Best Speakers: Magico S5 2024 First Listen and Factory Tour

Best Speakers: Magico S5 2024 First Listen and Factory Tour

By: Tom Martin

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Magico factory/audition room and do extensive listening to the new S5 2024 loudspeaker. This First Listen is a way to provide insight into potentially important new products before review samples become available to the press later this year.

As background, Magico is one of the premier loudspeaker manufacturers in the world. That’s not just PR fluff; Magico can lay claim to making the best loudspeaker in the world, the $750,000 M9. Along with Wilson and MBL, Magico has operated at the very high end of the speaker world for decades.

They also make a full range of speakers all the way “down” to about $10k per pair. The S5 2024 (think of it as the S5 Mk III) is from the middle “S” line of Magicos. These sit above the A series but below the aforementioned M series. The S5 features a crazy level of engineering effort, but also lives within some kind of a cost budget, whereas the M7 and M9 in particular just kind of put the technical throttle to the floor and see where the price falls.

Before I go into more detail about the S5, I need to say that the price will make some of you cry out in anguish, but I think even those listeners who aren’t shopping in this price range might want to stick with me here. Why?

The sound of the S5 is especially revealing and is a benchmark in this regard. This raises questions that I believe every serious, thoughtful audiophile needs think about.’ Think about’ in this case means ‘think about’ not ‘have a pre-formulated opinion on’. These questions, like air and ageing, are there no matter what. But the Magico S5 offers new data on the subject to help with the thinking.

So, I hope you’ll benefit from reading this whole review, even if the S5 is out of your price range, which it will be for most people. To get to the numbers, the S5 2024 is priced at $74,500 per pair in soft touch finish and $83,000 in gloss.

Why Would Any Speaker Cost $75,000?

If you’re still with me, of course we know there are lots of speakers over $100k, some quite a bit over $100k, so $75,000 isn’t anywhere near the highest of the high end. But it is worth knowing why a somewhat standard-looking speaker is still quite expensive, even if it weighs 262 lb. That’s 262 lb each.

I like to start with the problem the manufacturer is trying to solve. I this case, Magico is trying to materially lower loudspeaker error. That might sound nice, but realistically only a few companies making very high-end speakers can even seriously attempt it when a broad set of audio parameters is taken into account.

The result from my extended listening session at Magico’s superb headquarters listening room in northern California is something unusual in my experience. The S5 2024 has a sound reminiscent of what we often hear when we review good electronics. The character of good electronics is pretty minimal, so you tend to notice album to album differences – differences in mic placement and instrument positioning and recording environment and compression levels and mixing – more than you sense a character from the electronics. It is like that with the S5 2024: you hear bigger album to album differences than you heard in the past and the sense of added character from the speakers is hard to pin down because…there isn’t much consistent character. I think that’s probably because the S5s don’t have much added character, at least as calibrated by current speaker technology.

Do you want that? That, class, is today’s question. I think you should want it, in the same sense as wanting to get the deepest musical experience. But, hey, I work for The Absolute Sound, and we are decades-long advocates of this idea. You need to sort out your goals and live your life.

As you begin to think about that question, let’s take a look at the design of the S5. I think you’ll find this interesting.

To see how Magico approaches consistent reduction of loudspeaker error, we need to understand Magico as a speaker R&D company. Or, if you prefer, a speaker technology company. They design drivers, cabinets and crossovers. That is somewhat distinctive, but it is the mindset of engineering science together with relatively few budget restrictions that really sets them apart. Magico is always trying to advance driver materials, driver design, cabinet materials, cabinet manufacturing and systems integration.

• Driver Materials

• Driver Design

• Cabinet materials

• Cabinet manufacturing

• Electrical Design

• Mechanical Coupling

• Systems Integration

They are always trying to advance these sciences, and the price points of their speakers allow them to experiment with and try materials and processes that would be out of the question for a speaker at 1/10th the price. As a few years go by, they eventually have a collection of new technologies they’ve developed. With established products like the S5, they periodically release a new version containing some of the new technologies that fit the scale of the project. That sounds simple, but it isn’t just an upgrade in a driver or two. The S5 2024 has all new drivers: new woofers and a new midrange, plus a tweeter derived from the M9. It has a new cabinet that is 30% larger than before. But I think it is in systems integration that the learnings from other designs over the past years come together and are where a big chunk of the tech lies.

Let’s consider a few examples:

• Magico has a Klippel measurement system. This computer acoustic analysis software and robot allows Magico to generate a complete spherical view of the output of the speaker at all frequencies. Spherical means in all directions around the speaker. This characterization of many parameters (levels, frequencies, angles and times) can be done overnight, meaning that needed refinements can be discovered and addressed quickly. Again and again.

• If you understand how speaker engineering is done, this is a major part of how the hundreds of variables are measured and refined. Engineers have to look at the result of the system they’ve built, not just at any one element. If I tell you that the beryllium foil in the tweeter is 0.025mm thick or that the cabinet is machined from 6061 aluminum or that the capacitors are made by Mundorf, what do you really know? I think the truth is that you know almost nothing meaningful if you’re trying to assess product fitness for purpose (although this stuff is interesting).

• The spherical element of the Klippel system means that Magico’s designers think, partly, in terms of power response and can set the goal of very smooth changes in power response with frequency. This is NOT a natural characteristic of forward-facing cone speakers in an enclosure, but it is necessary for excellent imaging and soundspace portrayal. Recent M series and now S series designs have been able to address this difficult frontier. Take a look at this graph from the S5 2024 and note that the power response (red) declines smoothly with frequency:

Magico uses Finite Element Analysis computer modeling to develop cabinet panel shapes and details that limit vibration

• Magico uses curved extruded aluminum panels and then applies complex in-house CNC shaping to fulfill the requirements of the computer cabinet model

• In addition, Magico uses laser interferometry to measure minute remaining real-world cabinet vibrations and apply custom-machined bracing and damping (vibration-specific thickness and density damping panels for each location)

• Magico has identified new materials for speaker cone surrounds that lower mechanical resistance without the degradation over time usually exhibited by low-resistance surrounds

These are just examples of the many details that have to be addressed in creating what amounts to a completely new state-of-the-art speaker. Magico isn’t unique in doing any one of these things. They are more unusual in doing so many of them. And they are unusual in doing new designs quite often, something that helps them go rapidly down the learning curve. The learning curve is a crucial element for managing engineering progress (it is the answer, for example, to why Apple launched the iPhone 1 in 2007, not the iPhone 16).

They are unusual in another way, which is their goal of minimizing coloration and distortion as perceived by the ear/brain. Many speakers are designed with the idea of getting the speaker to produce some idealized output at some measurement distance that mirrors the input signal. Many listeners think this is what is needed.  Recent research says this is incomplete. Magico, in line with this, believes that the ear/brain system is so central to how we perceive reproduced music that you have to take the evolutionary biology of humans into account. They try to address these issues using cones with crossovers in a box and refining that design to the maximum degree possible. A reasonable debate could be had about radically different approaches (dipoles, horns, omnis, single drivers, subs, DSP etc) as the ultimate path to believable music.

With these caveats in mind, I simply should note that Magico has taken a standard concept to radical level and then I objectively observe what the results are. Let’s see.

Sound Quality

 The big idea of the Magico S5 Mk III may be, and I will assert is, its comprehensive effort to minimize coloration. As with electronics, this is the classical definition of what a speaker should do. This may sound super-boring or commonplace.

But: what if this goal isn’t what most speakers are actually trying to do?

And: what if most of the small number of speakers that are aiming at this goal haven’t made it to some threshold error level that materially changes the sound the listener hears?

Finally: if a company like Magico crossed such a threshold, would the sonic changes wrought be desirable?

You’ve probably comprehended that what I hear with the Magico S5 2024 is some significant reduction in error levels. And you are correct. I will come back to this, but for now let me mention the impressive things I heard:

• Realistic piano – this is a hard instrument to do correctly because it is a very broadband percussion (i.e. dynamic) instrument. But the S5 delivers dynamics, tonal balance and harmonics in a way very reminiscent of the real thing.

• Vast and real-sounding stage depth – I don’t think I’ve heard more than two other speakers that can deliver the sound of the decay in the hall with the believability of the S5. This implies excellent small signal handling and low time-smear and carefully managed power response.

• Smooth, wide bandwidth – the S5 can reproduce low bass to upper treble and do this with a minimal sense that some frequency bands are peaky or emphasized or depressed. That doesn’t mean they don’t ever sound bass heavy or a bit bright or slightly recessed. But after listening to many recordings and focusing on the ability to render instruments naturally, you start to conclude that most tonal “errors” from the S5 are on the recording. Because there isn’t a consistent pattern on offer, unlike many other speakers.

• High dynamic capability – the S5s rarely sound stressed and their ability to render both delicate details and drums and driving power music with low distortion is a wonder.

Now let’s get back to our questions. As I said, based on my listening, I would hypothesize that the S5 has delivered a reduction in error levels heretofore rarely seen in high-end speakers. The implications of this are significant if you actually think about them.

After you hear the S5 (and maybe a few other very low error speakers – I haven’t heard them all) it dawns on you that many other manufacturers, given a higher error level, naturally choose to shape the distortions of the signal to get a signature sonic profile that will appeal to a segment of the market. To say this a different way: if you are stuck with an above threshold level of coloration, you might rationally choose to work with that to create a house sound that works well on some recordings. Maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously, designers might make their core work the tuning of their speakers to deliver this sound profile. This is the “art” of speaker design, in this framework.

If recording errors could be corrected by offsetting speaker errors, it would potentially be valuable to choose those errors strategically, at least if recording errors are consistent. But there’s more. If listeners think that the speaker makes the sound – the speaker makes the  sound ‘good’ or makes it ‘bad’ — then providing a distinctive coloration allows the listener to hang on to an element of character when listening. This character may be reassuring even when the result on a given recording isn’t that gratifying. The more listeners are experienced with the sound of stereo systems and the less they know about real instruments, the more such a signature sound might be part of music reproduction being “believable” and getting the focus on the music for these listeners.

For these reasons, I think some people will want more tone shaping. Some people would be happier with a +3 db bump at 50 hz or 40 hz. Some people would like a Gundry dip. Some people would like a steeper monotonic tilt to the frequency response. Some people would like a touch of compression (tubes?) and some would like a touch of expansion (horns?). And so on.  If desired, these things might better be done outside the speakers, but I can’t say for sure (it is odd that so many listeners seem to want these “distortions” but most of the industry resolutely refuses to put them into a programmable processor, instead hiding them inside inflexible products that are presented as neutral).

Magico marches to the beat of a different drummer. And in this, their philosophy is much like the philosophy of The Absolute Sound as articulated since the early ‘70s. One can argue:

• If you adjust the sound profile of the speaker away from the baseline error imposed by the recording at hand, you introduce additional errors (especially in the time domain) and thus you won’t fully reverse, and will often exaggerate, recording errors

• Recording errors tend not to follow much of a pattern, so there is not one sound profile that will work to accomplish the imagined goal (see note on programmability above)

• Many recordings (good recordings and the best recordings) will sound the best on a low-error speaker, and these recordings are unusually significant because they are most likely to be “believable”

Here is my big takeaway beyond the philosophical goals we have as listeners:

Approached from the Magico mindset (or the TAS mindset if you know your history) the S5 allows you to mostly forget about the speakers.

You start to assume the speaker is delivering the signal and move your focus to “appreciating the recording and the music.” This shift in focus, if it fits your psychology, is the real wonder of the S5 2024.

Now I think it is fair to say that the S5 will also render some recordings harder to enjoy. I would say that’s because those recordings are flawed, at least if viewed from the perspective of what would sound best on a great stereo. Maren Morris had just released a new album and I think the mixing and mastering people should be given a stern lecture and sent to their rooms without dinner. I didn’t enjoy such recordings on the S5. But I don’t enjoy those recordings on any system I can recall.

A key question raised for those who fit with the philosophy of the S5 is whether good and great recordings are good enough and numerous enough to merit being heard in a mostly unmanipulated way? Because if significant numbers of recordings are good to great, then eschewing the colorations of “managed” speakers would be worth it. And I also think higher distortion speakers will render even more recordings hard to enjoy. Your sense of this may depend on the kind of music you listen to and how wide or narrow your tastes are.

The S5 is for people who actually want to know what is on the recording because they find this leads to the highest musical satisfaction. That sounds morally upright and laudable, but too few listeners have had the chance to actually hear what this level of speaker can do so they can make an informed decision.

At least at or above the S5 price level, you now have a choice to experience this level of transparency. This is why I think the S5 2024 qualifies as a breakthrough. It may be the lowest-priced speaker that delivers a coloration level this low when considered across the full frequency band and all the way from terminals to the brain (the technically-related S3 may do similar things for smaller listening rooms).

I should note that you have another choice, which the S5 presents in stark relief. The S5 philosophically works on the well-discussed problems of linearity and resonances and timing and bandwidth and diffraction. They also work on smooth parametric changes with frequency. This is impressive, but the S5 doesn’t do anything radical for the TAS list of major audio problems like the problem of bass in real rooms or the flaws of stereo or digital distortions or visual imagery. “Of course not”, you might say, and I think you’d mostly be right, but this does mean that the S5 accomplishments have a more subtle character than you may expect based on my description above. The S5 doesn’t try to be different, it tries to be better along well-established parameters but not all parameters. It is radical in one sense and conservative in another. So, it raises another philosophical question for you, dear listener.

Summary

I listened to a series of tracks from Trio Metral and Taylor Swift and Bebe and Charles Lloyd and the Minnesota Orchestra, among many many others on the S5. The S5 draws clear distinctions between the engineering on these – to a greater degree than any other speaker system I’ve heard. It makes sense to me that a low error speaker will be more revealing because the less speaker coloration is part of the mix, the more you hear the recordings themselves. But that doesn’t tell you if those revelations are something you want to notice.

I initially had mixed feelings about this, but on reflection the S5 ‘revelations’ started to become an audio concern that receded into the background as I listened to the S5. What didn’t recede was the ability to hear into the music deeply and enjoy the musicianship on offer from the performers. That’s seems to me to be the right focus and is what brings real joy for music lovers.