Magico S3?

[imprezap2]

I listened to the S3 two weeks ago, and they had no problem to fill a large room with full bodied music. (4,5 x 12mtr approx. with high ceiling)

[amati]

Originally Posted by imprezap2

I listened to the S3 two weeks ago, and they had no problem to fill a large room with full bodied music. (4,5 x 12mtr approx. with high ceiling)

True, but in that room they have never a problem to get full sound.
Those nice guys allways get good sound after setting up a system properly .

Hi Olaf,

Yes I suspect the S3 would work well also as it was filling Magico's large room at the Venetian with solid, deep bass & sound staged beautifully. Given the glowing reports, I am quite curious to see if the S3's sound better overall than the S5's, though my pragmatic side tells me Magico would not build a speaker in the same line so soon after the S5 which actually sounds better than it.

Re: speaker positioning. I use the Cardas Room Setup Guide and have my S5's set up in an almost perfect near field listening position along the long wall. A horizontal listening position theoretically would have been better, but was not possible in my living/dining room. My sofa is up against the wall (see pic below), so I don't have wriggle room there. That said, my speakers are 3.0 meters from the listening position which is fine. I know of many "nearer" near field setups than mine

[imprezap2]

Hi David,

The near field is not a problem, but your listening position is very close to the back wall.
If you would have one meter behind the couch, i think that would help the overall performance. (maybe ask the neighbours if you can move the wall :-)

Don't think the S3 will be much different to the S5, there is the Magico signature for both of them, also driver count is the same. Low frequency output will have some more volume with the S5. Visual wise the S3 looks a bit cleaner but that is personal.

In the past I have also used the Cardas method, but if I remember correctly the speakers come very far from the back wall, I will read it again.

I have used my own voice to find the position in the room where it sounded most neutral, this will be different in all rooms, but for my room the front of the baffle is 137cm away from the back wall, the rest I have done with laser alignment/distance.

When I measure the room with REW, one speaker at the time, I am getting very simular graphs for both speakers. My feeling is that this is the key (or one of the keypoints) to a good sounding system.

Olaf

Sorry for the late reply Olaf. Thanks for your advice. I'll have to talk to my neighbor about moving my rear wall

My understanding is the S3 & S5 are cut from the same cloth and both speakers have their advantages. My Dealer's advice echoed Magico's advice which was that the S5's are better suited to my situation based on my room size/volume. The S3's being a smaller speaker would be generally easier to integrate into their acoustic environment.

I will reserve judgment on the S3's until i've auditioned the pair currently at my Dealer's showroom this Saturday.

I do agree that careful placement & using a measuring tool such as a laser alignment/distance tool is helpful in conjunction with listening tests. Perhaps when my speakers reach 1000hrs I might see if I can rope someone in to bring their laptop and microphone over to measure my room?

Well folks I finally had a chance to listen to the S3's today at my Dealer's showroom. The first thing is, they are very solid sitting on their spiked feet and i'd definitely describe them as a medium size speaker. The matt black finish is very nice! Though I was in somewhat unfamiliar territory; firstly with the S3's and also with the JRDG Continuum 500/CH D1 combo.

Playing music, it was immediately obvious the center of gravity had switched up to toward the mid/high's a notch from the S5's. I did think the midrange was more articulate and smooth than I recall with my S5's, though i'm allowing for the fact my S5's are still sitting flat on off-cuts of carpet without any feet installed & the CH D1 kills my Romulus.

Although I didn't have the luxury of a-b testing the S3 & S5 side by side, my sense is in my Dealer's smaller room atleast, the S3's would have had a slight edge in midrange and top end clarity. The bass however is another story. Even in my Dealer's small'ish listening room & with plenty of pony's from the Continuum 500, I didn't find the S3's very satisfying in the bass. Of course they're better than the S1 and are very coherent, but even cranking the S3's I still didn't feel satisfied. The S5's bass has more depth and control, and I have to say i'm in the opposite camp to most of the commentary from CES as overall I feel the S5's are better balanced and easier to listen to than the S3's. As I mentioned, there are some things the S3 seem to do slightly better, and some things the S5 does better. In summary, the S5's get my nod as the better sounding speaker overall. There is more than a nose in it, but by how much exactly I wont know for sure until my S5's reach the magical 1000hr mark & have the feet installed .

[imprezap2]

Hi David,

Nice pics, the S3's are (guessing from the pics) more then 1,5mtr away from the backwall, which is if I recall correctly further from the backwall as your S5's at home, this might also cause some off the differences in low frequency output.

They look fairly close to the side wall, when I do that with my V3's they don't dissappear anymore and the soundstage collapses, did you still get energy all around the S3's or only an image between the speakers ?

Anyway it will be good for your wallet, when the S5's sounds better :-)
Time to put the dot on the i, installation of the stillpoints and final positioning.
(750 hours of breaking in is not neccessary in my opinion, you will not get large changes after 250 hours)

Olaf

Hi Olaf,

I didn't measure the distance to the rear wall, but yeah the speakers are well out in the room...probably a bit over 1.5 mtrs & reasonably close to the side walls. I played a familiar cd Pink Floyd 'Pulse' and the S3's were imaging very well. Not quite as wide a sound stage as my S5's, however that is likely a limitation of the room. Moving the speakers further back toward the rear wall would improve bass reinforcement, but at the loss of sound stage depth. Ironically, my Dealer said the S5's are "too much" in his room & overload the room. The ideal speaker for that room would probably be an S4!

In my room, my LH speaker is fairly close the rear wall (about 500mm), but my RH speaker is about 1.2 mtrs from the rear wall, with the cross-beam of the stairs extending diagonally behind. However it all seems to balance out in my room as the open staircase seems to help diffuse the back waves and I have plenty or room to the side of the speakers & an open atrium to the second level, so my room doesn't get over-loaded.

In my Dealer's room, the room and setup likely influenced what I heard, as well as the amp. I personally find Rowland amps to be a little bright and fatiguing over a long listening session. I'm told that Rowland has made some peaches, but my experiences thus far haven't been that positive. I think a Vitus amp like the SIA-025 would be a better match for synergy. But no amount of room setup or swapping out amps can make up for pure physics. The S5's have larger, more serious bass drivers and greater cabinet volume which produces deeper, 'bigger' bass which better anchors the overall sound imho. In this listening session atleast, the S3's were a bit bass shy and sounded a bit hot in the mids/highs, however that could have been due in part to the above-mentioned factors. That said, I can easily see why many would prefer the sound of the S3's & why they're getting such great press.

Yeah i'm kind of thinking i'll put the feet on my S5's sooner rather than later and get the final room and speaker positioning sorted out once my S5's hit 500hrs. I'm at 250hrs now, but plan to run several 8hr sessions playing my Isotek System Enhancer cd to speed up & enhance the run in process. My only question mark at this point is whether or not to install Stillpoints Ultra 5's in place of the factory spikes

[audiot servant]

Hi David,
Thanks for your detailed thoughts... seems there is a lot to love in both the S3 and the S5 and preference might come down to the types of music we play and personal preference.

BTW I've tried the ultra 5s under a range of speakers and from your observations you might find that if the S5 is already a deeply satisfying bottom up balanced kind of full range speaker then the ultra 5s might potentially push the balance out and tend to impact on the lower mids/upper bass. We are talking degrees of shift but in a highly resolving finely tuned speaker this kind of balance shift can be critical. I found the ultra5s didn't help the Devore 0/96 with it losing its balance and exposing it just to too much detail. In many ways it is a speaker that is maybe fully optimised for itself and that is part if its magic.

The speakers that tend however to work beautifully with ultra 5s are the ones where a touch more bottom up energy would be manageable/beneficial and where the limits of the resolution of the drivers has not yet been reached... Maggie's and Wilson's come to mind particularly and really the stillpoint ultra 5s help take both these speaker types to their relative summits.

The ultra 5s however sound like a great fit for the S3s from your description... this may be the ultimate combo just fleshing more extension, without negatively impacting but rather enhancing coherence/unity and then that beautiful midrange still floating out connecting across the soundfield. Certainly for a fan of classical music this could be an awesome set-up where midrange gives connection throughout the fabric of the musical spectrum. Maybe throw in a Wilson Benesch Torus for some super fast servo extension down closer to 10khz and this could well just be box heaven. However for rock fans maybe the bottom up S5 will be the ultimate choice and satisfy completely on its own. There don't sound to be any losers in either choice.

Great to have your articulate thoughts as always, I've heard some other really good early feedback on the S3 as well so am keen to listen for maybe a second setup for here... it sounds like its a speaker worth the trip for sure.

Graham

Hi Graham,

Stillpoints products don't change the tone of a speaker as such, but results have been mixed. One guy on another forum found placing Ultra 5's under his speakers lead to softening of the leading edge & attenuation of the bass, but yes anecdotally they seem to work well with Wilson speakers as you said. I don't think the Ultra 5's would be a good match with the S3's for two reasons;

Firstly remember the S3 is just as finely tuned a speaker as the S5.

And secondly the Ultra 5's don't have spike cup's, meaning the narrow spike would not be property anchored in the allen key access hole. Connecting them using thread adaptors (if that was possible) would mean placing the U5's sloped-side down which i've read is not optimal for the U5's. And placing them neat under the outrigger arms would also not be optimal imho since Stillpoints should be directly coupled to the main chassis of the component, whilst placing them under the base of the S3's would be less stable.

I think once you start tweaking speakers too much & adding infrasonic generators, to me that is a sign of deficiencies in either your speakers or room. I read a lot of commentary describing the S5's as being best suited to 'rock' music. I think that is over-stated. The S5's are very well balanced and great "all rounders", and are equally as smooth and coherent as the S3. I personally listen to a wide range of music from classical, world and folk to jazz, pop and rock and the S5's do it all very well. Which speaker you prefer is more a product of one's acoustic environment.

Cheers,