Has anyone heard the Magico Mini?

Daveyf - My room now is 25'5" feet by 18'11". When I bought the G's, it was more like 16'X12' and yes, they sounded wonderful there. The Kharmas, crossed over to a pair of Tact subwoofers anywhere between 75 and 200 Hz can reach impressive SPL's in the new room (the Tact subs have a pair of very quick, large drivers each). Agree the treble can be overdone, especially if the speakers are toed in (Kharma recommends nil toe in). Associated equipment makes a differece as well. I use triode tube amps, and just moved to the Kubala Sosna Emotion speaker cable (I used AQ Dragon SE with the G's, and tried that as well as Valhalla with the Kharmas, but the Kubalas realy helped flesh out the sound)

I heard a lot of the speakers you are mentioning (the Guarnieri, Stradivari, WP8, MAXX2, Schweikert VR9SE...) but not the Kharma. For my taste, the Mini beat them all (except for the visual aspect, for which the Sonus Faber cannot be beaten). In particular I loved their huge imaging (close your eyes and you think you are listening to a huge speaker set), their linearity and analytic side. If you have the right upstream components, you will feel like you are "there" Even if they don't go really below 40Hz, I preferred also the ported bass (much cleaner and tighter than all vented competitors). I listened to them driven by a ARC REF3-REF610, in a small room. Was a perfect combination. If your room is small, need to have enough absorbent on the walls as they radiate quite a lot of energy.
The Mini were originally not on my shopping list (was rather planning to buy a much bigger speaker) but I listened to them by chance and was so blown away that I ordered one pair

For the moment, I don't plan to use them with subwoofers (not much instruments playing below 40hz if you listen mainly to jazz and classical). Out of curiosity, Alexc, which subs were used in your listening session of the mini? (besides the Wilson Benesch Torus, I cannot imagine a sub fast enough to integrate properly with the woofer of the Mini)
PS: Current price is $22k. It goes up to $26,400 as of January 1st
PS2: the upper model in the Magico range (the Tower, for twice the price of the mini) will not be ready on time for CES

Davey,I cannot tell you,for sure.But it is a CLEAR(in two systems)improvement over the standard 8.Why not call Jeff,and ask him?

I can not imagine why anyone will pair the Magico’s with a Thor amp. It is simply a bad match since the Thor does not have the power and the control the Mini needs. I have been a fan of SF for many years and owned a few different models over the years. I do prefer them to the Kharmas. I have a pair of Guarneri’s, which I now use in my office. As nice as they are, they do not hold a candle to the MM. Much colored and dark sounding in comparison. Not to mention the size of image, soundstageing and dynamics. I would never consider putting the G’s in my big room; they simply would not do the job. The MM are in a completely different league then anything SF has been doing. Including, IMO, the big Strad’s, which I replaced with the MM. The Minis are playing in my main system for more then a year now, and I can not imaging what you would hear on the G’s that you would prefer. I can’t argue with the G’s look, they are beautiful. But I think it is easily seen how much more substantial the MM are in comparison. Try hearing them again driven properly. I do not think you will be disappointed.

Wow, there are quite a lot of differences in opinions expressed here. I heard them two years ago at CES/THE SHOW. Under those conditions, I thought they were among the best sounding speakers at both shows. What they had that I particularly liked was a very lively and clear sound -- somewhat like the sound of high efficiency speakers (i.e., horn and single driver speakers) in that respect, but much better balanced tonally than most high efficiency speakers. I think that is a very important quality that is particularly hard to find in modern speakers. Most speakers sound boring and constipated to me -- they lack the ability to deliver small dynamic changes realistically.

I took note of an unfavorable comment from someone who heard it with Thor amplification. I have not heard the combination, but, I've heard Thor equipment with a number of tube friendly speakers and I did not like the sound of their amps or linestage on ANY speaker I heard. The amp sounded very brittle, edgy, and lean (similar in sound, to Audio Research gear). With a speaker, like the Mini, which is NOT fat and warm, I can see how the combination would not be ideal.