Magico M9 vs. Magico Ultimate 3 Horn- Box vs. Horn! Which will be better? In which ways?

[morricab]

I have heard Meridian LINN Grimm and a whole lot of digital others at the last show and at dealers .
Afaic its a dead end digital road , unless A wolf has pulled of the impossible with his horn .
It looks well made id give him that

Don’t those all have built in class D amps? If you use high end outboard DACs and amps then a digital crossover works very well and can get a fantastic sound.

 

[Audire]

The M9 is the Magico flagship. The Ultimate was designed 10+ years ago and has not been in production now for 5+ years.

Both still flagships in my book; one current and the other decommissioned.

 

[morricab]

Physical time alignment is done by the dealer installing all of the top of the line Wilson speakers. It would just have been part of the installation process for the Ultimates like it is done for the similar priced WAMM and XVX. When I saw that Magico was using a digital crossover, I realized that this wasn't a serious product for the market, just a one off.

And yet no Stereophile measurement of a Wilson has actually demonstrated time coherence based on the step function test like a Vandersteen or Thiel. With Wilson, sorry to say, it’s marketing BS. A digital time alignment is very accurate done correctly.

 

[morricab]

On your side of the Atlantic I would listen to Cessero and Tune horns.

Neither of which are likely to be time coherent.

 

[morricab]

On your side of the Atlantic I would listen to Cessero and Tune horns.

Only the Aries Cerat Symphonia is mechanically time aligned AND uses the right kind of crossover to achieve time coherence AFAIK in a commercial horn with passive xover.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Only the Aries Cerat Symphonia is mechanically time aligned AND uses the right kind of crossover to achieve time coherence AFAIK in a commercial horn with passive xover.

Brad - how is the Symphonia’s 3.3 metre long mid bass horn (the one with the back loaded Fostex) mechanically time aligned with the mid horn and treble horn?

 

[microstrip]

And yet no Stereophile measurement of a Wilson has actually demonstrated time coherence based on the step function test like a Vandersteen or Thiel. With Wilson, sorry to say, it’s marketing BS. A digital time alignment is very accurate done correctly.

It is curious that people who do not care about Stereophile reviews make such abusive and insulting claim. I quote from the XLF review:

"In the time domain, the Alexandria XLF's step response at the listening position (fig.8) indicates that the tweeter and woofers are connected in positive acoustic polarity, the midrange units in inverted polarity. However, the decay of the tweeter's step smoothly blends into the start of the midrange units' step, and the decay of the midrange units' step smoothly blends into the start of the woofers' step. This indicates optimal crossover design, which, in combination with the adjustable geometry of the upper-frequency drivers, will give the smooth blending of the drive-unit outputs in the frequency domain claimed for the Aspherical Group Delay technology."

Surely no Stereophile test can show the time domain claims of Wilson Audio - John Atkinson clearly explains the limitations of the used methods in great detail in an article entitled "Measuring Loudspeakers - Part II" that is availabe in full online at their site. I have tried measuring it using an amateur technique including a delay in one channel and a nul technique, just at the tweeter crossover frequency, and it was spot on.

Anyone can disagree with the subjective importance of the Wilson Audio time domain claims, but if you want to accuse them of false technical claims, please substantiate your words with proper data. Thousands of happy Wilson Audio users get great enjoyment from their speakers and confirm the importance of precise time alignement and setup of their speakers, some are frequent WBF posters.



.

 

[cannata]

Anyone can disagree with the subjective importance of the Wilson Audio time domain claims, but if you want to accuse them of false technical claims, please substantiate your words with proper data...

I think he just did.
Perhaps it is Wilson who should provide any technical proof to their imaginary claims.

 

[microstrip]

I think he just did.
Perhaps it is Wilson who should provide any technical proof to their imaginary claims.

Yes, we know Wilson Audio owners have a great imagination ...

High-end speaker manufacturers such as Wilson or Magico supply minimal technical information to the users. Large speaker measurements can be very misleading, depend a lot on the measuring techniques and very few prospective buyers could use it properly.

 

[cannata]

Yes, we know Wilson Audio owners have a great imagination ...

High-end speaker manufacturers such as Wilson or Magico supply minimal technical information to the users. Large speaker measurements can be very misleading, depend a lot on the measuring techniques and very few prospective buyers could use it properly.

Maybe, but I don’t think I have seen any independent measurements of any speaker manufacturers so sharply contradicts its marketing slogans.

 

[Cableman]

Maybe, but I don’t think I have seen any independent measurements of any speaker manufacturers so sharply contradicts its marketing slogans.

Isn’t checking the manufacturers claims the job of the mags. Oh wait. Think of the potential advertising losses

 

[morricab]

It is curious that people who do not care about Stereophile reviews make such abusive and insulting claim. I quote from the XLF review:

"In the time domain, the Alexandria XLF's step response at the listening position (fig.8) indicates that the tweeter and woofers are connected in positive acoustic polarity, the midrange units in inverted polarity. However, the decay of the tweeter's step smoothly blends into the start of the midrange units' step, and the decay of the midrange units' step smoothly blends into the start of the woofers' step. This indicates optimal crossover design, which, in combination with the adjustable geometry of the upper-frequency drivers, will give the smooth blending of the drive-unit outputs in the frequency domain claimed for the Aspherical Group Delay technology."

Surely no Stereophile test can show the time domain claims of Wilson Audio - John Atkinson clearly explains the limitations of the used methods in great detail in an article entitled "Measuring Loudspeakers - Part II" that is availabe in full online at their site. I have tried measuring it using an amateur technique including a delay in one channel and a nul technique, just at the tweeter crossover frequency, and it was spot on.

Anyone can disagree with the subjective importance of the Wilson Audio time domain claims, but if you want to accuse them of false technical claims, please substantiate your words with proper data. Thousands of happy Wilson Audio users get great enjoyment from their speakers and confirm the importance of precise time alignement and setup of their speakers, some are frequent WBF posters.



.

The step response shows it all, micro. If the speaker is truly time coherent it will make a triangle shape on the step response. Drivers moving in opposite directions (a positive impulse from the tweeter, a negative one from the midrange and a positive one from the woofer) is not time coherent...they are out of phase even if they are mechanically aligned correctly, meaning the sound arrival is not time coherent.

Here is an example of one that is time coherent:

Vandersteen Audio Treo loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

Please note that JA plays with words between 'time coherent" and "time coincident". What most of us would call time coherent is what JA is calling time coincident, i.e. all sounds arriving at the same time. He covers Wilsons butt with this wordplay.

 

[morricab]

Brad - how is the Symphonia’s 3.3 metre long mid bass horn (the one with the back loaded Fostex) mechanically time aligned with the mid horn and treble horn?

I would defer to Stavros how he accomplishes this...I honestly don't know as I have never dissected one and not received a detailed explanation of how he achieves it.

"Filter design.​

The external crossover, consists of three constant group delay filters. A constant group delay filter, is our own proprietary design, which alters the attenuation slopes of the driver filters, to shape the phase(and doing so the GD)in such a way ,as to provide maximum GD linearity.
Using this specific filter technology to the physically time aligned horns, the Symphonia speaker present time domain performance which is near perfect, and a frequency response with a maximum deviation of +-0.5db (250Hz-20KHz)."

Maybe Stavros could join in and explain?

 

[Carlos269]

Carlos,
You are clearly a collector of "stuff" but have failed to put together a compelling system that anyone on this forum has heard. Frankly, I don't know if anyone could fit into that disaster you call a room.

Now you make claims that although the vast amount of audiophiles has disdain for digital crossovers, they are somehow superior.

I have not interest in any of your ideas or the garage sale you call your audio room.

Good luck.

Don’t let your lust of my “garage sale stuff” get to you. Your silence is deafening.

 

[jeff1225]

Don’t let your lust of my “garage sale stuff” get to you. Your silence is deafening.

Carlos,
It's clear we have different need states for this hobby. Your need is to accumulate various audio trinkets and play around with them. Good for you. Set up, room and system optimization will never be achieved by this method of audio enthusiasm. Of course you need a digital crossover to get anything resembling a coherent sound in that warehouse of trinkets. Of course you listen to digital, you could never set up and optimize an analog system in that "room."

You're obviously looking to debate with me, but if you've ever been on a debate team you would have realized that you opened "extreme." ie you laid out such a preposterous argument, no further debate is necessary.

Enjoy your MP3's and your warehouse of audio trinkets. All further communication will be ignored.

 

[Carlos269]

Carlos,
It's clear we have different need states for this hobby. Your need is to accumulate various audio trinkets and play around with them. Good for you. Set up, room and system optimization will never be achieved by this method of audio enthusiasm. Of course you need a digital crossover to get anything resembling a coherent sound in that warehouse of trinkets. Of course you listen to digital, you could never set up and optimize an analog system in that "room."

You're obviously looking to debate with me, but if you've ever been on a debate team you would have realized that you opened "extreme." ie you laid out such a preposterous argument, no further debate is necessary.

Enjoy your MP3's and your warehouse of audio trinkets. All further communication will be ignored.

Somehow I was under the impression that we were discussing digital versus analog crossovers. Don’t run away, show us what you have to contribute on this topic. It is very telling how you have deflected from the subject at hand. It is pretty obvious who doesn’t bring anything to the table. I will be interested in your future postings to see what you have to say, not on this threads but on others. See you soon.

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . You can physically time align the horns but this would need to be done on location based on the listening position and the driver and horn movements would have to be indexed and calibrated.

This is exactly what Ralph of Cessaro Acoustics does for his customers in their homes. (I acknowledge that Ralph sometimes uses DSP for subwoofer integration.)

I agree wholeheartedly with MikeL's post: as an analog purest I don't want the whole single converted to digital. For me it's as simple as that.

I totally respect the pro-digital crossover contrasting view. Different audiophiles have different philosophies and different objectives, and different ways to achieve those objectives.

 

[microstrip]

The step response shows it all, micro. If the speaker is truly time coherent it will make a triangle shape on the step response. Drivers moving in opposite directions (a positive impulse from the tweeter, a negative one from the midrange and a positive one from the woofer) is not time coherent...they are out of phase even if they are mechanically aligned correctly, meaning the sound arrival is not time coherent.

Here is an example of one that is time coherent:

Vandersteen Audio Treo loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

Please note that JA plays with words between 'time coherent" and "time coincident". What most of us would call time coherent is what JA is calling time coincident, i.e. all sounds arriving at the same time. He covers Wilsons butt with this wordplay.

You are using words to play with Wilson Audio claims. Dave Wilson clearly explained what he means by "alignment in the time domain", how he measured it and what he considers its effects in interviews and texts that anyone can read. Nowadays they even measure time delay in amplifiers of their customers to provide more accurate alignment data to users of more recent top speakers.

Anyway, nothing to add. The information is around, interested readers should be able to understand it. Some manufacturers and dealers mostly say "we are happy that we have similar tastes and we are able to provide you with a sound quality that brings you a lot of enjoyment and happy listening time". Others can't resist denigrating the more successful ones.

 

[microstrip]

(...) I agree wholeheartedly with MikeL's post: as an analog purest I don't want the whole single converted to digital. For me it's as simple as that.

The only reason why I am against digital crossovers is that I would need four Vivaldi DAC's ...
If people with digital audio expertise similar to that of those wo have been developing the last generation recent top current digital recording systems I have no doubt that we would have great digital crossover systems. But I doubt that these people would show any interest in developing romantic and lush sounding gear ...

I totally respect the pro-digital crossover contrasting view. Different audiophiles have different philosophies and different objectives, and different ways to achieve those objectives.

I fully agree with you.

 

[morricab]

You are using words to play with Wilson Audio claims. Dave Wilson clearly explained what he means by "alignment in the time domain", how he measured it and what he considers its effects in interviews and texts that anyone can read. Nowadays they even measure time delay in amplifiers of their customers to provide more accurate alignment data to users of more recent top speakers.

Anyway, nothing to add. The information is around, interested readers should be able to understand it. Some manufacturers and dealers mostly say "we are happy that we have similar tastes and we are able to provide you with a sound quality that brings you a lot of enjoyment and happy listening time". Others can't resist denigrating the more successful ones.

I never said anything about the products sound in my post, only that it is clearly from objective data not time coherent. Do we both agree that time coherence means that all frequencies produced by the speaker should arrive at the ear at the same time? If yes, then there is no way to interpret the data otherwise than Wilsons are not time coherent. That doesn’t (necessarily) make them bad but it is a fact.

Take a look at Thiel and Vandersteen plots...the height one measures (and listens) matters to the step function response. On the right height the drivers all move essentially together (ie in phase) and based on the slopes and distances the waves reach the microphone in a nice tight packet. Wilson’s are in mixed polarity and phase shifted such that group delays make it impossible for mechanical alignment.
Again, I haven’t denigrated the brands sound but they are making dubious claims about time alignment...mechanical alignment of the driver distances to the ear is only half the story...the rest is electrical phase and group delay and this is where the measurements show it isn’t right.