To Jeff Fritz,
I've read your articles on the Magico speakers and am considering replacing my YG Acoustics Carmels with Magico Q3s or Q5s. My question is: Do you consider the Q3s or Q5s a good speaker for a smaller room? My room is 10' x 12', and I'm considering moving to a room 12' x 15' -- larger but still pretty small. I'm looking for a little more bass, and it sounds like the Q3s or Q5s would offer more bass, but possibly not worth the extra expense considering the room size. Any thoughts on this? Thanks for any advice you can give, and I really enjoy your articles -- keep them coming!
Barry Frazelle
Two definite advantages that the Q-series speakers have when discussing how they might interact with a given room is their sealed-box bass loading and their very neutral design. They have, in my experience, very linear response in the low frequencies without the typical bass hump that many speakers have. The result is that they don’t tend to sound boomy or thick in the bass at all, but lithe and articulate, yet still deep and powerful. That being said, I still think the Q5 would be too large for your new space. It is a four-way design and I think it might be pushing things to get the proper distance from the speakers to the listening position without imposing on the room boundaries too much. It would be too tight a squeeze in my opinion.
The Q3, on the other hand, might just work perfectly. It is a three-way speaker and significantly smaller than the Q5. It doesn't have the 20Hz bass extension that the Q5 has but will play appreciably lower than the two-way Carmel. My opinion is that it will work quite well in a smaller space. I also think you should get increased resolution and transparency as bonuses. All in all, a very fine sonic upgrade from your current speaker. . . . Jeff Fritz
