Magicos are chesty

What does that mean?

First, apologies, I’m being a troll because I have no other way to relate to other people. Let’s just get that speculation out of the way.

I had the chance to hear my second pair of Magicos, and bot the S1 Mk II and S3 that I just heard both had a similar characteristic. A kind of chestiness with voices and piano.

Listening to Diana Krall’s Live in Paris, the bottom of her voice was significantly exaggerated. With the S1 Mk II, the same, male vocals (in the Magico demo space) were also over-accentuated.

When I heard the pre-release S1 I thought it was just the nature of trying to balance out a small 2-way and trying to give it a little bit of extra bass. Now that I have heard the S3 in a good room, I have to say: This wasn’t a compromise, but a shared attribute.

Best,
E

I heard just a tiny bit of this on the Magico A3.  I have a few tracks that bring it out - some Johnny Cash and even some Julie London tracks.

It wasn't nearly as bad as a number of other speakers, but it was there.

Personally, the best I've ever heard in terms of lack of that type of coloration has been my (now departed) Thiel 3.7 speakers.  It just didn't matter what range a singer was in, low, high, everything in between, there was never a hint of unnatural bloating or mechanical intrusions - just pure, rich, natural and utterly free of any boxy sensation. 


Another torture test is some Russian Orthodox Choir music (e.g. Ancient Echoes is an amazing CD!), with Basso Profondo voices.  These guys go so low you'd think the church organ had kicked in.  Once they hit those low notes you really start feeling the bass in your system and unless a system has really neutral, controlled sound it can sound more like "speaker bass" than human voices, or take on some speakerly quality.(Again, the Thiels just nailed this without breaking a sweat.  Others I've tried, not so much...)


(My current 2.7s are very good, but not quite as "perfect" to my ears in that regard).

@prof

I'm honestly a little surprised at this behavior in this price bracket, but I also got to hear a pair of floor standing McIntosh speakers, and they practically rattled with the human voice.