I don’t even know where to begin. The guys from F1 Audio, Magico and D’Agostino aren’t playing a room, they are playing one of the largest open spaces on this convention center campus. There’s no practical explanation for this sounding as full and tight as it does, unless one were to point out the massive dual subwoofers, each weighing in at 575lbs. In the most absurd way, this would make one hell of a bedroom system.
Here’s the thing. F1 Audio is a high-end brick-and-mortar audio store located in Palatine for the Chicagoland area. At Axpona they were displaying Magico M6s and a pair of Magico Q Sub 18s, along with pair of Dan D’agostino Momentum M400 monoblock amplifiers and their new Momentum HD Preamplifier. On the source end, Chord Electronics Hugo M-Scaler and Dave DAC, and the Roon Nucleus, all cabling with Transparent cabling.
F1 Audio is an exclusive Illinois dealer for Magico loudspeakers as well as Dan D’agostino Master Reference Systems. They also represent Chord Electronics, Transparent Cable, Octave, Hegel, Dynaudio, Roon, Mapleshade stands, and variety of high end headphone manufacturers including Abyss, Campfire Audio, Meze, MrSpeakers, and RAAL Requisite.
Unique about the F1 Audio display is that it was not located in a ballroom, but out in the open of the Nirvana Lounge area on the convention-center-side, up on the second floor. Did this matter much for causing problems with the sound? Well, in short — no. Everything was quite amazing and with seemingly endless square footage to fill, the Magico speakers never fell short.
Also on display from Magico, were the new M2 loudspeakers playing upstairs on the 16th floor of the hotel-tower-side. Between the two exhibit spaces, I experienced something completely different from each other in terms of room scale, but always with stellar sense of power and detail from Magico.
by Eric Shook
