Want to feel like Beyoncé’s serenading you live? The US$700,000 Magico M9 gets you pretty close, but is this really the best home speaker in the world?
What: Magico M9 flagship loudspeaker
How much: US$750,000 per pair
Why: Everyone has their own idea about what makes great sound quality. Depending on who you ask, it could hinge on a number of things, like how big your space is, what genre of music you’re playing, or – for the serious audiophile – more particular markers such as whether the output is “warm”, “bright” or “neutral”. Perhaps like all art, it’s subjective.
But, at US$750,000 a pair, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone to refute that Magico’s new M9 flagship loudspeaker is anything but expensive.
The M9 is a full-range set-up, with a six-inch midrange driver, two 11-inch mid-bass drivers, and two 15-inch bass drivers. And, even though Magico isn’t a household name, it is a company with a roll-call of world firsts in the field of audio engineering, including a first for the M9’s loudspeaker enclosure that combines inner and outer skins of carbon fibre with an aluminium honeycomb core.
The architectural lines of the enclosure reduces the overall weight of the speaker while doubling its structural stiffness. It also tackles one of the greatest challenges in the design of a quality loudspeaker: how to control cabinet vibrations without storing energy.
The four-way, six-driver speaker uses Magico’s latest eighth generation Nano-Tec speaker cones, with the aluminium honeycomb core sandwiched between a graphene skin. The carbon fibre material offers the highest tensile strength of any material known to science, with a hexagonal lattice that measures just one atom thick. The company even claims you could run over an inverted speaker cone with a car and it wouldn’t buckle – it’s that rigid.
All this acoustic sorcery occurs in a floor-standing loudspeaker that measures just over two metres tall and weighs 454kg. The company’s explanation of how its new loudspeaker passes muster is described rather poetically: “Even though the M9 has a commanding physical presence, in sonic terms, it completely vanishes.”
So, if you’re in the market for world-first technology and materials, the M9 fits the bill, though it’s certainly a hefty bill.
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The M9’s speaker cones are so strong, Magico claims you could run them over with a car to no effect, but at two metres tall, they hardly blend into the background – so are they worth the hefty price tag?