CES 2009

Magico had two rooms at the Venetian, the first of which featured the Californian company's new 4-way M5 ($89.000/pair). Weighing in at 360 lbs, the M5 features a ring-radiator tweeter built into the baffle, two 6" Nano-Tec-coned midrange units, and two 9" Nano-Tec woofers, these featuring 5" voice-coils. The sealed enclosure—no ports in Alon Wolf's designs—is constructed, like other Magico speakers, from multiple layers of Baltic Birch plywood. The convex front baffle is machined from a 200lb slab of aircraft-grade aluminum.

Alon Wolf was demonstrating the M5 with hi-rez files played on a proprietary server/DAC system, with MIT cables and amplification from Swiss company Soulution. I auditioned both a 24-bit track from the Reference Recordings Crown Imperial album at 176.4kHz and Boz Scaggs singing "My Funny Valentine" at 88.2kHz. Awesome. Simply effortlessly awesome.

Wes Phillips is arranging to review the M5 for Stereophile. I am looking forward to auditioning them in his room. I am not looking forward to transporting them to my place for measurement. (Oh, my aching back!)