erik,
I’ve always appreciated your contributions as a DIY speaker builder, without anything to sell. I’m sure you would have a good ear for various speaker colorations. Though, I’m curious: how certain do you feel about attributing the chesty coloration you heard to the Magico speakers?
In my case, when I’m auditioning a speaker (especially in a room I don’t know) I listen from various distances, from close to further, to get an idea of what the more direct sound is like vs in-the-room. If I hear a chesty coloration I’ll investigate by moving around, trying different distances and angles of listening from the speaker to get a sense whether I happen to be experiencing sitting in a room node, or whether I can detect the speaker’s contribution at all to the artifact.
I did this for the Magico A3, but never quite got rid of the mild coloration I mentioned.
Still, I did find the A3 an extremely impressive speaker in terms of disappearing, low coloration over all, and detail. I just couldn’t get it to "boogie" at all.