The Magister has gone to Hans, so I’ll post my final impressions. I said previously that the tonality wasn’t for me. That was borne out by further listening. I want a headphone I can listen to for 2+ hours. I know people who can listen to, say, the HD800 for 2+ hours. I can’t. I find the HD800 too bright at 80+dB for extended listening. The same is true of the Magister. I consider the HD800 excellent for forensics, i.e. for subjecting a stretch of music to intense scrutiny for a brief interval of time. It’s also good for low volume casual listening. I wouldn’t classify the Magister as a forensic headphone. Neither did I like it for low volume casual listening.
Resolution isn't greater than the LCD-2.2’s. I’d say it’s less than. Easily obscured high midrange and treble information may have been – in some cases – more readily perceptible on the Magister than it was on the LCD-2.2. However, whenever I switched from the Magister to the LCD-2.2, I could hear the relevant information. The LCD-2.2 is less obvious with its riches. That makes it easier to relax when listening to it, I think. You can zoom in if you want to. Or you can keep your distance and enjoy top shelf macrodynamics.
It certainly seems like you’re paying for luxury with the Magister. And that’s fine. The Magister is a very fine thing; I admire the craftsmanship. From a purely acoustic perspective, however, I don’t know why I should choose it over an HD650, say, which is roughly half the price, or an LCD-2.2, which is more or less equally priced. Of course, both of those headphones are open. It’s slim pickings for a high-end closed headphone, so the Magister might recommend itself on that point. Still, among the closed headphones I’ve heard, I would rank it below the Slants and ADs in terms of my preferences (viz. tonality and timbre). But I’m an orthohead. YMMV.
Thanks to ultra for putting this loaner tour together. The Magister was a headphone I was, at the time, very interested in. I’m not sure the interest would’ve been sufficient to inspire an exploratory purchase that I now know would’ve been regretted. It’s good not to have to learn the hard way.
