and measuring ;)
I d think its very worth while considering the cost of the components and capability off the speakers , plus its nice to see on a graph what your hearing FR wise.
I think its a big step up from the raidhos plus i suppose you have quite a bit more bass weight /extension , dont know which ones you had, ah okay D3 , not to impressed by raidho personally.
Still i dont think ported/not ported is to blame but implementation both can sound good /tight
 
Last edited:

PeterA

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2011
12,522
10,688
3,515
USA
Congratulations Cincy2. That sounds very similar to what Jim Smith did for my Magico speakers and room. The results were tremendous, and it was a lot of fun. I really learned a lot from Jim. Out of curiosity, did the Magico dealer spend any time with set up, or did he prefer to wait until the speakers were broken in? You have a great looking room and I'm sure the system is sounding incredible.

Could you discuss a bit more about the three specific sonic characteristics that Jim focuses on, namely Dynamics, Tone, and Presence? How did they change or improve after Jim's visit? And did you discuss with him the type of subwoofer to try. One, multiple, powered, brand, size, etc.
 

microstrip

VIP/Donor
May 30, 2010
20,806
4,698
2,790
Portugal
Did Jim find any explanation for the suckout between 20 and 40 Hz? It looks like a complete octave in the low bass, not just an isolated dip.
 

andromedaaudio

VIP/Donor
Jan 23, 2011
8,351
2,730
1,400
Amsterdam holland
The M3 magicos probably cut off at around 40 hz what you get from there is just a lower spls , magicos usually dont go that deep imo, and from such size( m 3 ) membranes you cant expect a flat to 20 hz spl
 

microstrip

VIP/Donor
May 30, 2010
20,806
4,698
2,790
Portugal
The M3 magicos probably cut off at around 40 hz what you get from there is just a lower spls , magicos usually dont go that deep imo, and from such size( m 3 ) membranes you cant expect a flat to 20 hz spl

Even the S5 had an anechoic response of 30 Hz at -6B. IMHO the M3 should be better in room. Usually in order to be 20-25dB down at 40 Hz in room the cut off should be higher. I have listened to the M3 in a large room and it did not sound like a mini-monitor at all!
 

PeterA

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2011
12,522
10,688
3,515
USA
Even the S5 had an anechoic response of 30 Hz at -6B. IMHO the M3 should be better in room. Usually in order to be 20-25dB down at 40 Hz in room the cut off should be higher. I have listened to the M3 in a large room and it did not sound like a mini-monitor at all!

microstrip, did the M3 sound as coherent as a mini-monitor can sound? How would you describe it's sound relative to the Mini II or other monitors you know?
 

cannata

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2014
510
64
263
Italy
Even the S5 had an anechoic response of 30 Hz at -6B. IMHO the M3 should be better in room. Usually in order to be 20-25dB down at 40 Hz in room the cut off should be higher. I have listened to the M3 in a large room and it did not sound like a mini-monitor at all!

This is a room mode, just do math on his room size, it has nothing to do with the speakers...
 

microstrip

VIP/Donor
May 30, 2010
20,806
4,698
2,790
Portugal
This is a room mode, just do math on his room size, it has nothing to do with the speakers...

I have done room math and measurements very often. :) This room is of good size 19 feet (5.7m) and could normally have response down to 30 Hz. I had a similar lenght room and could get it easily with other speakers. There are many possible reasons for this behavior, it is why I asked. We like to learn from the experts and Jim Smith is one of them!
 

microstrip

VIP/Donor
May 30, 2010
20,806
4,698
2,790
Portugal
microstrip, did the M3 sound as coherent as a mini-monitor can sound? How would you describe it's sound relative to the Mini II or other monitors you know?

Unfortunately it was a speaker just taken from the box, but is sounded very clean, coherent and detailed. Less warm and full than the Mini II, surely. I hope to re-listen with more time and less people, using my usual reference recordings at a new session in January, as well as listening also to an M-Pro system.
 

cannata

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2014
510
64
263
Italy
I have done room math and measurements very often. :) This room is of good size 19 feet (5.7m) and could normally have response down to the 30 Hz. I had a similar lenght room and could get it easily with other speakers. There are many possible reasons for this behavior, it is why I asked. We like to learn from the experts and Jim Smith is one of them!

I know you have done everything, so you must also know that it is the relationship between the room dim. not the room size that will give you the modes ( you need a bonafide expert expert to tell you that ;) ).
in a 14X19X10 room, seating in a reasonable listening position, you will have a big suck-out between ~30hz-60hz. All rooms have their issues, this may or may not impact SQ depending on many other factors. These issues are a good argument for subs...
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing