Magico Ultimate 3

[bonzo75]

What speakers being driven by Soulution give/gave you that impression?

Soulution preamp into valve power amp is a fantastic combination. It cleans up any haze of valves, adds drive, separation, drops noise floor, and keeps the valve magic

 

[Rhapsody]

All I used with: Magico, Kharma, Piega, B&W, Sonus Faber...

I don't sell Soulution but over the years I have had 701's, the 530 integrated and have a pair of 700s right now, all taken in on trade. I've never really liked the systems at shows with Soulution, but at my place I've driven the Diesis horns, Alsyvox, Magico, Bayz, Kaiser Raidho with the mentioned Soulution gear and REALLY liked the sound. Never did not like one system that I connected at my place with the Soulution gear. But again, for some reason never liked the Soulution systems I heard at shows.

 

[spiritofmusic]

My local specialist dealer favours Soulution on the 101dB/1m field coil driven Maxonics. Does that sound like a good, ahem, solution?

 

[bonzo75]

Soulution preamp into valve power amp is a fanatic combination. It cleans up any haze of valves, adds drive, separation, drops noise floor, and keeps the valve magic

It will open up a room behind the speakers, and you will hear real transparency to recordings. After you clean your LP, the biggest difference I heard before and after was with a Soulution preamp. It shows so much concert hall ambience. Ultra low distortion

 

[hvbias]

The soulution amps are among the most silent/quiet amps, if not the most silent/quiet amps on the market. This criteria is extremely important on very high efficiency speakers like the Magico Ultimate 3. They are also fluid and liquid, with no harshness. A good match therefore.

There are pictures with Alon with the Ultimate and FirstWatt amps as well. These should also be extremely quiet.

The ALE compression drivers on the cheap end are about $40k when paying for them in JPY. I have to imagine profit margin on the Ultimate was significantly less than the M9.

 

[jeff1225]

All I used with: Magico, Kharma, Piega, B&W, Sonus Faber...

With all due respect, all of these speakers are low sensitivity and designed to work with SS. Nothing can be further from the truth when it comes to compression drivers.

 

[GuyB]

With all due respect, all of these speakers are low sensitivity and designed to work with SS. Nothing can be further from the truth when it comes to compression drivers.

When I mean Magico, this includes the Ultimate. So I know exactly what a SS amp like soulution can do with compression drivers. And as I said before, it works.

 

[Rhapsody]

With all due respect, all of these speakers are low sensitivity and designed to work with SS. Nothing can be further from the truth when it comes to compression drivers.

Hi Jeffrey,

Just curious have you actually heard the Ultimate with the Soulution electronics?

I ask because I have five different Diesis Audio horn speakers, all with compression driver horns and my favorite sound on them all is with my Pilium high power SS. That's compared to Lamm ML2, Kondo Ongaku/Kaguras, which all sound GREAT, but I love the big SS on them the most. It's just my personal preference.

 

[jeff1225]

Hi Jeffrey,

Just curious have you actually heard the Ultimate with the Soulution electronics?

I ask because I have five different Diesis Audio horn speakers, all with compression driver horns and my favorite sound on them all is with my Pilium high power SS. That's compared to Lamm ML2, Kondo Ongaku/Kaguras, which all sound GREAT, but I love the big SS on them the most. It's just my personal preference.

I have heard Ale driverS but not the Magico’s. With a 6 ohm nominal load, I’m not surprised that you like the Diesis with SS better than the Lamms. It looks like they need more power to sing than 18 watts.

The Ale driver however were designed for SET’s.

 

[Rhapsody]

I have heard Ale driverS but not the Magico’s. With a 6 ohm nominal load, I’m not surprised that you like the Diesis with SS better than the Lamms. It looks like they need more power to sing than 18 watts.

The Ale driver however were designed for SET’s.

Hi again,

I've never heard the ale compression drivers, but I was curious after hearing the back and forth here. Regarding the U3's and their use of the ale drivers, the U3s were designed to be used with good clean power, the most important factor in driving the U3s.

The U3s were NOT designed to be specifically used with SETs and unless the SETs provide good, clean power, they are not going to sound as good as a quiet/clean amplification source. Maybe other speakers using ale drivers were meant to be used with SET's, but not the U3s. Not to say they would not sound good with SETs.

The Soulution amps do deliver good clean power and therefore probably sound great on the U3s. Of course ymmv.

 

[GuyB]

I have heard Ale driverS but not the Magico’s. With a 6 ohm nominal load, I’m not surprised that you like the Diesis with SS better than the Lamms. It looks like they need more power to sing than 18 watts.

The Ale driver however were designed for SET’s.

Another example of ALE drivers connected to SS amps: https://www.monoandstereo.com/2016/12/the-end-of-road.html

 

[jeff1225]

Another example of ALE drivers connected to SS amps: https://www.monoandstereo.com/2016/12/the-end-of-road.html

"At the heart of the system operates a custom programed software that offers a propriety six way digital crossover with delay compensation"

I suspected that his system was using DSP. Just because you can do something means you should. Hard pass.

 

[Rhapsody]

"At the heart of the system operates a custom programed software that offers a propriety six way digital crossover with delay compensation"

I suspected that his system was using DSP. Just because you can do something means you should. Hard pass.

Jeffrey,

Can you show an example of a U3 driven with SET's? I'd love to see that! I've looked around and found the Soulution Behold, Pass driven U3s but have not seen any U3s that were driven with SET's. I can imagine say 3 sets of ML3's

Just curious......

 

[jeff1225]

Jeffrey,

Can you show an example of a U3 driven with SET's? I'd love to see that! I've looked around and found the Soulution Behold, Pass driven U3s but have not seen any U3s that were driven with SET's. I can imagine say 3 sets of ML3's

Just curious......

you’ve clearly missed my entire point.

 

[Alrainbow]

The Magico Ultimate was made with Ale compressions drivers. Ale drivers were never designed with the intent that they’d be used with solid state amps.

Why is this do , How is the design different if for Tubes vs SS ..?

 

[Rhapsody]

you’ve clearly missed my entire point.

Sorry about that, I thought your point and several others on this thread was that the Soulutions on the U3s was a terrible match. Although it seems that no one has heard the U3s with good SS on them. So that made me curious.

After a little reading and a few discussions I realized that the U3s were designed to be used with good clean power, ie, the Soulutions or any amps with good clean power. Anyone that has heard them using SS thought they sounded amazing. That was guys like Clement Perry, Jack Bybee and a few others that documented their listening experiences of the U3s after they actually heard them.

Surely not to say the U3s could not be driven with SETs, it all comes down to personal preference, just so the amps are quiet. That's a great thing about high efficiency, right?


It really doesn't matter as we are talking about a 20 year old design that has nothing to do with what Magico is presently doing, but I did find it interesting....thx

 

[jdza]

The Ale driver however were designed for SET’s.

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.

I suspected that his system was using DSP. Just because you can do something means you should.

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.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

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.

 

[morricab]

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.

I have 300B SET amps attached directly to 110db compression drivers and while there is a bit of hiss close to the mouth of the horn there is no other noise. I also have a small PP triode amp using EL84s in triode that is dead silent into these same horns. So, it is possible to have quiet tube amps (also my Aries Cerat Genus is just dead quiet into everything.)

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.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Whatever happened to Stereo and his 5-channel, 3-dac, 3-clock, Ultimate based system? Military-tech servers, everything JUST so.
I think he had just sourced those hugely regarded in the day Pacific Microsonics dacs that Alon still uses, and went to the trouble of getting three.
No SETs for him, only SS.