Magico A5

It’s rare for a Stereophile reviewer to review two loud-speakers in a row from the same manufacturer, but then these are unusual times. Because of the pandemic, Magico’s M2s got stuck here for a year (I know: poor me). By the time they were packed up and shipped out, it was time for a long-scheduled review of the less-expensive, more-massive Magico A5 ($24,800/pair).

- JIM AUSTIN

LOUDSPEAKER

At $63,600/pair equipped with the no-longer-optional M-Pod footers,1 the now-departed M2 costs roughly 2.5 times what the newly arrived A5 costs. (The A5 comes with mere spikes.) Like all current Magico speakers, both are sealed-box, acoustic suspension designs, which means that at the bottom end, the response falls off at 12dB/octave—slow enough to have useful output a full octave below where the low bass starts trending down. That’s a much slower rolloff than with the more common bass-reflex (ported) designs.

The A5 is the bigger speaker of the two, with significantly more cabinet volume, which should translate into more and deeper bass—as should the A5’s three 9 woofers, which, doing the math, have about 2.5 times more woofer surface area than the M2’s two 7 bass drivers.

Magico is a company that measures and that practices physics-based design based on established psychoacoustic knowledge. But it is also a company that listens; sure, Magico owns a Klippel Near Field Scanner and a laser interferometer, but it also has the second-nicest listening room I’ve visited. Science and listening need not be opposed concepts, even if, regrettably, some people seem to see it that way. Where Magico parts ways with some of the more subjectivist loudspeaker makers is in their belief that a product that measures well should also sound good. But that doesn’t keep them from listening.