Feel the Emotion

Emanuel Lafleur had a pair of his $8000/pair (estimated final price) stand-mounted two-way X1 monitors set up in the press room. Great for reaching the press, not so great for good sound, since the press room was dominated by a huge roundtable right where the sweet spot would have been. Nevertheless, the X2s sounded impressive enough that both John Marks and I were captivated.

Built by laminating cherry plywood, the cabinets are impressively dense and are quite lovely. The sound was balanced and detailed, but not fatiguing. The X2 had lots of body and a surprising amount of "jump." Lafleuraudio's website is under construction.

COMMENTS
Pete's picture

Is it just me, or does this "new" speaker seem extremely duplicative (in more ways than one) of the Magico Mini (which is much more expensive). I guess success does breed imitation.

I'm no Alon Wolf but's picture

It's not just you

mike's picture

Mini ripoff looks, Wilson ripoff name.Nice!

Dr.S.'s picture

the youngster is a gambler....

Bravo's picture

Very nicehope to ear them soon

Zombie's picture

That was my immediate reaction too!! At $8K they appear to lack the fancy drivers of the $22K Magico, but that cabinet sure looks familiar. Hmmm...imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

suits_me's picture

Pen Audio did that kind of laminated cabinet first (Baltic Birch?), and probably others before them...it's a beautiful look.

Ben's picture

Hey Emanuel, Alon Wolf called, he wanted his speaker concept back. He was kinda pissed you undercut his price by a factor of 3, also. And try to have your website ready to go next time you get some free promotion, eh? ;-)

Steven's picture

I had the chance at the FSI to listen to the X1 model because a friend of mine knew M. Lafleur. Wow, That is impressive! it sounds at least 30% better than the Magico Mini for sure.. and if you want the Magico Mini you have to import them from Italy and cost 22 000$ ( the Magico Mini always crack after a while when you import them... Don't know why tho.. ) . At this price ( around 8000$ )no wonder it is a good ratio quality/price. Cut the price by factor of 3 then improve the sound of the Magico Mini, why did I have not think about that myself before. haha.

Mike's picture

A $8000 pair of speakers built by cutting and gluing about 2 or 3 sheets of 25mm ply at 20quid a throw. Just looks like glued ply to me.Not saying they're not good, but is anyone else tired of being ripped off, or is it a UK thing?

anon's picture

Steven, Magico is based in San Francisco, not Italy. Is there any other misinformation in your post you'd like to clear up? The X1 may indeed be a fine speaker, but you do a serious disservice to M. Lafleur by trying to bring down his "competitors" with such transparent slander.

Bill's picture

I think those speakers look very good and look alike Magico for sure. But go to the lafleur wesite ( www.lafleuraudio.com) and they wrote the speaker is there since early 2006. So wich one was first Magico or Lafleur

Robert Deutsch's picture

I asked Lafleur about the speaker's resemblence to the Magico Mini, and he said that he did not know about the Magico speakers until someone at this show told him about them.

Emmanuel's picture

I would like to respond to some of the recent posts so that i may clear a few things up. The speaker was not on the website in 2006, in fact the website did not exist yet, i received the first plans from the guy transfering my drawings to autocad in June of that year. Though I had built and sold loudspeakers prior. I would like to thank Mr. Deutch for his comments, it may have been my broken english but i did not mean say that i had not heard of the Magico till the show. A friend told me about the Magico after they were featured on the cover another US based audio mag. For reason of clarity an english speaking friend helped me compose this response. Thanks to the Stereophile guys for the great show coverage, EmmanuelLafleurAudio

Robert Deutsch's picture

Sorry if I misunderstood your comment about Magico. I guess what you meant was that you did not hear about Magico until the design of your speaker was well under-way. Like Wes, I was impressed with the sound of your speakers, heard under less-than-ideal conditions.

Bill's picture

Anybody know about the electronis ( CD and AMP) driving those speakers ?

battery's picture

http://www.batteryfast.com/

nelson's picture

just heard them at the Montreal show. WoW. the second best sound, the first was a 150 000$ setup, they were used with xindak , tube cd, tube DAC and integre 160Wx2, and liquid cables, WoW.

msjustu110's picture

It was so nice to see the Emanuel Lafleur pair of $8000 stand-mounted two-way X1 monitors, which was set up in the pressroom. I agree that these cabinets are impressive and wanted to know, how I can get one of those for myself.

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