CES 2012 – Magico, MIT Cables

Visited this room twice, the second time with Neli. Can’t ever play CDs here and the music they play is… often strikingly unfamiliar.

Or is it?

The bad news is that the music here was so disconnected from itself, so uneven, so discontinuous, just note here note there as if they came from different songs that even what should be a familiar musician was extremely hard to recognize [Neli said that a Mark Knopfler piece was played here, and we listen to Knopfler ALL the time, but I did not recognize it as being anything except for ‘reminiscent’ of Knopfler]. Harmonics were off, note duration was off. Argh.

The good news is that the speakers did all this effortlessly.

Why is this significant? Because from the old Magico Mini to the recent Q5, Magico speakers have sounded like they are always starved for power. That they are struggling to pump out each note. We’ve known Magico owners who swap out amp after amp trying to find something to get these puppies to loosen up, to open up, to breeeeathe.

But if the Q7 is different [it certainly is BIGGER. Whoa that is a lot of aluminum] then for people who require a BIG sound from their statement speakers – and most do – well then these do that. As for their ultimate ability to do micro-dynamics, to be controlled so that notes start and bloom and die correctly, to reproduce the emotions that most music is trying to communicate – well, that we hope to find out at the next show.

Haven’t read JV’s review of this room yet [presumably as Magico’s #1 guy he gets the inside scoop] but read enough of the comments while dealing with other business over there that Magico was playing hide-and-seek with the amps here, and apparently changing them once in a while.

I listened near 4-4:30pm on the 2nd day, Friday, and about 2 hours before closing on Sunday afternoon. Both the problems with the sound and the effortlessness of the speakers making the sound were similar on both occasions. So I am hoping that the effortlessness has much to do with the speakers and little or nothing to do with the amps [and this is a reasonable assumption too, based on the fact that, although we have heard many mega amps on Magico speakers, they have never opened up like this.]

The Magico Q7 / MIT room with the rack on the left

The Magico / MIT room equipment rack. Not sure what that component on the middle left shelf is. No photo. Certainly one can wonder why they chose these particular pieces. I did not get to hear the Nagra reel-to-reel.

The Magico ‘Q7’ loudspeaker

The Magico ‘Q7’ loudspeaker

The Magico ‘Q7’ loudspeaker from the rear

The Magico ‘Q7’ loudspeaker binding posts. Looks like they tri-wireable and are being tri-wired. Were they tri-amped? Don’t know.

The Magico ‘Q7’ loudspeaker from the side

The Magico ‘Q7’ loudspeaker feet. OK. Lousy photo. But see? No spikes. But there is some kind of special stuff in those feet though…

An Unknown Audio Component [thought they may be the amps the first time I was here]

Pacific Microsonics / Euphonix HDCD converter

A Nagra Kudelski reel-to-reel tape deck

Spectral Studio Reference Preamplifier

MIT ‘Oracle MA-X’ cables