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RE: About Magico speakers ... extremely impressive

Posted by morricab (S) on January 13, 2015 at 01:15:34

In Reply to: RE: About Magico speakers ... extremely impressive posted by beppe61 on January 12, 2015 at 23:23:47:

Speakers are easier to characterize than electronics IMO. Colorations in the cabinet and drivers can be evaluated and many companies have done so. However, while it is possible to suppress to a great degree the influence that materials have on the sonic character it is not possible, IMO, to completely eliminate those effects.

It is now quite straightforward to get a flat on-axis response and a "perfect" in-room response with DSP computer processing of the speaker. You can also digitally time-align the speaker for optimal impulse response. A DEQX system or some other room correction systems (like TACT and Lyngdorf) will do this for you.

I have played with the TACT system in the past and some cheaper digital EQ solutions and they do work as advertized...for the most part. The TACT in particular put an electronic haze over the sound when doing all the room processing that IMO and my friend's opinion (he owned it) more than offset the benefit from getting the Frequency response correct.


That aside, I have heard demos where the improvement in the speaker was significant when processed for correct FR and impulse response...something that should teach speaker designers a thing or two about getting FR and time domain correct. However, correcting two different designs in these domains so that they measure the same in a room does NOT result in the same sonic signature. The overall character of the speakers were different despite now being corrected for in-room response and impulse response.

This leaves harmonic distortion of the drivers, which is probably not so bad at moderate levels to be a big sound contributor and the sounds the materials and cabinets themselves make due to excitation. This "self noise" is IMO where the true character of a speaker comes out.

Now of course uncorrected this is convoluted with FR, dispersion and time smear (poor impulse response) that serves to further distinguish the character of a speaker. Sometimes these factors are dominant but in a very well designed speaker it is more likely materials and harmonic distortion giving the character.

Magico and Wilson go to heroic lengths to make their cabinets inert to minimize (but never completely eliminate) excitation and re-emission of sound (which is time smeared an frequency smeared). Magico goes to great lengths to make drivers that minimize their own self-noise (carbon fiber and rohcell sandwhich...similiar in concept to Focal drivers)...as do companies like Rockport and Kharma (interestingly all with carbon fiber sandwhich concepts it seems). Some people have gravitated back to paper because paper has a less offensive "self noise" than most other materials...doping helps to quell this further but then the driver loses sensitivity.

In the case of Wilson, they have minimized the cabinet influence but still use drivers that are not overly damped. They get good sensitivity and wide dynamic range from their speakers as a result. So despite somewhat ragged frequency response, they can still sound quite lifelike...for a dynamic speaker they have "jump" factor.

Magico has gone a more damped route for both cabinet and drivers and the result is a far more neutral tonal balance and smoothness but at the expense of some "aliveness". They have lower sensitivity and not as much "jump" as a Wilson speaker. I prefer the Wilsons overall. I have not heard the huge all horn Magico but it is a completely different animal to their normal speakers and it uses compression drivers from another company and not their own drivers.

Dynaudio has a similar but somewhat less refined sound as Magico because their cabinets are definitely not as heroic nor are their driver materials as well damped.

Distortion in speakers, while not super low is often of low order harmonics and therefore arguably not so audible in light of the other issues. If you look at speaker hobby magazines they do show the distortion of drivers so designers at least keep an eye on it.

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