Magico Ultimate 3

[morricab]

Hi All,

A few comments from me for consideration. By far the best system i have ever encountered was a massive Western Electric installation at Munich running the field coil 555 drivers as field coil Jensen woofers. The sensitivity was well north of 115dB with an entire auditorium being filled with a 0.5 watt 252 Silbatone amplifier.

In these early days of compression drivers, solid state amplifiers didn’t exist. Valves were the order of the day to drive the monster horns.

The system noise floor was silent in this installation and as I understand pretty much the same every year in terms of being quiet.

How would the system sound running solid state amplification (other than the sub 40hz subwoofer that they employ sometimes) - I don’t know but am nigh on certain they would laugh at you and tell you that you have missed the point and the quality of the few needed watts is absolutely everything. Clearly we will never know for sure but I have strong doubts that the tonal purity and seductiveness coupled to the speed and emotional nuances would be possible.

Finally from all accounts the U3 has been largely an epic failure at its public outings (which I suppose isn’t that much of a surprise) - is this down to solid state amplifiers being employed or a badly derived dsp crossover? I don’t know.

That said I am well aware and versed with the various amplifiers designed for similar ALE complex installs like the Italian Yamamura 5 ways ALE using current based ss amplification and the Yamamura Dionisio together with Jean Hiraga’s low watt class A amps.

One final thing I forgot to add. The ALE drivers have very low power handling on the whole like the Gotos and the vintage / modern 555 variants so you have to be super careful using a powerful solid state amplifier! It is very different to use this power on a modern pro compression driver from BMS that is designed with output in mind and high power handling.

I have heard all the recent iterations of the WE systems in Munich as I am lucky enough to go every year. Not all the installations are that successful but the best ones are largely as you describe. I would still argue that the tonality of even the best ones is still a bit "vintage" but the resolution and dynamics are simply second to none. A few years ago they had a pair of speakers from the 1930s that are still the only ones to have made my wife cry during an opera playback (ok, it was in Russian and she is Russian so that might have a bit to do with it...but the sound an performance were breathtaking!). That said, I find the Livining Voice Vox Olympian/Elssyian with Kondo gear to be ultimately more realistic because the tonality is spot on as well.

I can't imagine running these sensitive speakers with all SS gear...hearing the U3 this way with Pass was not a convincing experience...

 

[jeff1225]

I do not think this is true. ALE was advocates and for some time the distributor for the solid state SATRI amplifiers. I have experience with the genetically similar GOTO drivers. GOTO actually opposed the use of tube amplifiers on their systems. I lost a number of GOTO tweeters due to what GOTO claimed were ultrasonic resonance in such amplifiers destroying tweeters. I approached ALE who claimed their drivers were more robust so should be OK .

A second issue is noise : All these drivers are extraordinarily sensitive. Both ALE and GOTO were advocates of multi amplification i.e power amp directly to the driver. No SET in my experience is quiet enough for this. It is a whole different game in passive set up as pre-compression driver the crossover will pull amplifier output down making amplifier humm manageable.



Again just my opinion and my experience. In a multi horn array, if any chance of success has to be achieved the drivers above bass have to be aligned or it will never gel. In something like the U3 that in the end is a commercial product that has to fit someone's room, it is simply not possible to do this. A core component of the ALE approach is the long horns. I simply cannot see how this can work without phase/time compensation and that can only work in the digital domain unless some Frankensteinian lab aesthetic is acceptable like it is for those of us who do our own thing. Using a single bass driver in a relatively small enclosure like U3 would IMO also need serious compensatory eq. This also should probably rather be done in the digital domain.

I have never heard or seen a Magico Ultimate but from my experience with this sort of thing, I cannot see it working properly without the sort of measures Magico has taken.

My very basic point is that it is an extremely flawed design.

1. Used Ale drivers that are intended for low wattage tube applications, not high power SS. These drivers are based on WE designs, no SS during this era.
2. No physical time alignment
3. DSP

If the Ultimate lived up to it's name, you would see them in the cost no object rooms in Asia and Germany. You do not.

 

[morricab]

My very basic point is that it is an extremely flawed design.

1. Used Ale drivers that are intended for low wattage tube applications, not high power SS. These drivers are based on WE designs, no SS during this era.
2. No physical time alignment
3. DSP

If the Ultimate lived up to it's name, you would see them in the cost no object rooms in Asia and Germany. You do not.

I wouldn't use SS on any compression drivers, due to their tendency to spotlight all the flaws of the amps.

Are you sure these drivers can't handle any power? They are HUGE and nothing really like the old WE 555 driver...at least not at all obvious (a WE 555 weighs maybe 10KG and an equivalent ALE like 50KG). It is so hard to find real data on these drivers.

You don't have to have point 2 if you have good DSP for time alignment. The DSP can be invisible if it is of high enough quality and the DACs that follow are at the same level as the rest of the gear...usually though they are not in anything from profiland.

I don't see that it is necessarily flawed when you can use DSP to "clean it up". As to physical alignment, I am not sure how far off it really is...you would need to see a step response and/or impulse response without the DSP time alignment activated.

I am using DSP on my DIY system but chose to physically align the drivers for best impulse response because they are only 2-ways. The DSP I have allows for digital alignment and someday I will test this out to see if it brings benefits. DSP xovers work great as long as you can feed the digital signal into good outboard DACs. That is the biggest flaw in most "all-in-one" DSP solutions...the DACs/analog output stage.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I wouldn't use SS on any compression drivers, due to their tendency to spotlight all the flaws of the amps.

Are you sure these drivers can't handle any power? They are HUGE and nothing really like the old WE 555 driver...at least not at all obvious (a WE 555 weighs maybe 10KG and an equivalent ALE like 50KG). It is so hard to find real data on these drivers.

You don't have to have point 2 if you have good DSP for time alignment. The DSP can be invisible if it is of high enough quality and the DACs that follow are at the same level as the rest of the gear...usually though they are not in anything from profiland.

I don't see that it is necessarily flawed when you can use DSP to "clean it up". As to physical alignment, I am not sure how far off it really is...you would need to see a step response and/or impulse response without the DSP time alignment activated.

I am using DSP on my DIY system but chose to physically align the drivers for best impulse response because they are only 2-ways. The DSP I have allows for digital alignment and someday I will test this out to see if it brings benefits. DSP xovers work great as long as you can feed the digital signal into good outboard DACs. That is the biggest flaw in most "all-in-one" DSP solutions...the DACs/analog output stage.

Was looking at the Goto spec sheets this morning and yes they handle very very little power - sub 15 watts. The WE new variants are the same especially when going low. I can’t find data for ALE but expect them to be similar.

 

[morricab]

Was looking at the Goto spec sheets this morning and yes they handle very very little power - sub 15 watts. The WE new variants are the same especially when going low. I can’t find data for ALE but expect them to be similar.

Ok, surprising...but 15 watts is plenty of handling when the sensitivity is like 115db+ I guess...These aren't really designed for PA stadium applications like BMS drivers.

For sure as they were used in the U3 at demos I heard they were only being driven with a fraction of a watt most likely. Why you would need or want a SS amp for mW to a few tenths of a watt is beyond me.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Ok, surprising...but 15 watts is plenty of handling when the sensitivity is like 115db+ I guess...These aren't really designed for PA stadium applications like BMS drivers.

For sure as they were used in the U3 at demos I heard they were only being driven with a fraction of a watt most likely. Why you would need or want a SS amp for mW to a few tenths of a watt is beyond me.

Yes this is the case with passive crossover but if you are using them actively with amp coupled directly to driver, it ain’t too good an idea sticking 200 watts of AB directly up its arse just in case....

 

[hvbias]

On this discussion of DSP, on an Analog Planet article Michael Fremer said the greatest sound he has ever heard from a stereo was a massive custom horn speaker setup using DSP in I believe Greece.

Not saying this to hold MF's hearing above others, just that it was rather telling from the most die hard vinyl guy ever to say that was the best system he has ever heard. This was several years ago.

Agree that Multiway horns are very difficult to get to sound coherent. A few have succeeded though (Living Voice, Aries Cerat, for example). Given the difficulty, I have stuck with two-way horn systems where they have a sensitive midbass (96db in one system and 99db in the other) coupled to horn above 1-2Khz. This works great with amps down to 8 watts or so. Not really for the 45 amp crowd but there are still plenty of choices.

A 2-way (midbass horn operating down to around 80 hz, crossover to large constant directivity midrange/treble horn at 300-400 Hz) with either TAD 4002 or 4003 compression drivers for the mid/treble is the best, most realistic in room presence I have ever heard from a speaker system. By in room presence I mean midrange realism that was on par with the Quad ESL57.

And the bass, jesus the bass. It wasn't speaker bass it was just bass. With tympani strikes or piano playing fortissimo it just sounded unreal, more than likely due to the transient response. I haven't heard bass like that other than when I attend the symphony or solo piano recitals.

Or when playing pianissimo, the stillness that is in the air surrounding the music, I've only heard that from that horn setup.

 

[bonzo75]

Hi, this is a Cessaro gamma where Fremer helped set up the SAT TT with Sat arm and Lyra atlas, the guy previously owned AF1p and continuum. Ypsilon electronics. I had no idea it had DSP but now that clarifies. No further comments

 

[hvbias]

Hi, this is a Cessaro gamma where Fremer helped set up the SAT TT with Sat arm and Lyra atlas, the guy previously owned AF1p and continuum. Ypsilon electronics. I had no idea it had DSP but now that clarifies. No further comments

I'm pretty sure it's not, this was way before the SAT TT existed or even Technics even bringing out news that they were bringing back the SP-10.

 

[bonzo75]

I'm pretty sure it's not, this was way before the SAT TT existed or even Technics even bringing out news that they were bringing back the SP-10.

Before that it was the AF1p and continuum

 

[bonzo75]

A 2-way (midbass horn operating down to around 80 hz, crossover to large constant directivity midrange/treble horn at 300-400 Hz) with either TAD 4002 or 4003 compression drivers for the mid/treble is the best, most realistic in room presence I have ever heard from a speaker system. By in room presence I mean midrange realism that was on par with the Quad ESL57.

And the bass, jesus the bass. It wasn't speaker bass it was just bass. With tympani strikes or piano playing fortissimo it just sounded unreal, more than likely due to the transient response. I haven't heard bass like that other than when I attend the symphony or solo piano recitals.

Or when playing pianissimo, the stillness that is in the air surrounding the music, I've only heard that from that horn setup.

Btw what you are describing here is the ideal horn sound. Except the TAD crosses over a TAD higher. Tads avid Radian beryllium are very similar to electrostats. Two way.

I am a bit confused. Is this text yours or fremer's?

If this is the horn then it's different, since it's custom, and he also helped set up that Cessaro gamma in Greece

 

[hvbias]

Btw what you are describing here is the ideal horn sound. Except the TAD crosses over a TAD higher. Tads avid Radian beryllium are very similar to electrostats. Two way.

I am a bit confused. Is this text yours or fremer's?

If this is the horn then it's different, since it's custom, and he also helped set up that Cessaro gamma in Greece

I sort of doubt we are referring to the Gamma installation and the reason I say that is the AF1p did not exist at that time either, the regular AF1 did exist then. I can not recall if Fremer's comments were in regard to setting up a turntable for someone, this was just too long ago. All that useless medical information pushing out more useful audio information from my head

What my own comments are about the TAD are with a custom made horn system. The midrange/treble horn is a wide bandwidth rectangular constant directivity horn that operates from roughly 400 hz all the way to 20 KHz. The throat opening is 2" with a 1.5" adapter (only TAD4001 has 2" exit). The drivers are capable of that bandwidth but the reason the audiophile horn speakers use multiple round horns is not due to a limitation with the driver, it's due to those horn shapes themselves being very narrow bandwidth, so you get those multiple stacks of subsequently smaller, and smaller horns so that you don't get a sound that beams like a laser.

This system did not sound like Cessaro, Avant-garde, Acappela, etc. It had zero horn sound. If there was a black transparent curtain between the speakers and the listeners it would just sound like an incredibly dynamic reproduction.

Using those three as examples I wouldn't have been a horn person. Hearing that custom setup I became a horn person.

Edit: I have to add a lot of my comments and reference are in regard to 1) being close to NYPO and BSO so being able to attend many concerts and have easy recent references. Also Worcester MA where they have two halls where many famous pianists perform. And 2) the Quad ESL57 for midrange realism and in room presence, of course these speakers are deficient with things like bass power, extension, dynamic range, etc.

So my tastes aren't really for what sounds most pleasant but what sounds most like realistic reproduction.

 

[bonzo75]

I sort of doubt we are referring to the Gamma installation and the reason I say that is the AF1p did not exist at that time either, the regular AF1 did exist then. I can not recall if Fremer's comments were in regard to setting up a turntable for someone, this was just too long ago. All that useless medical information pushing out more useful audio information from my head

What my own comments are about the TAD are with a custom made horn system. The midrange/treble horn is a wide bandwidth rectangular constant directivity horn that operates from roughly 400 hz all the way to 20 KHz. The throat opening is 2" with a 1.5" adapter (only TAD4001 has 2" exit). The drivers are capable of that bandwidth but the reason the audiophile horn speakers use multiple round horns is not due to a limitation with the driver, it's due to those horn shapes themselves being very narrow bandwidth, so you get those multiple stacks of subsequently smaller, and smaller horns so that you don't get a sound that beams like a laser.

This system did not sound like Cessaro, Avant-garde, Acappela, etc. It had zero horn sound. If there was a black transparent curtain between the speakers and the listeners it would just sound like an incredibly dynamic reproduction.

Using those three as examples I wouldn't have been a horn person. Hearing that custom setup I became a horn person.

Edit: I have to add a lot of my comments and reference are in regard to 1) being close to NYPO and BSO so being able to attend many concerts and have easy recent references. Also Worcester MA where they have two halls where many famous pianists perform. And 2) the Quad ESL57 for midrange realism and in room presence, of course these speakers are deficient with things like bass power, extension, dynamic range, etc.

So my tastes aren't really for what sounds most pleasant but what sounds most like realistic reproduction.

My write up on TAD 4003 is here https://www.whatsbestforum.com/thre...th-tad-4003-based-dual-flh.31270/#post-671073

 

[ALF]

Anybody heard the Magico U3 in a customer’s setup? If so, it would be nice to hear your observations...many thanks!

vbw,
a

 

[bonzo75]

Anybody heard the Magico U3 in a customer’s setup? If so, it would be nice to hear your observations...many thanks!

vbw,
a

Jazzhead already posted on another thread, or maybe this one that he did (outside Munich, in a well set up installation in Saudi) and didn't like it

 

[ALF]

Thanks Ked...

 

[ALF]

...anybody else?

 

[Rhapsody]

Jazzhead already posted on another thread, or maybe this one that he did (outside Munich, in a well set up installation in Saudi) and didn't like it

I researched this System in Saudi and at that time it was never set up properly, YET, they were showing the system as is. I don't know it's status now. Also, they were using Avantgarde amplifiers. Wasn't it argued that’s not the way to run these drivers, but now, it is a “well set up” system??? There were not so many of these systems sold but there were a few of very wealthy Asian and Russian buyers that did buy them and still have them, but these owners do not post or are involved with any forums.

 

[Rhapsody]

Like Alf said is there anyone that can point to a U3 HOME, well-set up system that they have PERSONALLY heard and tell us about the set up/electronics etc so we can get a first hand impression?

I totally get that people have their opinions on the design of the U3 and that's great, nothing wrong with opinions, everyone has one, but opinions are much more valuable once verified with a real world well set up system listening session and then opinions move to real listening impressions, which are still subjected to personal preferences.

 

[spiritofmusic]

If Ked hasn't visited it, it doesn't exist.