Loudspeakers

The A5 offers up a smooth but slightly convex response profile while its bass [green shaded area, Graph 1], aided by the three 175mm graphene/carbon-fibre woofers with their 48Hz-215Hz bandpass (–6dB), extends to a diffraction-corrected 41Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz). The alignment is still slightly 'peaky', however, emphasised at 73Hz but both this, and the ultimate extension, may be fine-tuned by in-room boundary reinforcement. The main response shows two notches – at 3.9kHz and 28kHz – the former possibly a diffraction cancellation at the seam between the baffle and top, or a mistermination, while the latter is a local null prior to the primary breakup of the 28mm beryllium dome at 37.9kHz.

The 3.9kHz notch is too narrow to be directly audible, and can be made to 'disappear' with coarse response smoothing! Moreover, the very low 0.06% midband THD (re. 90dB SPL) barely increases to 0.09% here, but the notch has 'ripples' caught on the CSD waterfall [see Graph 2] that, arguably, are more 'visually' than audibly exciting. It's also the cause of the ±2.7dB/±2.8dB response errors, just as pair matching deviates by 1.1dB here but is otherwise a magnificently tight 0.3dB from 200Hz-20kHz.

Sensitivity is only a little lower than Magico's rated 88dB at 87.7dB/1kHz and 87.1dB, averaged 500Hz-8kHz, but the rated 1kW power handling will still permit very high sound levels. You will need a very capable amplifier, however, as the A5's load drops to a minimum of 2.65ohm/93Hz/–23° and has a maximum swing in phase angle of –72°/56Hz/7.8ohm. The load is sub-8ohm from 55Hz-1.7kHz (sub-4ohm from 65Hz-275Hz) and 2.4kHz upwards, dropping to sub-4ohm from 4.8kHz-45kHz. PM