Magico Q7

[Jeff Fritz]

Over the past seven or so years the Scan-Speak D30 has been one of the most widely used soft-dome tweeters around -- I know Rockport actually stopped using the Esotar when this tweeter became available. You can see the same dome profile in some of the "new" soft domes getting press these days

It is a very good tweeter, even if its popularity has waned since S-S came out with their Be dome.

 

[JackD201]

Those and the R (ring) and D (dome) 2904s and their brethren. Noted for being air cooled instead of liquid cooled. Ultimately only time will tell if Be's will supplant soft domes in SOTA products. As things stand, Be according to specs stll lag behind diamond vapor deposit when it comes to pushing up the resonant modes. Not sure how these stack up against ribbons and AMTs in that regard. In any case, as it stands, it is still an acquired taste as opposed to being a game changer. It isn't new either. Yamaha did Be, what, 30 to 40 years ago?

This is not an indictment of Magico. It can be a fickle industry at times and a dogmatic times more often thus the tastes of the market tend to evolve rather than experience sudden paradigm shifts. If one were to give credit to the present Be resurgence, the nod would have to be given to JBL Pro, Focal and Usher. Even the use of aluminum baffles goes back almost as many decades as the Be tweeter and I can think of more than a couple of speaker manufacturers doing all aluminum while Magico only had them in front. None as rigid perhaps, but they certainly weren't the first.

What I will give to Magico, is that when they do commit, they commit big time and with fanatical attention to the detail, quality control and total implementation. Having said that, past Majico's have had a major chink in their armor. They've always, with exception of the Ultimate I and II, demanded lots of quality power to get the low bass out. It does seem that with the Q3 and Q7 they've begun to address this. Good for them. The added flexibility for owners of their speakers when it comes to associated amplification should broaden their market.

IMO where the new Magicos shine with my admittedly limited Q5 experience is with the new midrange driver. To me it is a real beauty.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Those and the R (ring) and D (dome) 2904s and their brethren. Noted for being air cooled instead of liquid cooled. Ultimately only time will tell if Be's will supplant soft domes in SOTA products. As things stand, Be according to specs stll lag behind diamond vapor deposit when it comes to pushing up the resonant modes. Not sure how these stack up against ribbons and AMTs in that regard. In any case, as it stands, it is still an acquired taste as opposed to being a game changer. It isn't new either. Yamaha did Be, what, 30 to 40 years ago?

This is not an indictment of Magico. It can be a fickle industry at times and a dogmatic times more often thus the tastes of the market tend to evolve rather than experience sudden paradigm shifts. If one were to give credit to the present Be resurgence, the nod would have to be given to JBL Pro, Focal and Usher. Even the use of aluminum baffles goes back almost as many decades as the Be tweeter and I can think of more than a couple of speaker manufacturers doing all aluminum while Magico only had them in front. None as rigid perhaps, but they certainly weren't the first.

What I will give to Magico, is that when they do commit, they commit big time and with fanatical attention to the detail, quality control and total implementation. Having said that, past Majico's have had a major chink in their armor. They've always, with exception of the Ultimate I and II, demanded lots of quality power to get the low bass out. It does seem that with the Q3 and Q7 they've begun to address this. Good for them. The added flexibility for owners of their speakers when it comes to associated amplification should broaden their market.

IMO where the new Magicos shine with my admittedly limited Q5 experience is with the new midrange driver. To me it is a real beauty.

Perhaps it's not necessarily the quality of the driver but how it's used in a given application

 

[Jeff Fritz]

Perhaps it's not necessarily the quality of the driver but how it's used in a given application

The best loudspeakers today are engineered as complete systems. It's not a matter of going out and finding a midrange that you want to use and then designing a speaker around it. Maybe years ago . . .

Companies that have the ability to engineer exactly the drivers they need for a specific application have a huge leg up on the companies that buy drivers from vendors that they then have to work around in order to put into a given design.

For instance, I was told the Q7's drivers were engineered to basically be all the same sensitivity (95-96dB). They do this in-house. That made the crossover much simpler to do because they did not have to pad down drivers. That's engineering from the ground up they way it should be done IMO.

 

[andromedaaudio]

That is true off course , a speakermanufacturer can make or break a good designed tweeter.
Same goes for filter caps , one can use duelund or the most expensive mundorf (they cost more than a driver ) if they are wrongly implemented its useless , good basic design is essential
isnt this a beauty http://www.scan-speak.dk/datasheet/pdf/d3004-662001.pdf 6 neodymium magnets

 

[andromedaaudio]

But its a big market out there with drive unit manufacturers who want to sell in the high end segment .
These companies specialize in nothing but drive units and choosing/adjusting efficiency based on what you want to use is also possible off course , you dont have to make them yourself for that .
notwithstanding the fact that a lot of highend speaker companies have troubles staying in the + - 2,5 dB -zone anyway measured with 1/6 octave smoothingfactor
But i have a lot of respect as to how magico goes to work on matters

Add i am now using a papercomposite mid for example , it sounds more real than the thiel and costs four times cheaper , money and extraordinairy design doesnt mean it is actually more pleasing to the ear , the membrane/coil design is in itself very simple

 

[NorthStar]

The Esotar2 is one of the best tweeters on the market still imo.

Is that the one costing $800? ...Or is it $1,200 for that single tweeter?

 

[NorthStar]

...And what about Focal's Beryllium tweeter?

Or B&W's Nautilus tweeter?

 

[andromedaaudio]

I dont know ive never had them at home , the scanspeak tw costs around 200 european $$ , incl vat

 

[NorthStar]

Two tweeters cost more than my own pair of loudspeakers at Audiogon.
And they're the ones that come with them!

* So much for Magico Q7.

 

[KeithR]

Is that the one costing $800? ...Or is it $1,200 for that single tweeter?

Yes, I believe the old Esotars were 1k/pair or something.

The much newer Esotar2 is not sold to OEMs if I recall correctly.

 

[JackD201]

Perhaps it's not necessarily the quality of the driver but how it's used in a given application

It's definitely both

 

[marty]

It's definitely both, but the single most important variable that looms above all others as far as impact on the speaker's sound is good old frequency response. Sure, distortion, radiation pattern (which has relevance to off-axis response), break-up resonances, etc are all important. But the one thing that matters most is frequency response. It doesn't matter if its a beryllium driver, a soft dome cloth tweeter, a Heil AMT, a ribbon, or a resonating Snickers bar- it's all about frequency response first, second and third. Although I found the sound of the Q7 bright as I have said previously, I don't think that is a function of the tweeter material (nor the amplifier, as has been suggested elsewhere). Rather it is simply the designer's choice to voice the speaker that way. To my ears, it had an extended but too elevated top end frequency response- but that is the designer's call. I agree with the comments made regularly by Robert Greene of TAS (the veritable REG, as he is known) who says that the most common problem he often hears in hi end audio systems is an exaggerated top end. I appreciate that it is the designer's choice in how he voices his loudspeaker, but I am in agreement with REG. Many speakers have an exaggerated top end and this is simply not a characteristic that would typically be used to characterize the sound of live music. I believe it is very often the one quality that can render the sound of one loudspeaker as "hi-fi" sounding as opposed to "musical" sounding.

 

[NorthStar]

Controlled Dispersion, On & Off Axis.

 

[andromedaaudio]

this is my list and i also list freq response on top, i think most people like an elevated bass and rolled of top end , although it is not high fidelity off course ,its my fi

I think there are a number of factors what make a good speaker

First of all , there is freq response i think from expirience that people find a 2,5 dB -+ bandwith acceptable in a loudspeaker, a narrower bandwith beeing better off course , this being the 250 Hz till at least 20 khz area .
The bass can be more elevated because most people just love bass energy , so a bit extra dB s there wont matter .
Other thing is correct/optimum phase in my opinion , meaning the different units moving as one when producing a music tone , the ear is very sensitive for that and one can disguard a speaker within seconds if its not up to standard /optimized .
Next is enclosure , more stiff/non resonant means more decay of tones
and clearer sound.
Unit construction /membrane material is also very much a matter of taste some like ceramic some paper and so on
there are a million ways to construct a flat freq response in the crossover
1 order second order what ever, and every manufacturer does his own thing .
just my 2 cents , henk

 

[Elliot G.]

Marty,Are you then saying if you saw the Frequency graphs of let's say ten of the world's most respected speakers that the one with the "faltest FR would be the best sounding?
By the way have you ever seen pictures of the veritable REG's room and how he set's up gear? Using him as the basis of your point leaves IMHO a lot to be desired. I know you are a big EQ person and that EQ can help with flatter FR. I just don't think that we have all the technical measurements required to analiyze the way a speaker sounds . I think that getting the speaker in a room to have a response that is not rolled off or bumped up is certainly important but not the singular factor in the way they sound.
If you have different designed speakers ( i.e Planar vs. cone, line vs. point) and they both has flat response are you saying then they would sound the same?
LTNS,
E

 

[MylesBAstor]

It's definitely both, but the single most important variable that looms above all others as far as impact on the speaker's sound is good old frequency response. Sure, distortion, radiation pattern (which has relevance to off-axis response), break-up resonances, etc are all important. But the one thing that matters most is frequency response. It doesn't matter if its a beryllium driver, a soft dome cloth tweeter, a Heil AMT, a ribbon, or a resonating Snickers bar- it's all about frequency response first, second and third. Although I found the sound of the Q7 bright as I have said previously, I don't think that is a function of the tweeter material (nor the amplifier, as has been suggested elsewhere). Rather it is simply the designer's choice to voice the speaker that way. To my ears, it had an extended but too elevated top end frequency response- but that is the designer's call. I agree with the comments made regularly by Robert Greene of TAS (the veritable REG, as he is known) who says that the most common problem he often hears in hi end audio systems is an exaggerated top end. I appreciate that it is the designer's choice in how he voices his loudspeaker, but I am in agreement with REG. Many speakers have an exaggerated top end and this is simply not a characteristic that would typically be used to characterize the sound of live music. I believe it is very often the one quality that can render the sound of one loudspeaker as "hi-fi" sounding as opposed to "musical" sounding.

I'm not sure I agree Marty Most people say the problem is in the upper octaves but I think they're mistaken; the problem to my ears lies lower down in the upper midrange.

 

[Jeff Fritz]

There are many factors here:

First, on-axis FR is one single variable that doesn't really tell you that much about the overall tonal balance you will eventually hear. What a speaker does off axis is just as important. The total sound radiated around the cabinet combines. In a room, the reflective and absorptive surfaces contribute to defining what we hear in terms of tonal balance. A speaker might have a depression on axis but then be smooth off axis at the frequency, and it may average out just fine. See our "Listening Window" measurement in our NRC graphs: http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16&Itemid=18

This gives a great indication of what will be radiated into the room that will more closely correlate with what you hear.

Second, within an anechoic FR measurement good designers can see a lot more than just the relative levels of the drivers and how they sum at the crossover frequency. Effects from diffraction, cone resonances, cabinet resonances, and so on, show up in FR. FR is a hugely valuable tool in his regard.

 

[JackD201]

The problem is, the only way to tell would be to have a lot of different amps, upstream components and even accessories on hand to be sure the problem really lies with the loudspeaker, any loudspeaker.

 

[andromedaaudio]

When i measure loudspeakers in a room , off axxis measurments have a tendency to roll off at high frequencies , that is also why in my opinion some people listen to certain speakers without toe in
at the listening position they have the roll off
they like .
Off axiss measurements or measuring to close or to far from the ideal spot causes dips or bumps in the FR , there is defenitively an ideal window, this will be different from any model/brand though