AudioAficionado.org - Big time help from a new friend

Okay, so I am not a ‘Master’ and I do not want to portray myself as such. I can read and follow instructions (although my wife vehemently disagrees) and have tried this process multiple times in a few rooms with multiple speakers systems. I AM NOT A MASTER.

Truth be told, I also really wanted to hear Magicos as it would be my first time.

We started by listening to a few tracks of music I was familiar with. To my ear, there were low end notes missing with the Magicos in their current position which tended to pull emotion out of familiar tracks and the staging while largely centered, needed fine tuning.

We then ‘measured’ the room with REW with and without a towel over the TV hanging on the wall behind the speakers. The comb filtering was less with the towel. Enough to make a difference? Who knows? We really couldn’t tell.

Then we pushed the speakers back against the wall and started Jennifer Warnes RAH (I can hardly speak the full name out loud.)

After pulling/sliding the hefty left speaker from the wall we found multiple hotter low end spots. Along the way, Jeff started to hear the differences and get the hang of the process. Louder, lower, all the notes ???

Within the fairly limited degrees of freedom of location, we were able to clearly hear the points where it was louder, lower and all the notes. At which point Jeff asked “does there come a point where it is a matter of taste?” My reply was that within the degrees of freedom of movement of the speakers, yes, but the ‘best’ seems pretty obvious in my experience. We pulled the right speaker forward, found its best location, leveled both and tweaked each speakers rake and found an overall better presentation and ‘every note’ bass. Jeff’s room serves a dual purpose as the office for his wife and he with mostly mirror image office/desktop setups on either side of the speakers.

There may be more (well certainly there is more for a Master) but with only the front/back movement limitation Jeff has, there is little that can be done with the size of the overall stage. It is intimate and near field in nature.

Once set, we remeasured the room and the only major difference was a smoothing of the 12k to 16k range area which when we started was an area with a 6-8dB dip. I can’t explain that.

In the bass region, it was slightly different, up a few dB in the 50 to 120 region. But to our ears, we heard louder, lower bass with all the notes that we didn’t have before the process.

I would venture the balancing and rake alignment smoothed out the upper end. I will try and post pics of the before and after tomorrow.

I do not know what the general feeling is on Magicos. According to Jeff, they are apparently revealing and brutal to poor sources. My system is really my only reference and against that, I did not find the Magicos bright, strident or unwieldy at an frequency. - perhaps that is a testament to the Aurender and PS Audio DAC. Their mid and upper ranges were very nice to my ears.

While our measurements did NOT show it, to my ears, they lack the last one or two lowest octaves. I don’t know their published specs. That’s all and that could easily be a matter of position and ultimately integration with a JL Audio Sub (sorry, I am prejudice). No doubt, a sub and a crossover would allow that lower range to flow into the music. It is a matter of taste.

I was favorably impressed with what Jeff has. He would have to describe his unique mono Class A Amps. All I know is they were heating up his South Carolina bonus room. His front end is the Aurender and his PS DirectStream DAC as his Pre Amp. (A man after my own heart - digitally speaking).

Within the degrees of freedom with respect to movement, I felt good that we found a great location. We had more, louder bass and could hear all the notes inside RAH. The fine tuning of the toe-in, level and rake, helped develop an integrated sound stage that sounded very pleasing to me. Most importantly, Jeff seemed happy with the result.

I had fun and heard Magicos for the first time. I like them.

Jeff, we are only getting started and oh by the way, we could be bad for each other!

Craig