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I've been listening to Dynaudio 52s with a 12 inch sub for years in a room with 8 feet to the front wall and 24 feet to the rear wall. We will be moving in six months or so. My question - is there a good Dynaudio solution for the new room? The new room will be a 10 foot H x 12.8W x 15.4L treated room. I think that the speakers will be on the long wall.
I talked to a Dynaudio dealer to see if he thought the XD400 would work closer to the wall using DSP. He said yes, but his ultimate recommendation for this room was a C2 without a sub. My research doesn't turn up much for C2s in rooms this size. Used C2s are in my price range and go down to 28hz. I spent a lot of time getting the 52s to sing. Positions within 3 feet of the front wall or using the port plugs didn't sound good. If not for that experience, I'd get the C2s.
I prefer to eliminate the sub in this room so I want something that has a LF -3 db of 30hz or less. I listen to 25% jazz, 25% classical, 25% rock, the rest might be anything.
What do you think, is there a best fit Dynaudio for this room? The best front ported Dynaudio solution might be the Air 20 or 25 which also allow for DSP correction. Appearance is not too important.
Follow Ups:
Here is another take on Dynaudio by Andi Munro.
Andi used to design Dynaudios active studio monitors but sells his own passive and passive/active line under the Dynaudio/Munro brand. For some models he uses modified Dynaudio drivers with double magnets which in the way he uses them do not provide shielding but increase efficiency and reduce distortion.
Those cherrywood M3Ds might be worth checking out in your case.
I'll look into those Munro models. There are some Air 20/25s for sale now as those shops upgrade to models with the C4 speaker complement. I think the mid-field Neumann 310 and 420 monitors with sealed cabinets might be a good match as well.
From what I hear the Neumanns are really rather good.
I have the Dynaudio C2s and a pair of Focus 160s.I have two rooms. The first is a large open plan living room and the second is a smaller 13'x16'x8' dedicated listening room. The smaller room has a lot of room treatment. The dimensions are similar to yours but with a standard height ceiling.
The C2s do very well in the larger room. I tried them in the smaller room but in my opinion they are too big for it. I placed them about 7.5' apart and 8' away from the listening position, with 2-2.5' from the side walls and 4' out from the front wall. Due to their size, they look a bit visually imposing in a small room. The sound is a little bit in your face (for lack of a better word) at that listening distance, and I felt like I was looking up at the soundstage. I originally had the C2s in a large ~800sf studio apartment where they sounded great at ~10' listening distance. But I would not recommend them for a small room such as yours.
I think the Focus 400 XD would be ideal for your room, albeit quite expensive. I've heard the Focus 260 a couple times and I own the 160s. The Focus 260 is basically the passive version of the 400 XD. It's discontinued but easy to find used. I was very impressed with it, especially for the money.
You should also consider the stand mounted models: Contour S1.4 LE, the Contour 20, and the C1. Depending on your taste for bass and your amplification, they may be enough in your room without a subwoofer. The C1 spec is 45 Hz, but they seem to go a bit lower than that in rooms such as ours. The Contour S1.4 LE spec is 41 Hz, the Contour 20 is 39 Hz. The Contour 20 is brand new, so there aren't a lot of opinions out there about it yet, but it's physically larger than the other two and one of Dynaudio's design goals was greater bass output.
Edits: 11/17/16
Dave, thanks for the reply. You confimed my suspicions that the C2 might be too much in that room. I wasn't aware of the C20 model so I will check that one. I've seen 400 XDs for under $5K from Europe. Only 7 cents on the dollar premium for the euro right now.
I do like bass, used to play bass, and the Dyns with enough power have nice chewy bass.
What speakers did you pick for your dedicated room? I've been studying what does well close to a wall. Larsen's read well. The Snell/Audio Notes, the Harbeth and Spendor get some respect.
I've seen a Polish seller on Audiogon offering supposedly new Dynaudios for a song. He's been listing speakers over and over again for many months. Is that the one selling the 400XD for $5k? If so, I would be careful.
The Contour 20, 30, and 60 are new models which were revealed earlier this year at the Munich show but are just getting to US dealers now. The claim is they offer more and deeper bass than the previous Contour models they are replacing. The C20 looks like the one to get for a small or medium size room.
Unfortunately, Dynaudio doesn't offer a small floorstander in the Contour or Confidence series. I would love to have something the size of the Focus 260/400XD or Excite X34 but with Confidence level performance.
Do you have the Audience 52 or 52SE? And are you looking for deeper bass extension, fuller bass, or both? The C1 goes a little deeper than Audience 52 SE, and a lot deeper than the 52. The C1 and C2 have flat bass response, and the character of the bass is relatively tight and well damped. Accurate, but could be too dry for some. The outgoing Contour models had fuller, riper bass. The knock against the old Contours was a somewhat dark top end, but I've heard the LE models rectify that.
As you know, one of the difficulties you will face with a long wall setup in a small room is getting the speakers far enough away from the front wall, and this is especially true with Dynaudio speakers because of the large rear facing port. My experience with the C2s and Focus 160s is that if you plug the ports, the reduction in bass output is too much, and you also seem to lose some dynamics (subjectively). So I would try to avoid that. Also, the closer the speakers to the wall, the shallower the soundstage. So in your situation, if long wall placement is the only option, I would still try to keep the speakers out from the front wall, and put the listening seat close to the back wall instead, with a nice thick (4-6") absorbing panel behind the sweet spot.
In my case, I went for short wall placement, which allowed me to pull the speakers out such that there is about 4 feet behind them, giving me the depth of stage I wanted. The downside is that my setup ends up grouping several room boundary related cancellation nulls near each other in the mid-bass. Bass trapping helped with that, but it's still a weakness. You can seem some old pictures at the link below. Note the wide angle lens in the wide shots makes the room look bigger than it really is.
To answer your last question, I've had the following speakers in this room:
Focus Audio FS-688
Focus Audio FS-788
Wilson Benesch Vertex
Magico S1
Dynaudio Focus 160
I've also tried or demoed a couple others including the C2s I already mentioned. I've mostly run a 2.2 setup with stereo subs. The Focus Audio 688s and W-B Vertex definitely needed the subs. The others I could be happy without the subs. But even with the Magicos I still used the subs at a reduced level because they helped smooth out the response.
Dave,
I have 52s, pre SE. I'm looking for good low end without the sub woofer. What I have is fine with the 52s crossed to a sub at 60hz. I'd like a little more open top end. I'd like better tone at low volume. The change is to get the best match for the new room when we move.
This will be my primary listening area. The room will have wall to wall carpet with a dense pad. I plan on sound absorbtion on first reflection points and diffusion elsewhere, mainly the wall behind your head. I agree that the Dyns would work on the short wall. I've yet to draw a successful floorplan that covers all needed functions using the short wall. The space needed by the Dyns means you would end up with a very small very nearfield sweet spot if the speakers are on the long wall. I need good sound for more than one or two people.
The prices I've seen were for dealer demos and lightly used C2s. I usually do escrow for anything over $1000 on the net.
I suspect that staying with rear ported Dyns requires finding a good short wall floor plan. If not, then it will be time to think about a transmission line or something designed to boost bass by being tight against the wall.
If you use long wall placement with 3 feet behind the speakers to the wall and the listening position against the opposite wall, that will give you enough room for an 8-9' equilateral triangle setup. Is that enough?
If you need to place the speakers close to the front wall, I think you're better off with smaller speakers plus sub, unless you go with something like the Focus XD. But I think you will lose soundstage depth with near wall placement.
Let us know how it goes.
Why are you against using subwoofers? I've been using subwoofers for more than 20-years and I wouldn't be without them. Reinforcing the bottom octave makes all the difference in the world in my system. In fact, I just replaced my old acoustic suspension subs with some new Rythmik servo subs and they sound awesome. I think you need to have your satellites out away from the wall for good imaging and then you need subwoofers to fill in that bottom octave. Anyway, I can't imagine my system without subwoofers to reinforce the bottom octave.
John,
I've had a Henry Kloss sealed sub for nearly 30 years, first with large Advents, then with the Dynaudio 52s. Before that I had stacked Advents and before that, Bozak 302s. My problem is space in this combo of music room, office, electronics bench, and occasional guest room.
I'm thinking that with number of people living in small homes and apartments, there must be some really good full frequency speakers that work against a boundary wall. Active speakers with DSP might work. The passive Larsen and Audio Note lines claim to work best against walls, I've not heard either of them. Some transmission line models go down unto the mid or low 20s. Audio Note is claiming 23hz and 25hz as the lows for the model E and J placed in a corner. A couple of days ago I was looking at JBL 4429s, with a 15 inch woofer. If I felt good about spending big bucks the JBL K2s are high art pieces.
Hi Myles,Funny you should mention Henry Kloss subwoofers. Those are the ones I just replaced with my new Rythmik servo subs. I had my Cambridge Soundworks subs sitting against a back wall behind my listening position so they were approximately the same distance from my ears at my front speakers.
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Edits: 11/22/16
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