Magico announced the A3 2027 last week and the US price followed a few days later: $25,000 a pair, shipping in the first quarter of 2027. The original A3 of 2017 was the speaker Magico itself described as its entry point, and it cost $9,800. So the entry point has moved by a factor of two and a half. We had no Magico in the database until this week. I added the A3 2027 from Magico’s own spec sheet, and then did what the site is for: put it next to every floor-standing speaker we hold at a similar price.
Magico A3 2027 floor-standing speakers in the Blue finish in a living room
Quick facts
- $25,000 a pair, ships Q1 2027. The 2017 A3 launched at $9,800 and had reached $12,300 by 2019.
- All new. New cabinet, new drivers, new crossover. Three-way, four drivers: a 28 mm beryllium dome, a 5 inch midrange and two 7 inch bass units, in a sealed aluminium box.
- 87 dB, 4 ohms, 25 Hz to 50 kHz, 50 to 300 W. One decibel less sensitive than the original.
- 109.5 x 23.5 x 28 cm and 59.4 kg each. The smallest cabinet of the 33 floor-standing speakers we hold between $20,000 and $30,000, and it weighs as much as boxes twice its size.
- Four finishes, all bead-blasted anodised aluminium: Black, Silver, Red and Blue.
What Magico changed
Magico’s own line is that nothing was carried over because it had worked before. Going by the product page and the press material, that holds up:
- The cabinet is still sealed and still aluminium, but it now has constrained-layer damping, bracing placed from laser vibrometer measurements, radiused vertical edges and a machined base on new footers. Each speaker weighs 59.4 kg. The original was 49.9 kg.
- The drivers are new. The midrange and bass cones are an aluminium honeycomb core between carbon-fibre skins, with titanium voice coils and copper shorting rings. The tweeter is a new 28 mm pure-beryllium dome with a neodymium motor and more linear travel. Beryllium is not new to the A3, the driver is.
- The crossover is a 24 dB per octave Linkwitz-Riley with Mundorf parts.
- The measurements came from the tools Magico built for the M9: a laser vibrometer for the cabinet and a near-field scanner that maps the output all the way round the speaker.
Magico A3 2027 in Black showing the beryllium tweeter 5 inch midrange and two 7 inch bass drivers
One thing to know about the spec sheet. Magico’s own specification list prints the midrange as 6 inches, which was the original A3’s size. The description two paragraphs above it on the same page says 5 inches, and so do What Hi-Fi and StereoNET. I have stored 5 inches and noted the disagreement on our page. If Magico corrects its sheet, we will follow.
The on-paper changes against the original are small: sensitivity goes from 88 to 87 dB, bass extension from 26 to 25 Hz, the box is 2.5 cm shorter and 1 cm deeper, and the weight goes up by 9.5 kg. The impedance, the power rating and the tweeter size are unchanged. What you are paying for is the engineering under the numbers, not the numbers.
| Magico A3 (2017) | Magico A3 2027 |
|---|
| US price at launch | $9,800 a pair | $25,000 a pair |
| Tweeter | 28 mm beryllium dome | 28 mm beryllium dome, new |
| Midrange | 6 in Graphene Nano-Tec | 5 in Nano-Tec, honeycomb core |
| Bass | 2 x 7 in Graphene Nano-Tec | 2 x 7 in Nano-Tec, honeycomb core |
| Sensitivity | 88 dB | 87 dB |
| Impedance | 4 ohms | 4 ohms |
| Frequency response | 26 Hz to 50 kHz | 25 Hz to 50 kHz |
| Recommended power | 50 to 300 W | 50 to 300 W |
| Height x width x depth | 112 x 23 x 27 cm | 109.5 x 23.5 x 28 cm |
| Weight, each | 49.9 kg | 59.4 kg |
The original A3 column comes from Magico’s old spec sheet as reprinted by ecoustics. We do not hold the original in the database, because Magico publishes no current US price for it and a row with a guessed price is worse than no row.
Magico A3 2027 dimension drawing from the front side and rear
The price, and where it came from
$9,800 in 2017. $12,300 by 2019, according to SoundStage, which asked Magico about it at the time. Forum posts put the last US list price above $15,000, and I could not confirm that from Magico, so treat it as hearsay. In the UK the picture is clearer: Magico told What Hi-Fi the original is “just shy of £22,000” today, and the A3 2027 is £28,998. So in Britain the new model costs about a third more than the old one does now. In the US it costs two and a half times what the old one did at launch.
Magico has not explained the number, and I am not going to guess at tariffs, aluminium prices or anything else. What I can do is show what else $25,000 buys among speakers we hold, which is the question anyone looking at this speaker actually has.
The 32 speakers it now competes with
We hold 468 floor-standing speakers. 99 of them cost $20,000 a pair or more, and 33, counting the Magico, sit between $20,000 and $30,000. They come from 21 brands. ATC has four in the band, and Bowers & Wilkins, DALI, Focal, Fyne Audio, JBL, KEF, Magnepan, Sonus faber and Tannoy have two each.
Magico A3 2027 in the Silver anodised finish
Three things stand out when the Magico is put in that list.
It is the smallest box in the band. 109.5 by 23.5 by 28 cm is 72 litres of cabinet. The next smallest conventional box is the ATC SCM50ASL at 105 litres, then the Triangle Magellan Quatuor 40th at 109 and the Wilson Audio Sabrina V at 118. Only the two Magnepan panels take up less room, and they are a different kind of speaker. The B&W 804 D5, which costs exactly the same $25,000, is 133 litres.
It is dense. 59.4 kg in 72 litres is 0.82 kg per litre. The Sabrina V is 0.47, the 804 D5 is 0.30, the KEF Blade Two Meta is 0.15. Even the Perlisten S7t Black Edition, at 112 kg the heaviest speaker in the band, is 0.49. Nothing else here is close. That is what an aluminium cabinet does, and it is also the thing to think about before you order one for an upstairs room.
It is a sealed box, and almost nothing else here is. Of the 33, six are sealed: the Magico, four ATCs and the Spendor Classic 200. The other 27 are ported, passive-radiator or panel designs. A sealed speaker rolls off more gently and is easier to place near a wall, and it usually gives up a little extension for it. Magico’s 25 Hz claim is better than most of the ported boxes in the band on paper. Seven of the 32 quote deeper, led by the 804 D5 and the Canton Reference 2 at 19 Hz.
Here is the Magico drawn to scale against the 804 D5, which costs exactly the same and is one of the two most-read speakers in this band on the site. You can turn them.
Size, drawn to scale
Both speakers and both views share one scale, so everything here is directly comparable. Hover a box for its dimensions.
One scale for both, standing on the same surface and pushed back to the same wall, so the deeper one visibly sticks out further.
Bowers & Wilkins 804 D5 needs about 83% more floor or shelf area. Bowers & Wilkins 804 D5 is 112mm deeper, so it stands that much further out from the wall.
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | |  |  |  |
| Model | Magico A3 2027 | Bowers & Wilkins 804 D5 | Wilson Audio Sabrina V |
| Speaker Type | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing |
| Enclosure Type | Sealed | Ported | Ported |
| Driver Setup | 3-way | 3-way | 3-way |
| Tweeter | 1.1" Dome Tweeter | 1" Diamond dome Tweeter | 1" Dome Tweeter |
| Mid-Range | 5" Nano-Tec, aluminium-honeycomb core with carbon-fibre skins Midrange | 5" Continuum cone FST Midrange | 7" Midrange |
| Woofer | 2 x 7" Nano-Tec, aluminium-honeycomb core with carbon-fibre skins Woofer | 2 x 6.5" Aerofoil Woofer | 1 x 8" Paper pulp Woofer |
| Frequency Range / Low | 25Hz | 19Hz | 27Hz |
| Frequency Range / High | 50kHz | 24kHz | 24kHz |
| Impedance Nominal | 4Ω | 8Ω | 4Ω |
| Sensitivity | 87dB | 89dB | 87dB |
| Height | 1095.0mm | 1101.0mm | 990.0mm |
| Width | 235.0mm | 308.0mm | 305.0mm |
| Depth | 280.0mm | 392.0mm | 391.0mm |
| Weight | 59.40kg | 40.30kg | 55.79kg |
| MSRP(pair) | 25000USD | 25000USD | 28500USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon |
Sensitivity is middle of the pack. The band runs from 85 dB (the ATCs) to 96 dB (the Fyne Audio F704SP), and 12 of the other 32 sit within a decibel of the Magico’s 87. Fifteen of the 33 are 4 ohm designs like the Magico. The closest matches on paper, same impedance and within a decibel, are the PS Audio Aspen FR20 at $22,999, the Sabrina V at $28,500, the JBL Summit Pumori at $29,995, the Dynaudio Confidence 30 at $21,000 and the KEF Reference 5 Meta at $22,000.
| FEATURE and SPECS COMPARISON | | |  |  |
| Model | Magico A3 2027 | JBL Summit Pumori | PS Audio Aspen FR20 |
| Speaker Type | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing | Passive Floor-standing |
| Enclosure Type | Sealed | Ported | Passive Radiator |
| Driver Setup | 3-way | 3-way | 3-way |
| Tweeter | 1.1" Dome Tweeter | 1.5" Compression Driver Tweeter | 2.5" Planar Magnetic Tweeter |
| Mid-Range | 5" Nano-Tec, aluminium-honeycomb core with carbon-fibre skins Midrange | 8" Hybrid Carbon Cellulose Composite (HC4) Midrange | 10" Midrange |
| Woofer | 2 x 7" Nano-Tec, aluminium-honeycomb core with carbon-fibre skins Woofer | 1 x 10" Hybrid Carbon Cellulose Composite (HC4) Woofer | 2 x 8" Composite sandwich Woofer |
| Frequency Range / Low | 25Hz | 30Hz | 23Hz |
| Frequency Range / High | 50kHz | 32kHz | 20kHz |
| Impedance Nominal | 4Ω | 4Ω | 4Ω |
| Sensitivity | 87dB | 87dB | 87dB |
| Max Power (RMS) | 300w | 250w | 300w |
| Height | 1095.0mm | 1056.5mm | 1283.0mm |
| Width | 235.0mm | 393.3mm | 406.0mm |
| Depth | 280.0mm | 373.0mm | 476.0mm |
| Weight | 59.40kg | 63.90kg | 60.30kg |
| MSRP(pair) | 25000USD | 29995USD | 22999USD |
| Check Current Price | Amazon | Amazon | Amazon |
One more thing worth saying. Magico publishes a full Klippel spinorama for the A3 2027 on its product page: on-axis, listening window, early reflections, sound power and the directivity indices. Almost nobody at any price does that. It does not tell you how the speaker sounds, but it tells you Magico is willing to be measured.
The Klippel spinorama Magico publishes for the A3 2027
What amplifier it needs
87 dB and 4 ohms is not a hard load by the standards of this band, but it is not a 50 W job either. Our amplifier matcher puts a pair in a medium room at 3 m, playing to 95 dB peaks, at 30 W a channel into 4 ohms as the floor, and treats anything above 300 W as wasted because that is where Magico’s rating stops. It finds 193 integrated amplifiers we hold that suit it.
The ones it rates as an excellent match and priced sensibly against a $25,000 speaker are the Technics SU-R1000 at $11,999, the MOON 641 at $11,000, the Mark Levinson No.5805 at $10,500, the Luxman L-507Z at $10,495 and the Marantz PM-10 at $8,999. All of them double or nearly double their power into 4 ohms, which is the thing to look for. If the budget stretches to the speakers’ own price, the Devialet Astra and the Esoteric F-02 top the list.
The new 28 mm beryllium tweeter and 5 inch midrange of the Magico A3 2027
The weak points
The price. It has to come first. A speaker that was $9,800 is now $25,000, and Magico has offered no explanation beyond the engineering. The engineering is real, but the original A3 was also a Magico with an aluminium cabinet and a beryllium tweeter, and it was reviewed very well. If what drew you to Magico was that the A3 was the attainable one, that reason is gone. The attainable Magico is now a used original.
It is not here yet. Shipping starts in the first quarter of 2027. Nobody outside Magico has measured one or listened to one for long. Every number above is Magico’s.
The spec sheet disagrees with itself. A 6 inch midrange in the specification list, a 5 inch midrange in the text. It is a small thing, but on a $25,000 product it should not happen.
It is heavy for its size. 59.4 kg each, 119 kg a pair, in a box the size of a modest tower. Delivery, stands and floors all need thinking about.
Sensitivity went down, not up. 87 dB and 4 ohms means a serious amplifier. That is normal in this band, but it is one more cost on top of the speakers.
The four A3 2027 finishes seen from above, Black, Blue, Red and Silver
Who does this rule out? Anyone who wanted the A3 because it was the affordable Magico, anyone who needs a speaker this year rather than next, and anyone with a modest amplifier they were hoping to keep.
What $9,800 buys today, for comparison
If you want the price the A3 started at, we hold 16 floor-standing speakers between $9,000 and $11,000. Among them: the B&W 702 S3 Signature at $9,900, the PS Audio Aspen FR10 at $9,999, the Dynaudio Contour 30i at $9,500, the Focal Kanta No.3 at $10,998 and the Revel PerformaBe F228Be at $11,000. None of them is a Magico, and that is the point. That is the company the original A3 kept.
Who should look at it
- If you have the room for a bigger box, the Focal Sopra No.3 at $27,998 and the B&W 803 D4 at $27,000 are the ported alternatives readers here look at, with easier loads and more cabinet for the money.
- If the small footprint is the attraction, the Sabrina V and the Confidence 30 are the nearest in size and price, and both are shipping now.
- If you want sealed, the choice at this price is Magico, ATC or Spendor, and the ATCs come with their own amplifiers built in.
- If you want a Magico, this is the cheapest new one, and it will be for some time.
All 33 speakers in the band are on the floor-standing page, and the A3 2027 now has a page of its own you can compare against any of them.
Is a $25,000 entry point still an entry point, and if you own an original A3, does the 2027 model make you want to upgrade or to hold on to it?
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