The Telos Macro G and Macro Q network audio noise reducers
By Roy Gregory
Those who pore over show coverage will likely have noticed large black boxes lurking in Magico’s systems and at their launch events, over the last few years. As is the way of things, the largely anonymous but clearly heavy units have received little or no attention, alongside the glitzier, shinier and sexier source components, amplification and loudspeakers. Yet in their own quiet way (and I use the term advisedly) those black boxes have been very real contributors to the upturn in sonic and musical quality experienced in my recent Magico ‘meetings’. That’s not to underestimate the influence of products like the Wadax digital components that have also made their mark, or to underplay improvements in the company’s own products – but even the sportiest of sports cars needs a decent bit of road to do its stuff. In fact, the sportier the car, the more that road surface matters.
Back in 2023, I reviewed the massive and appropriately named Telos Grounding Monster, a product that is as opaque in operation as its musical impact is transparent. https://gy8.eu/review/a-riddle-wrapped-in-mystery-inside-an-enigma/ A large part of that is down to the language barrier, with Telos hailing from Taiwan. The best that can be said is that their English is considerably better than my Mandarin. But there was no ignoring the superb results generated by the large, black, immensely heavy, immensely expensive and yes, largely anonymous Grounding Monster. Likewise, it should come as no surprise that those big black Telos boxes are what’s lurking in those Magico set-ups: except that Magico have gone at least one step further. Rather than relying solely on the Grounding Monster, they are also employing the Telos Monster Power Station, a sophisticated Power factor Correction AC conditioner. Take a look at those systems and that should give you pause. For example, at the Magico S5 2024 launch in Paris (https://gy8.eu/news/if-it-walks-like-a-duck/3/), the speakers were being driven by Soulution 511 mono-blocs, the whole system being fed AC via the Telos Power station and grounded to a Grounding Monster. That’s a lot of beef for the AC conditioning to wrangle.
The Monster Power Station is in-house and in-process (as they say) and results are, if anything, even more impressive than with the Grounding Monster. Used together, the pair offer a six-figure slam dunk for system AC supply and grounding. But if that’s a little proletarian for your tastes, system aspirations and bank balance, there are always the twice the price flagship models to go for!
Cost is certainly going to rule out the full Telos Monster package for most of us – even if we do appreciate the products’ virtues. But what if we could have a slice of that Telos magic at a more approachable price? The company offers a far more affordable grounding solution, the GNR V5.1, reviewed last year (https://gy8.eu/review/son-of-godzilla/ ), but even that weighs in at close to five figures. What if there were worthwhile Telos products in the three-figure price range? Well – there are. Lurking amongst their high-priced products are two, small and deceptively simple offerings that give you a way to experience what Telos is about, without raiding the kids college fund.
