'Magico' and 'budget-conscious' aren't words often seen in the same sentence – the Californian firm's Ultimate III speakers featured in our recent 12 of the world's most expensive loudspeakers round-up in conjunction with High End Week 2020 – and its new flagship M9 release is no exception.
This four-way, six-driver floorstanding system features the world’s first loudspeaker enclosure to combine inner and outer skins of carbon fibre, with what Magico describes as a "revolutionary" aluminum honeycomb core. In addition, the M9 benefits from Magico's latest generation of Nano-Tec speaker cones, featuring Aluminum honeycomb cores.
Each M9 floorstander comprises a 28mm beryllium-diamond dome tweeter, a 6-inch midrange driver, two 11-inch mid-bass drivers and two 15-inch bass drivers.
But you don't just get two driver-packed monoliths. Your purchase comes complete with the Magico Analog Crossover (MXO) unit and separate crossover power supply, weighing 18kg and 27kg respectively. You'll still need amplification remember – a pair of M9 loudspeakers requires two stereo or four monaural amplifiers.
Ready for the list of world-firsts found in the M9? There are a few to cover.
The M9 represents the world’s first loudspeaker enclosure with carbon fibre inner and outer skins over an aluminium honeycomb core. This technology promises to reduce overall weight yet doubles the structural stiffness – although you'll still need a bit of strength to get them into the lounge: each one weighs 454kg and stands over 2m tall.
The M9's new beryllium-diamond dome tweeter is the world's first 28mm beryllium dome, which has been enhanced with the stiffness of diamond carefully applied by chemical vapour deposition.
The M9 cone voice coils are huge – 3, 4 and 5 inches in diameter – boasting much faster dissipation of heat and greater control over the cone. Vents in the voice coil formers provide another level of heat dissipation. Magico chose formers of pure titanium for its combination of stiffness and resistance to eddy currents.
You'll also get familiar features of Magico construction, including a baffle board of 6061 T6 aircraft aluminum and front-to-back tensioning rods.
Even though the M9 has a commanding physical presence, in sonic terms, Magico promises that the design completely vanishes. The firm also relentlessly tested the M9 to reach what it claims is, "the absolute pinnacle of acoustic engineering". No pressure, then.
The Magico M9 begins shipping in Q4 2020. The UK RRP is officially ‘price on application’ but is expected to be in the region of £840,000 including VAT per pair (approximately $1,062,300/AU$1,534,000, where available) – and sold exclusively by Absolute Sounds in the UK.
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