ASW Magadis sound system test: authenticity above all

ASW, whose production is located in the German town of Wreden on the very border with the Netherlands, celebrated its 20th anniversary in the fall of 2007 and celebrated the round anniversary with the new Magadis loudspeaker system. “Magadis” became not only the flagship model of ASW, but also opened a new page in the history of the company: before them, the company produced speakers in the segment of “affordable high end”, personally developing the cabinets and speakers, trying to combine them with the best sound and design at a reasonable cost. “The Magadis are birds of a different flight. Although German engineers who designed the speakers, did not do anything technical, they’ve demonstrated a radical approach to the quality of selected components with the utmost attention to the manufacturing of each speaker component, from the cabinet profile to crossover parts and wiring. So the result is a speaker system that deserves a detailed description.

Test: Denis GONCHAROV, Consumer magazine. Video&Audio

CONSTRUCTION

ASW Magadis speakers show a sound that is almost perfect in terms of information. The speakers can be surely called one of the best representatives of the German Hi-End school, as well as of the whole segment of speaker systems costing up to $40,000.

Magadis speakers have 158 cm high, 33 cm wide and 49 cm deep cabinets made of double plywood sheets up to 60 mm thick. According to the laws of “correct” acoustics cabinets of the speakers do not have parallel surfaces, the front panel area with tweeter and midrange speakers is further narrowed to prevent unwanted sound reflections, the front of the speakers is made concave, to ensure the temporary coordination of the transducers of different bands.

High quality finishes are the hallmark of any ASW speaker for the Magadis, German designers chose 5 standard colors, including maple, macassar, tineo, black and white, all of which can be in a matte finish or royal lacquer. Of course, the Magadis can be custom made in any finish the customer desires.

The internal design of the cabinets does not tolerate compromises: all speakers and crossover are in isolated compartments, carefully treated with absorbent cushioning and reinforced at critical points by spacers. Midrange speakers operate in closed boxes, bass chambers are in a bass reflex design with ports on the back. Each port comes with removable plugs, which can be useful for tweaking the sound of the bass in a particular room, which has its own resonances.

For the anniversary speakers, ASW engineers chose speakers from reputable manufacturers. A total of five heads are used in “Magadis”, arranged in a symmetrical order on the front – a complete triumph of the American designer d’Appolito’s ideas. Above and below are 220 mm diameter ScanSpeak Revelator bass drivers, equipped with aluminum diaphragms, SD1 Symmetrical Drive motors with air ventilation of 50-mm coils on Kapton frame and cast magnesium chassis.

The two mid-frequency drivers, closed with metal grids, have a diameter of 130 mm and are manufactured by the German company Thiel Accouton. They are equipped with ceramic diaphragms made of Al2O3 aluminum oxide. While retaining the rigidity of metal, this material has much better damping properties than the original aluminum, so a speaker with a similar cone is less likely to stain. The diaphragm, unusual for midrange loudspeakers, is mounted on a large, semi-circular hanger.

The tweeter range is handled by a modified Mundorf Hale Design transducer. The Hale transducer, or AMT Air Motion Transformer as it’s also called, is an improvement on the ribbon driver. AMT was invented in 1970 by American engineer Oscar Hale of the California company ESS Electro Static Sound . the AMT voice coil is applied directly to a thin, ultra-light polyester diaphragm or similar material, but the AMT diaphragm folds in an accordion to multiply the radiating surface area.

Hale’s drivers have high speed, not inferior to either ribbon or electrostatic transducers, the increased area gives a large sound pressure even with a small deflection of the diaphragm, and this property, in turn, provides low distortion of sound. The advantages of AMT are already appreciated by many manufacturers, while in the 70s the technology was developed only by ESS, today many companies develop similar tweeters: for example, the Germans Eton, Elac, Adam and the above mentioned company Mundorf, the Swiss Precide.

Recently, the Tymphony company, known for assembling the famous Danish brands ScanSpeak, Vifa and Peerless, offered their versions of the AMT bass drivers.

Isolated from the influence of the speakers Magadis crossover is designed for 3 bands with dividing points at 200 and 3200 Hz. In the crossover filters 1st and 3rd order assembled from audiophile elements are used: Mundorf MKP capacitors, low-resistance transformer coils and air-core inductors, the internal wiring in the speakers is made with a reference cable from one of the largest companies in the field Atlas Scotland . On the switchboard there are two pairs of WBT Next Gen terminals, the connectors of which are made of pure copper with gold plating.

SOUND

Tonally, the sound of Magadis speakers can be called verified, from the lower octave to the extreme top, the speakers do not give unnecessary accents, even at the bottom they well control the length of aftershocks. Magadis’ discs are always transparent, smooth and have a pleasing ear-silver feel to the playback of cymbals and other percussion loops.

In the middle the speakers give an excellent, fast sound with rich timbres, presented in a neutral-cool key. The bass is in no way inferior in timbre texture to other bands.

So the sound of Magadis speakers from the first seconds of listening captures its amazing informative sound, the speakers do not miss a single detail of the recording, neither in the timbres of instruments and voices, nor in stereo image, revealing every feature of the scene. The musical scene in any recording unfolds wide, echeloned depth of picture does not lose contrast even when playing records of a large symphony orchestra: there are no shadows on the edges of the scene, well-drawn background with the bass groups of instruments.

Moreover, the stage is always monolithic and does not break up into parts the focus is shifted smoothly from one of the solo figures to the other, and the listener can concentrate on one of the many “threads” of the symphonic score at any moment.

Symphonic recordings also reveal another plus of the Magadys – the excellent dynamic range of their sound: for example, in Stravinsky The Rite Of Spring the speakers playfully present the listener with brilliantly worked out quiet layers of string arrangement information at first, and then explode with a powerful drum beat of big drums with energetic and bright splashes of brass in fortissimo.

Excellent “timing” processing time transitions allows “Magadysam” easily divide the entry of individual instruments in large ensembles, making the sound really understandable, as if the listener looks at the musical world through a magnifying glass.

PRICE: 860 200 Dollars.

SOURCE

The impedance curve, except for the lower frequencies, does not experience sharp modulation anywhere, but impedance of the Magadis speakers can not be called high: in the upper bass 100 Hz impedance drops to 3.6 ohms, the middle frequencies reach a local minimum of 3.7 ohms, the “global” minimum is 3.1 ohms 7 kHz . So, the Magadis need an amplifier that can deliver a lot of current. Speakers’ inverters are set to 29 Hz.

The Magadis acoustic systems AFC is within +/-3,5dB in the whole working range, in LF/MF region we can observe an unusually smooth curve with a tendency of slow gain decrease with frequency increase, at HF the tendency is reversed. The bottom margin of -3dB is 31Hz.

AFC and impedance modulus diagrams

We thank Homesound company and Panorama salon for help in making this test.

ASW Magadis speakers