We, horn people, when we see as some kind of horn outsider begin to spill his foolishness about the horns inhalations, we always feel  that out territory was violated by a primitive brain who listen a box loudspeaker. The Absolute Sound, in its March issues, published Robert Harley call (it had to call this writing a review) to any freak who subscribes Robb Report and who dreams about an inch-larger penis to pay attention to the new Magico Ultimate loudspeakers. As the result the, ever wondering Mike Lavigne lost his sleep

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=2013#2013

and Mike Framer is filing a legal procedure against Magico as Magico did not give him to “review” his loudspeaker.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?postID=1957

What a shame for the poor Fremey: he did not warm his hands off the Magico speakers.  The Fremey have browsed horn sites and have collected some saleable quotes. Now the Mickey-Mouse Fremey was fully ready to write his new “horny” review. But the bad boy Baba Harley took the Magico’s peaces of reviewing cake almost from the Fremey’s mouse… Do not worry Mr. Fremey, Robert Harley did a very noble job fully substituting you – means writing a few thousands words about ….nothing.

In the past I have written a few comments blaming the folks who writhe in audio publications being ignorant, deceptive of juts simply stupid:

Martin-Logan, Myles Astor and the Silent Running Stupidity.
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1459

Lamm LP2 phonostage: review of review.
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=708

“His name was Marc Mickelson he was a showgirl…”
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=760

In all those cases I did not partially cared about the products but rather about the very superficial and very primitive reference points that the reviewers used when they approaches to the given components. In the case of the Magico Ultimate Robert Harley unfortunately did the very much the same – he published a very primitive judgment about the product. Not positive or negative but juts primitive, or the judgment that is intellectually structured to be consumed by the Mike Lavignes and the similar to him audio cretins…

In the beginning the review Robert Harley was trying to convince a reader that a reader has some king of deadly illness and that him, Robert Harley, has a cure for it. What he failed to mention is that the deadly disease has name – the primitivism of expectations - and Robert Harley did his best to provide his “remedy” injecting into the article the  primal “Got the milk?” paradigm. The rest of the review Robert Harley reprinted the information from the Magico marketing brochure, informing the readers how shiny the speakers might be. Interestingly that when Magico guy

(I have mentioned him at: http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1922#1922)

described to me his speakers he made a number of mistakes and “simplifications” that were ironically word by word re-printed by Robert Harley I his article. So, what the review is: walking around the speakers, describing the “large WBT binding posts” and reprinting what a manufacture give you to reprint? Well, probably Robert also have listen those loudspeakers? Yes, he did, and the most horrible that Mr. Harley actually have writhen what he thinks about his listing assessment. Robert isolated his listening impressions into a separate section in order do not confuse them with his description of waling around a first loudspeaker that he ever have seen. If he seen more that one loudspeaker then he might point out what fundamental design problems that Magico loudspeakers have? Ok, let do not judge Mr. Harley so hard – the Magico were a first Robert Harley loudspeakers…

The listening session…The 2/3 of the Robert Harley’s listening description went, for whatever reasons, to describe someone else playback, the badly-informed description of the available crossovers… and then a few paragraphs of actual Sound. Well, was Mr. Robert Harley talking about Sound or about his Pavlovian reaction to THE SOUNDS?

I have to explain here something. The people who pluged into audio industry professionally (and partially those who deal with sale) are disabled to hear and to talk about Sound.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=930

Those people do not recognize Sound “as is” but they rather recognize anything auditable as the sequence of precompiled listening criteria. Any of them have 10-20 pre-built for them judgments that they try to match up against what they hear.  I experimented with the industry people for years and I have reached a point when playing for them something and passing to them 1-2 keywords I can instigate a very precise and very predictable “pre-compiled” feedback from them. They are like the freaking computers form 70s – capable to accept a single word and then return a single word, nothing else.

In context of above, Robert Harley unfortunately did nothing else then being Robert Harley – to express a Pavlovian reflex of am industry sale professional. He passes 5 paragraphs of very generic comments that would be appreciated only if you embrace the Audiogon-level jargon. All that the review had were juts the  primitive judgments, primitive music material,  no description how the installations actually sounds and what kind idiosyncrasies it has, no facts check, no Robert Harley in the view, no thoughts of the owner of the system, no educational information for Robert Harley or for the readers. I have a feeling the Magico guy built the set of the loudspeakers for a guy in San Francisco, come up with a generic marketing release and then juts planed it in the hands of Robert Harley.

Everyone wins in this situation: Robert Harley, the Magico’s accountant, the magazine and the fools-customers who had guys to read the review to the end (I did not). However, there are two entries that gained nothing from the Robert Harley’s writing: the Magico Ultimate loudspeakers – they lost a chance to say about themselves, and the Magico’s designer – he did not learn about nither the Magico’s Sound not the Magico’s desng problems.

JLH wrote:

Foolishness is too soft a word to describe the unspeakable garbage the Magico Ultimate is. They have mis-matched impedance drivers, improperly sized horns for the drivers, and made everything from metal. Then they go on an attempt to brag that "We use the same CAD and simulation software that BMW uses to design their new cars". Who are they kidding? Like this is supposed to provide some kind of "rightness" to their Moronic design. The petty marketing lines they use throughout the entire Web site are laughable. In addition, if I had a welder that took 4 months to make just one of those metal horns, I would fire his ass and hire better help. Us horn lovers have been badly violated by a primitive brain with the Magico Ultimate. No doutb.

I would not call Magico Ultimate as unspeakable garbage as I never heard them. I would call them very ignorantly made loudspeakers by a builder who have very remote understanding of what he does. I would very much agree that US horn lovers have been badly violated by the primitive objectives of Magico and by the Robert Harley’s foolish commentaries.

I will leave aside the “simulation software that BMW uses” as it is too much “for kids”. I would also leave aside the fact that it was spent 4 months to make just one of those upper bass horns. ( Do you want to recall how long you made your upper bass horns) I presume that making those horns is not the guy full time job and therefore he is perfectly within his constitutional right to do it as long and he wish.  Should the people like Robert Harley writhe about 4 months as an evidence of complexity or should he to BS that the only two shops in US can make them? I do not think so, but it what the marketing whores do: ignite a cheap publicity around the faulty facts.

I also do not particularly blame the Magico for use of metal. If the aluminum is thick enough and if those horns are “hairy” finished then it might be fine. Do not forget the Magico use compression drivers where the back chamber (the really shaky part of the horns) is already implemented and therefore they could be less strong and have less mass then the horns that use cone drivers as the compression.

Ro review very briefly here are my issues with Magico design.

1) High order crossovers.  24dB and 48dB. This thing is a direct death for music and very symbolic and indicative that any single person who approaches the Magico is a barbarian in Sound and Music.  With 24dB and 48dB per octave those speakers are only capable to play heavy metal and black rap, which was exactly the music that the Magico guy had in his disposal in Vegas.

2) Time aliment.  Horns operate in phase domain and the times misaligned horns are waste of efforts.  The art of horns arrangement is to make them functional, naturally phase-coherent, user friendly and so on. The Magico guy juts piled up a bunch of the horns all together to make them photogenic and he has no remote comprehending of any further results. The analog crossovers that he provides have no time alignment provision and he believes the providing the digital crossover he helps the satiation. If the Robert Harley is so smart then instead of writing the idiocy in his review he should educate the ignorant Magico guy what kind of resolution he had a the stop-band at 48dB per octave. I am sure that playing the Pacific converter and $20K drivers within an octave slope at 8 bit resolution is a lot of fun but it is only of someone’s sick brain overwrites own ears…

3) 120Hz upperbass horn located in a middle of a room? Great, it is exactly where he lost the 20-25Hz but loosing the floor reinforcement. The decoupled straight upper bass never sound correct not mater what you do. It has too much HF overtones and too low LF harmonics.

4) The contamination of the horns exit by the baffle. This is a huge mistake and it produces very specific and very non-resolvable horrible sound. The exit of HF and MF horn should be clean form any sizable surfaces. Any vertical surfaces create an acoustic fog those bounds back to the listening space diluting everything. The Magico is the worst case of baffle contamination I even seen.

5) The Magico’s bass section is complete joke. I know the Aura drivers very well and to use them as Magico does requite to use a lot of LSD to appreciate THIS bass. Not to mention that to push Aura driver up to 120Hz is like asking 100 people to threw up a space station in order to kick it to an orbit.

I can go on but it is close to 1.30 am and the Magico is not really noble contestent to think about them seriously. Unfortunately, the problem is not with the Magico. Everyone does the things in audio within the scope of own reference points, limitation of own expertise, own sonic deafness and own musical evolvement. The Magico guy was not an exception and what he dos is a perfect depiction of his objectives. The real guilty party in that entire Magico circus is Robert Harley. A reviewing should be a quietly assurance of a product. Unfortunately Robert Harley signed off a very poor speaker.

I am sure Robert is happy, the Magico guy is happy but idea of using ears and brain in order to make horns to sound better got screwed and the Morons out there got the very negative example.

drdna wrote:

Still Robert Harley does end with a statement I can agree with: "Perhaps the low-power amplifier/high-sensitivity horn-loaded loudspeaker approach... is the true path towards creating the illusion of live music in our homes."

Sorry to steer away from Harley, but have you Horn guys ever tried different flare terminations?  That is, the boundary condition where the mouth and room meet.  I once saw some interesting stuff done on large radio antennas that improved gain (efficiency) or perhaps bandwidth by adding "petals" to the edges of the horn.  Sort of made the mouth look like a daisy.  Perhaps it was to make the transition to low impedance air a little smoother.  Not sure if there are analogs with broadband impedance converters in microwave transmission lines.

Maybe a flare that turns a full 180 degree outward is good enough.  I don't know.  Maybe it is related to the lower cutoff frequency.  I believe you get some odd phase or impedance effects at that transition.  Such flare modifications (stolen from mother nature's flower design) might smooth this out.  If so, could eliminate some crossover components.

jh

hagtech wrote:

Sorry to steer away from Harley, but have you Horn guys ever tried different flare terminations?  That is, the boundary condition where the mouth and room meet.  I once saw some interesting stuff done on large radio antennas that improved gain (efficiency) or perhaps bandwidth by adding "petals" to the edges of the horn.  Sort of made the mouth look like a daisy.  Perhaps it was to make the transition to low impedance air a little smoother.  Not sure if there are analogs with broadband impedance converters in microwave transmission lines. Maybe a flare that turns a full 180 degree outward is good enough.  I don't know.  Maybe it is related to the lower cutoff frequency.  I believe you get some odd phase or impedance effects at that transition.  Such flare modifications (stolen from mother nature's flower design) might smooth this out.  If so, could eliminate some crossover components.

However the large baffles near Flare and parallel to flare are totally different story and their very negative ever is very much observable and predictably curable.

Rgs,
Romy

guy sergeant wrote:

Why do you care what Robert Harley, TAS or the people from Magico have to say? Why does it matter whether the reputation of horn loaded loudspeakers gets sullied in some way by these people? No manufacturer that I know of does it properly anyway. The only people that might are single minded individuals like yourself and unfortunately that isn't going to sell magazines which is all that the publishers of TAS and Stereophile are really interested in. Whose interests are you seeking to protect by criticising this nonsense? Most music enthusiasts would not be able to afford speakers like these. Those that could, who might buy them on the strength of a review like this deserve what they get! I don't see why you get so exercised by this sort of thing. Please explain.

It is not that I get exercised but disappointed. I like horns and I do not mind if others understood their advantages. However, the people like Magico do not do the BENEFICIAL HORNS but rather “viewed like horns” loudspeakers abracadabra. The generally ignorant and deaf horde of audio Morons perceives that abracadabra as the actual horn’s results. How much idiocy we have in horns if the “expert-reviewer”, like Robert Harley, listening the Magico abracadabra allows himself to say:  "I can't believe these are horns!”

In the end, if the single-minded individuals like myself would not voice our opinions pointed out to the misguided foolishness that is being sold to you then the amateur abracadabra like Magicos will become a horn loudspeaker, then the ignorant butchers like Bill Fitzmaurice would become the horn desinger-exprets and then the dirt that had to aborted before it’s birth - Wayne Parham would become a “horn manufacturer”.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

guy sergeant wrote:

So Bill Fitzmaurice and Wayne Parham are perceived by some as experts. So what? How does that impact on what you do?   There are many less than competent amplifier designer/manufacturers around aswell. It will always be that way. When Dr Atkins' diet became popular a few years back other nutritionists attacked his work. I could understand that. He was a real threat to their credibility. The widespread acceptance of his (suspect) approach probably damaged their career prospects (for a while) and to some extent their earning potential. This doesn't constitute such a threat to you, your livelihood or for that matter the laws of physics which apply to horn loudspeaker design. Unlike the dieting/nutrition industry millions of dollars are not at stake. This is just another flashy, meaningless exercise which will be forgotten in 12 months time. Of course the audio press lap it up. They like a story and they need circulation. You should understand how it works by now and should care less.

Rgs,
The Cat

hagtech wrote:

On another note, I've been following the Fitzmaurice articles in audioXpress for years.  It seems he has only one criteria for a speaker.  SPL.  Some of the stuff he does is really scary.  But then, I've never heard one of them.

Rgs,
The Cat

guy sergeant wrote:

I stopped paying any attention to the ravings of magazines like TAS and Stereophile (and our English equivalents) many years ago. I'm just surprised when I encounter people who take what they say seriously enough to become annoyed by it. Maybe TAS and Stereophile are still considered to be important by people in the U.S. They aren't here. Guy

Gregm wrote:

Amazingly, some people are influenced. They refer to what X golden-ear or Y guru reviewer has to say as important, ground-breaking news... Uncanny!

It is not secret that any review before accepted for publishing is viewed and signed off by a manufacturer. It is not that the manufacturer necessary writhe the reviews (although I know some event when this did actual happen) but rather a manufacturers reviews that the basic presented facts are correct and that the basic messages are passed correctly.

Let to leave along the Robert Harley’s comment how the system sounded. Look at the part of the Robert writing what was clearly inspired by the Magico marketing presentation itself. 

What Robert Harley said describing the Magico speaker is EXECLY what is in a head of the Magico designer. The realty is that was nothing in that review that indicated any reasoning for Magico impetrations, any sound related motivations or any demonstration of design intelligence or intention. The review indicates that the only motivation to make the speakers  was a feeling that the idiots-US-consumers will be thrilled with any speakers that reminds the BMW’s body, that cost $200K and inspired Robert Harley to have a RMO (a Reviewer’s Multiple Orgasm) while he was listening them. It’s it. There is apparently nothing behind the Magico and there was nothing else that a Magico guy is able to say about his speakers. The Harley’s review is very clearly portrays it.

So, do you feel that reviews are not influential? I disagree. They are, if one knows what to pay attention, are a wonderful tool to learn what does not deserved to be heard. Am I mistaken? Perhaps. Visit the Magico guy and talk with him about his speakers. Then you will learn WHY Harley pulled out if his ass words trying to say SOMETHING about the Magico.

Am I mistaken? Well, as usually….

Rgs,
Romy

Romy the Cat wrote:

Gregm wrote: Amazingly, some people are influenced. They refer to what X golden-ear or Y guru reviewer has to say as important, ground-breaking news... Uncanny! (...) So, do you feel that reviews are not influential? I disagree.

Romy the Cat wrote:

They (reviews) are, if one knows what to pay attention, a wonderful tool to learn what does not deserved to be heard.

I do not receive TAS but apparently they published some new BS propaganda about Magico Ultimate.  I made an appropriate comment with a highly predicable noise from the ordinary suspects.

http://www.avguide.com/forums/magico-ultimate-ii-horn-loudspeaker-following-dream-tom-martin

I do not know who Tom Martin. He said that he runs The Absolute Sound and he apparently has power to delete my posts from TAS forum. I have finished with TAS forum – they fully indicated the level of the subject handling. Tom Martin however posted a link to his blog post about Magico Ulitmate.

http://www.avguide.com/blog/first-release-listening-horns-magico-ultimate-ii

This apparently is the MKII, the “improved” version. I have read the Tom’s feedback.  As an observation of a relatively inexperienced person it is a reasonable document. I would not be critical about Tom Martin’s observations – it is a privet post and everyone in titled to demonstrate own views. Still, even in Martin’s uninformed listening experiences it might be clearly recognized the design problems of the Magico Ulitmate. Sure, in the comment section the toilet paper of audio reviewing – the estimable Jonathan Valin – was not be able to stay away from trumping up the stupid excitement.

I do not know what fantasies Tom Martin and Robert Harley had but it looks to me  that Magico Ultimate II is very much the same as Magico Ultimate I, the prefix II mean a new round of marketing BS… Here are the pictures of the Ultimate’s installation in Hong Kong demo room. The guy you heard them is rather ignorant and not experienced to hear the sonic problems with Ultimate design but the pictures are there….

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/showthread.php?t=18843

Romy the Cat wrote:

I do not know what fantasies Tom Martin and Robert Harley had but it looks to me  that Magico Ultimate II is very much the same as Magico Ultimate I, the prefix II mean a new round of marketing BS… Here are the pictures of the Ultimate’s installation in Hong Kong demo room. The guy you heard them is rather ignorant and not experienced to hear the sonic problems with Ultimate design but the pictures are there…. http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/showthread.php?t=18843 Rgs, Romy the Cat

What is the most interesting at the Hong Kong installation linked in my post above that they drive Magico Ultimate with looks like bi-amping of Lamm ML3 and ML1. The ML1 is 80W PP amp that is OK for this foolish Magico bass channel. The ML3 in country is 40W amp that was build to handle greed current on GM70 and to drive the ported Wilsons and alike. Degrading all the rest Magico Ultimate problem I would say that those Hong Kong folks are a bit wrong to employ ML3 over the Magico MF horns.  Sure they use different logic: if you have 400K speakers then you need to use 160K amp… The moronic logic…

BTW, it kind of opines an interning question: how good the Lamm ML3 for the first half watt? I think it shall be fine but I am sure it would be much better it is meant to work in this mode. If ML3 would just a few watts then it would not need to come up with such a powerful 4-tube current provider for second stage. In fact, for first view watts the ML3 shall be 2-stages only.

Again, the Hong Kong folks sell the boxes to people who mostly have absolutely no idea what they do. If the ML3 drives only MF channels of Magico then we are in DSET world and 80% of ML3 is not necessary and ML3 might be converted into $5.000 amplifier on GM70. OK, in the Lamm’s scale it would be $55.000…

Romy the Cat wrote:

I do not know who Tom Martin. He said that he runs The Absolute Sound and he apparently has power to delete my posts from TAS forum. I have finished with TAS forum – they fully indicated the level of the subject handling. Tom Martin however posted a link to his blog post about Magico Ulitmate. http://www.avguide.com/blog/first-release-listening-horns-magico-ultimate-ii This apparently is the MKII, the “improved” version. I have read the Tom’s feedback.  As an observation of a relatively inexperienced person it is a reasonable document. I would not be critical about Tom Martin’s observations – it is a privet post and everyone in titled to demonstrate own views. Still, even in Martin’s uninformed listening experiences it might be clearly recognized the design problems of the Magico Ulitmate. Sure, in the comment section the toilet paper of audio reviewing – the estimable Jonathan Valin – was not be able to stay away from trumping up the stupid excitement.

“As a physicist (PhD) with an M.S in  Acoustics, and a big horns fan, I like to say that I found very little merits in Romy criticism of the Ultimate horns. After spending some time on his website, trying to weed out relevant information to support his dismay (That was hard), I only came up with one coherent point which relates to time alignment. I would like to point out that the benefits  of "time alignment" in multi-way transducers line-up is controversial at best. This is due to the very simple fact that "proper" physical alignment is truly only possible in a concentric devise. One that none of these big horns relates to. Beside, since it looks like the Ultimate is running through a DSP XO, I am sure that a delay can easily be introduced to create a much more accurate time alignment then merely a physical one.  Romy can jump all he likes but the "questionable validity" of vertical physical time alignment has been proven by people with much more appropriate credential then a hobbyist/entertainer.”

I think my commentaries are not necessary.  It is good that the guy is not a doctor or he would insist that there are teeth behind asshole sphincter.