Foreword

In the beginning of this year, Hifi Guru Oy got two brand new speakers into their repertoire, Magico S3 and Audio Physic Cardeas plus+. For getting as good as possible start in Finland for them, Guru decided to arrange an open door event. The event was held on Saturday 29.3.2014.

With my friend, I arrived to Hifi Guru a bit earlier than the official opening time. Despite this, we were welcome and served friendly. After a coffee break, we started listening to the first setup. The first tens of minutes were finally important, because soon there were plenty of visitors in the room!

Because of the two new comer speakers, two setups were demoed. This naturally led to slight compromises in the placements. Anyway, the compromises were done by a good taste and experience. For me, the most difficult issue was a strong sun shine which made it very difficult to take photographs! My old camera, which surely is out of date, does not offer much for challenging circumstances. I’m sorry for that!

Setup 1

BelCanto CD2- VBS-1 CD-transport

Clearaudio Master Reference-Master-TQ1-Goldfinger vinyl player

Devialet 170 Air amplifier (includes DAC and RIAA!)

Audio Physic Cardeas plus+ speakers

Transparent Reference AES-EBU digital cable

Transparent Music Wave Super MM2 speaker cables

Transparent Power Isolator Reference power filter

Acapella Fondato Silenzio base for Devialet

Graditech Voima 1 power cord for Devialet

Setup 2

Burmester 089 CD-player

Clearaudio Ovation-Clarify-Talismann V2 vinyl player

Burmester 100 phono preamp

Burmester 077 preamp

Burmester 956 Mk2 monoblocks

Magico S3 speakers

Burmester 948 power filter

Transparent Bal Reference XL MM2 interconnects

Transparent Reference XL MM2 speaker cables

Transparent High Performance, Ref Power Link MM2x, Reference Power Link XL power cords

Acapella Fondato Silenzio bases under the phono stage and monoblocks

Clearaudio Magix x3 base under the CD-player


Short listening

I was not able to make a very deep analysis of the sound of the setups because of very narrow listening time. A couple of features became anyway very clear. Both speakers and systems showed their deserved place amongst the high-end speakers, but they did it differently. On the one hand, the Magico S3 and its side equipment relied on their overwhelming monitor-like accuracy, speed and attack. On the other hand, the Audio Physic Cardeas plus+ and its side equipment proved their tremendous timbre abilities and smoothness of the performance.

The both setups were carefully set up and delivered excellent results with vinyl sources as well. The Magico setup even so, that we had to come back from the outdoor when Guru played the specific vinyl sample. This led into the situation where we finally left the event with the LPs! The Audio Physic Cardeas plus+ setup made me finally so impressed that we agreed making a separate review of it. So, I’ll be back on it soon!


Conclusion

The both presentations were very nice and luckily also different enough. The forced compromises on the speaker placement in this kind of two setup configuration were well chosen and made it still possible to find the strengths of the both systems and speakers. For me, it took only a couple of minutes to notice why Guru was so tempted by their new speakers. Especially Cardeas plus+ showed clearly a couple of remarkable improvements when compared to its predecessor. But as I said before, I’ll write on it more specifically later.

Still, there is one more interesting notification of the event. I have never seen so many high-end speakers in the same room in Finland. Hifi Guru has now really a speaker choice for every taste and every level. Are you going to purchase new speakers? If so, it’s time to go and check what Guru has to offer!