He's entitled to his opinion which can be phrased w/o being offensive, in which case they can be more effective in conveying his feelings...
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Magico Q7
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Never mind a new soft dome tweeter, how about the old ones on the Vs and Ms? I've not come across any negative reactions to Magico when they had those.
Welcome to the forum, Leif. Your comments resonate strongly with me, especially your point about an average system not clashing with expectations. My experiences with ambitious setups are similar - they are generally quite disappointing unless you play precisely the material they have been "tuned" to sound good with ...
Frank
Frank
------^ That is a very valid statement Jeff.
...And one that I adhere to and coming from experienced listeners and professional reviewers with true 'audiophile' integrity.
Interesting comment... A European manufacturer I met last summer (who shall go unnamed) basically said the same thing - the integration with the new Beryllium tweeter is problematic [speaking about the Q3 and Q5] and why on earth would he want to abandon the ScanSpeak Revelator... I need to go back and re-audition the Q series... I am also curious why they abandoned the Heil tweeter in the M6...
I think if you listen to speakers like the TADs, the KEF Blades, the Vivids, or the Magicos, you do hear more detail and air -- the tweeters in those speakers are simply more extended, measurably and audibly.
I remember doing an A/B comparison with a pair of KEFs and a speaker with a soft-dome tweeter and it was remarkable how much more life the KEF had on the top end.
Now that doesn't mean that soft domes can't be great and that some people might prefer them . . . some of the best sound I've ever had in my room came from soft domes. But even the companies that used to rely on them that I admire -- like Rockport -- now use Be domes in their best loudspeakers. There is a warmish, romantic sound that seems to be inherent in many soft domes, however, so this is no surprise that some gravitate to them.
I remember doing an A/B comparison with a pair of KEFs and a speaker with a soft-dome tweeter and it was remarkable how much more life the KEF had on the top end.
Now that doesn't mean that soft domes can't be great and that some people might prefer them . . . some of the best sound I've ever had in my room came from soft domes. But even the companies that used to rely on them that I admire -- like Rockport -- now use Be domes in their best loudspeakers. There is a warmish, romantic sound that seems to be inherent in many soft domes, however, so this is no surprise that some gravitate to them.
I would like to think that I am a fairly seasoned audiophile, having owned many pieces of equipment during my more than 45 year history with this hobby. I have ventured into the financial stratosphere even before it was “normal” with several mega-systems approaching $200K, located in a custom designed and dedicated space.
My trip last week to CES, especially the high end audio portion, plus T.H.E Show left such an unpleasant taste in my mouth that I might well be done going to CES even though I have been to at least 40 of them. The reasons for my severe negative reaction are not new because they have been there and growing for at least the past 15 years. However they hit a new peak with the Magico Q 7 demo in the Magico room.
Let me explain—while we should be thrilled with how much sound quality and pleasure is currently available at relatively reasonable prices, especially if one buys select products on sites such as Audiogon, the focus has now shifted to exorbitantly priced gear that is so off of the charts that it is hard to form a rational reaction because there is no way that the manufacturing costs can justify the price AND, sadly many of the pieces, while impressive pieces of auditory art, plain and simple do not sound real, meaning able to recreate what is actually contained within the program material.
Also, many of the people associated with the gear, especially the principals, have become so arrogant and full of themselves that plain and simple one must exert all of their self-restraint to not be amazingly rude and share with these pompous fools how full of BS they truly are.
While this problem was endemic at CES and T.H.E. Show, the reference point was set in the Magico room with their demo of their much anticipated new Q7. Let me explain the scenario, keeping in mind that it was in no way unique to Magico, just the most arrogant, and quite honestly, the most surprising because it just did not sound good. In fact it was definitely not in my top 20 rooms, no typo here, it was that bad.
Something was seriously wrong in the 2000-3000k range. It was different qualitatively than the rest of the spectrum, very unnatural and just plain annoying. At no time was I ever able to forget that I was listening to a system because the playback did not sound realistic in the least. Now I realize that show conditions are tough, but they are for everyone and like I said, Magico’s sound did not make my top 20. Also it could be a problem of some other part of the system feeding the speakers, but I cannot comment on that because the most Alon would offer is that the electronics were “unspecified”.
He would not even comment on whether the equipment was tube or solid state and what class of operation. In fact, he seemed to delight in the mystery, which would have been fun and exciting if it sounded good, but it did not. He also offered the lame excuse that he could not play other people’s music because he did not have a disk player because it would have been too complicated to bring one. DON’T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE WHICH SUCH A LAME EXCUSE.
And then there is the price of $165K. Yes they are made well, BUT no better and probably not as well as my new Infiniti G37 XS, AND I could buy 4 of them for the cost of one pair of Q7’s. So in conclusion, there will be no Q7’s in my future because there are much better values for much less. Also I would be embarrassed to pay $165K for them and besides, I get more enjoyment from the sound system in my Inifiniti than I did in the Magico room at CES.
My trip last week to CES, especially the high end audio portion, plus T.H.E Show left such an unpleasant taste in my mouth that I might well be done going to CES even though I have been to at least 40 of them. The reasons for my severe negative reaction are not new because they have been there and growing for at least the past 15 years. However they hit a new peak with the Magico Q 7 demo in the Magico room.
Let me explain—while we should be thrilled with how much sound quality and pleasure is currently available at relatively reasonable prices, especially if one buys select products on sites such as Audiogon, the focus has now shifted to exorbitantly priced gear that is so off of the charts that it is hard to form a rational reaction because there is no way that the manufacturing costs can justify the price AND, sadly many of the pieces, while impressive pieces of auditory art, plain and simple do not sound real, meaning able to recreate what is actually contained within the program material.
Also, many of the people associated with the gear, especially the principals, have become so arrogant and full of themselves that plain and simple one must exert all of their self-restraint to not be amazingly rude and share with these pompous fools how full of BS they truly are.
While this problem was endemic at CES and T.H.E. Show, the reference point was set in the Magico room with their demo of their much anticipated new Q7. Let me explain the scenario, keeping in mind that it was in no way unique to Magico, just the most arrogant, and quite honestly, the most surprising because it just did not sound good. In fact it was definitely not in my top 20 rooms, no typo here, it was that bad.
Something was seriously wrong in the 2000-3000k range. It was different qualitatively than the rest of the spectrum, very unnatural and just plain annoying. At no time was I ever able to forget that I was listening to a system because the playback did not sound realistic in the least. Now I realize that show conditions are tough, but they are for everyone and like I said, Magico’s sound did not make my top 20. Also it could be a problem of some other part of the system feeding the speakers, but I cannot comment on that because the most Alon would offer is that the electronics were “unspecified”.
He would not even comment on whether the equipment was tube or solid state and what class of operation. In fact, he seemed to delight in the mystery, which would have been fun and exciting if it sounded good, but it did not. He also offered the lame excuse that he could not play other people’s music because he did not have a disk player because it would have been too complicated to bring one. DON’T INSULT MY INTELLIGENCE WHICH SUCH A LAME EXCUSE.
And then there is the price of $165K. Yes they are made well, BUT no better and probably not as well as my new Infiniti G37 XS, AND I could buy 4 of them for the cost of one pair of Q7’s. So in conclusion, there will be no Q7’s in my future because there are much better values for much less. Also I would be embarrassed to pay $165K for them and besides, I get more enjoyment from the sound system in my Inifiniti than I did in the Magico room at CES.
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Jeff,
Are you addressing the frequencies above 20 kHz? IMHO the characteristics you refer are due to much more than the tweeter material. At this level of performance small changes in the crossover components (either type or value) can affect drastically detail and air.
I think people are over-reacting to tweeter material mostly because the way designers "trained" the public. For a long time, some designers using metal tweeters favored a rising balance in the treble - and promoted this type of sound.
As an ending note to my post I would remark that your list of speakers chooses models having state of the art enclosure design to lower coloration of the speakers - something that greatly helps an airy sound.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
Well said Sir!
Isnt this just another version of the 800 pound gorilla in the room? We have a publication that constantly endorses these products and makes apologies for when they don't sound good. Like a super hero movie to get bailed out just in the nick of time over and over again Magico has a cape with a big red M on it. This press makes excuses for the bad sound by them but never gives the same recogntion to others at the same show with similiar room issues. How come they visit this display 4 times and and the others maybe once.
The magazine is called THe Absolute Sound however they don't believe there is one. In fact they claim( not HP) that there are 3 different criteria, sound of live unamplifed music, the mic feed and the I dont know what it is but I like it.
IMHO this is just plain BS and the reason is the dollars generated by good reviews for advertisers!
Isnt this just another version of the 800 pound gorilla in the room? We have a publication that constantly endorses these products and makes apologies for when they don't sound good. Like a super hero movie to get bailed out just in the nick of time over and over again Magico has a cape with a big red M on it. This press makes excuses for the bad sound by them but never gives the same recogntion to others at the same show with similiar room issues. How come they visit this display 4 times and and the others maybe once.
The magazine is called THe Absolute Sound however they don't believe there is one. In fact they claim( not HP) that there are 3 different criteria, sound of live unamplifed music, the mic feed and the I dont know what it is but I like it.
IMHO this is just plain BS and the reason is the dollars generated by good reviews for advertisers!
The main reason for the various exotic tweeter materials and shapes (like Vivid's catenary dome) are so that they can raise the primary break-up mode of the diaphragm above the audible range. This is quite easy to see in our NRC measurements. The extended FR is nice, too, but not the primary purpose IMO.
And I agree on cabinets . . . once they get rid of cone resonances in the passband, I think you need a silent enclosure to really realize the gains from the drivers. It is a system, after all.
You've got to be kidding, right? How easily they forget... People love to hate Magico, just like they used to love to hate Wilson, before it became the "norm". It is the price of a new success, just human nature.
Do you remember the old days when the target were speakers using the Dynaudio Esotar tweeter?
Oh yeah, I do.
It reminds me of a time when I was at the High End show in Germany. One of the magazines had set up a demo where they had about five sets of speakers that they wheeled into the room and played back to back to back. They then had the audience pick the winner.
The showgoers were equally split among the brands, even though to my ears there were two speakers that were clearly better than the others. One set was distorting so bad because it simply could not drive the huge volume of the room. Still, there were those that picked it as the best.
You'll never get agreement in this hobby. And maybe that's a good thing for forums like What's Best!
Was it Munich 2004? ( I hope our blind test partisans will forgive me for posting this link )
http://www.shows.soundstagelive.com/shows/avtour2004/frk_standout_audio_stereoplay.shtml
Was it Munich 2004? ( I hope our blind test partisans will forgive me for posting this link )
http://www.shows.soundstagelive.com/shows/avtour2004/frk_standout_audio_stereoplay.shtml
Yup, that's the one. I did not think it was 2004 . . . I'm feeling old now!
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