The company first applied (and the world first heard) the influence of these new tools in the latest M-series models, but that experience and their application has informed every aspect of the S5 2024’s design. This really isn’t a revision or update on an existing product. It’s a ground up re-visualisation of the project, a whole new speaker. Pretty much the only things it shares with its predecessor is its basic crossover topology and its name – and we’ll come back to that later!
So much for the tools, what are the results of their application?
Older S5 cabinets presented a bluff, uncompromising face to the world, their broad, flat baffle a stark contrast to their curved cabinet walls, their ‘flat-cap’ top-plate an equally blunt aesthetic statement. The current cabinet is an entirely different animal, with a more refined, sculpted and evolved appearance. The original S5 was an engaging performer that wasn’t afraid to get its elbows out on occasions. The S5 2024 looks more homogenous, more polished and more organic – qualities that, in the same way, extend into its musical capabilities. Each panel of the new cabinet is machined from extruded elements, reflecting an increased exploitation of the role of curved sections, not just in stiffening the cabinet but also in reducing diffraction effects. Extensive, pocketed machining and targeted damping has further controlled the cabinet’s mechanical behaviour, resulting in far lower levels of stored energy, a more even response with frequency (from the cabinet) and a lower system noise floor for the speaker as a whole.
While the theoretical benefits of aluminium construction are clearly understood, realising those benefits in practice was always challenging. The resolution of the revised measurement systems allows the designers to actually ‘see’ what each panel or element within the cabinet is doing/contributing. Having controlled cabinet resonance and driven it to a higher frequency, it also allowed them to deal with that resonance in a far more precise fashion, eliminating not just under-damped behaviour, but an over-damped response too. As well as a less intrusive cabinet, improved understanding of mechanical factors, panel behaviour and bracing has delivered a 31% increase in internal volume, which translates to (even) deeper bass performance for the same nominal sensitivity.
Oh – and the new S5 2024 is quite a bit prettier too, all those curves being far more pleasing to the eye.
The other big change comes in the shape (and execution) of the drivers. The S5 2024 benefits from Magico’s Nano-Tec Gen 8 cones, an aluminium honeycomb ‘bowl’ sandwiched between nano-reinforced carbon skins, directly inherited from the M-series and mated to a new foam surround that offers greater flexibility and more linear excursion. The 6” midrange unit is built onto a 3” voice coil, those in the 10” long-throw woofers being 5” in diameter, numbers that are more than a little suggestive of the speakers’ dynamic ambitions. You might as well put a winking emoji where the dust cap would normally be. The 28mm diamond-coated Beryllium tweeter is also derived from the unit used in the M-series, while the revised face-plate and driver baskets make extensive use of curvature to further reduce diffraction effects, in line with the heavily profiled cabinet. The revision extends to the peripherals too, with the speaker now supported on a trio of feet directly derived from the M-pod footers.
