Hi-Fi: Magico V3 Floorstanding Speakers – 072
Magico loudspeakers seemed to literally come out of nowhere and quickly became a phenomenon in the American hi-fi press, receiving gushing reviews and being heralded as revolutionary. Inevitably these speakers shot right to the top of the Tone most wanted list, and when the V3s were installed and nicely run in at PQ Imports in Hamilton (which took six months), we shot down at speed.
The Magico V3 is a three-way, four-driver floorstander featuring a rather unusual construction (see ‘Building the Magic’ box). They’re actually much smaller than they appear in photos, standing just over one elegantly proportioned metre tall, and finished in a lovely combination of lustrous wood and anodized aluminium.
The cabinets are sealed, which is exceedingly rare these days, especially in a multidriver floorstander. Without getting too technical, sealed (or infinite baffle) speakers behave very differently to ported enclosures, usually displaying tighter and faster bass with better transient response. This is not to say that all ported enclosures will have slow and loose bass; that’s obviously not the case as most of the great high-end speakers are ported. It’s just that there are advantages to sealed cabinets and Magico has made the most of them.
The V3s aren’t inexpensive speakers, so they were set up with a commensurately high-end system consisting of VTL MB-450 Signature monoblock valve power amps running directly from the superb Wadia four-box CD player we first heard in Tone 62 (270SE CD transport, 931 controller and two 921 mono digital-to-analogue converters that have recently been updated with new DAC boards).
My first review track was ‘Nothing Against You’ from Robert Cray’s excellent Sweet Potato Pie CD, and the most obvious characteristic of the V3 sound was its total control. The powerful VTLs can grab bass drivers with an iron grip, and the V3s emphasised this control with truly exceptional speed and tightness at the bottom end, along with a good amount of low-frequency extension – the bass on this track can sound boomy and overblown on certain systems but the V3s had it spot on and it stayed tight, refined and full of definition and articulation, even at high volumes. The rest of the frequency range through the midrange and treble were beyond reproach and the integration between drivers was perfect.
On highly dynamic music like the flamenco guitars on Rodrigo y Gabriela’s Live Dublin and Manchester disc, the speed of the V3 drivers was outstanding, even breathtaking. Resolution, transparency and detail retrieval were absolutely world class, so the initial clarity of each note was maintained, allowing the listener to follow the smallest textural and harmonic changes until it naturally decays into a background that has all the ambience of the recording venue when appropriate and nothing but silence when not.
Resolution is one of the aspects of reproduced music that makes or breaks a stereo system for me. I love picking out the intricate details and textures on a note-by-note basis and the V3s do it so well – they don’t hide anything, but at the same time they aren’t dry and unemotional, there’s a foot-tapping life and vibrancy to the music.
‘Children Say’ by Level 42 (from The Remixes) was popped into the Wadia by Paul from PQ Imports. Initially I thought this an odd choice because the Magicos will show up a lousy ’80s recording, but this track is nicely captured, the bass guitar was thrumming and rich and there was distinct separation between each individual drum, both physically and tonally. The soundstage and imaging were also exemplary on every disc played.
‘Joe Slam and the Spaceship’ from Harry Connick Jr’s She had explosive bass that shook the ceiling and almost moved the objects in the room, and the overall sound just got bigger and more expansive as the volume increased, staying tight at all times. The Chemical Brothers’ ‘It Began in Afrika’ (Come with Us) has plenty of things happening at once, underpinned by a fast bass beat. It’s easy to see how this track could become a hodgepodge of miscellaneous sounds on a lesser system, but the V3s simply laid it out as recorded. The bass was so tight as to beggar description and the various musical elements were neatly and distinctly rendered, so the music remained cohesive and enjoyable at all times.
We listened to music ranging from new Janet Jackson to old Miles Davis and the V3s were splendid with all of it; they really are amazing speakers.
In the same way that speaker buyers are spoilt for choice at the entry level, there are plenty of choices in the 30 to 50 thousand dollar range for well-heeled punters. The Magico V3s are impressive enough that they must be heard before any money changes hands. Though innovative and cutting edge, they’re still evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but their sound is exceptional, with not a single weak spot. There’s a very good chance that the V3s will have you shaking your head on the way home from an audition, ruminating on the newly revealed weaknesses in your own speakers.
SPECIFICATIONS
TWEETER: 25mm Scanspeak ring radiator
MIDRANGE DRIVER: 152mm Nano-Tec
BASS DRIVERS: 2 x 178mm Nano-Tec
POWER HANDLING: 50-300W
FREQUENCY RESPONSE: 32Hz-40kHz
IMPEDANCE: 4 Ohms
SENSITIVITY: 89dB/W
DIMENSIONS: 1050 x 300 x 380 mm (H/ W/ D)
WEIGHT: 72kg each
CONTACT: www.pqimports.co.nz
BRETT GIDEON
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