Valentin R
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Si mágico A1 is out of the question (beryllium)
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Dynaudio Heritage Special
- Thread starter watchnerd
- Start date
Si mágico A1 is out of the question (beryllium)
OP
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #64
One of the odd things about hi fi (at least for me) is that my musical enjoyment hasn't changed much as my system has gotten objectively better over the decades.
My college system was a hodge podge of some mid-fi Yamaha 8" speakers, a Denon integrated amp, which then got upgrade to some Adcom stuff, but it all was just placed on my desk in a dorm room which was acoustically awful.
And yet it sounded great to me and I loved it.
Compared to my current system, it was crude.
Do I get even more enjoyment out of my system now? No, not really. When I'm into the music, it doesn't matter much how good or bad the system is.
Therefore, I find myself, in middle age, no longer really caring much if what I listen to is state of the art or not, as long as I find it fun.
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Contour 1.3
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That would be awesome. I want em like nothing else.
Have you heard the Special Forty’s and Focus 20 XD as well? Would love to know how the Focus compares to Contour 20 & Special Forty on a pair of Outlaw 2200 monoblocks.
I’m auditioning the Focus 20 XD now, as I can get an amazing deal on them as a demo pair from my local HT installation store and love the fact that I don’t have to fuss w/ buying an amp, but I can also get the same deal on Focus 20’s if I wish.
They’re pulling double-duty for HT & stereo, with a Marantz 6014 running the show. I also have a pair of Excite X14A’s for surrounds and a pair of passive X14’s that will be moved to rears once I figure out what route to go with my center, so for the time being one of the X14’s is filling in. I was thinking a used X28 would be the obvious choice, but I’m starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to grab an Evoke 25 or find someone to split a used pair of Special 40’s with. Any other suggestion?
I’m only about 15-20% music, and I know I’m only on a Marantz AVR, but I could clearly tell a difference between the Focus 20 XD and my Excite 18’s, enough so that I immediately knew I wanted the upgrade. I realize the Contour 20 has better components but I wasn’t sure if or how much nicer they’d sound on a pair of Outlaw monoblocks than the Focus 20, and if that improvement would be significant enough to justify the extra $600 I’d have to spend on amps that I wouldn’t for the same-priced Focus. Thx in advance for any help.
I guess you might be an appropriate person to pose the above question to as well. Thanks for any help, Tony.
OP
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #70
Yes.
The Contour 20 is a bigger, more scalable speaker than either of them.
In a small room, that might not matter.
In fact, I wouldn't put the Contour 20 in a small room at all.
It really needs a medium sized room to match its large (for a stand mount) cabinet volume and need to get some watts into it to open up.
But it can play much louder without dynamic compression than either of the other two. Which shouldn't be surprising given the cabinet size difference.
The Focus XD and Special 40 are much more similar to each other than either is to the Contour 20.
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Thanks for the quick response. So in a small 12x14 HT would you avoid the Contours even though their components are superior to Focus and sport the Esotar 2 tweeter? What about if plugged, used 80% of the time for HT, and likely crossed at 60 Hz, with music being a mix of 2.0 and 2.1? Basically I’m looking for whichever pair will sound the most lifelike.
Incidentally, any thoughts on how close the Excite X18 would get to the Focus 20 on a pair of 300 watt Outlaw monoblocks?
... or Special 40’s vs Focus 20 for that matter? If you could get a pair of Focus 20 for the same price as used Special Forty, which would you choose?
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I wonder if they told you they were aluminium, or titantium, would you have thought any different? Were they simply too hot in the HF for you? Typical of exotic material tweeters- they need to draw attention to themselves and differentiate them from all the other competing products.
Apparently, when a tweeter has a "metal" dome, it can't help but sound "metallic". Just like diamond, poly crystal alumina etc apparently sound "crystalline".
No different to paper supposedly sounding "slow" compared to carbon fibre, or polypropylene/bextrene sounding "snappy" or "quacky".
Soft domes, be they doped fabric, silk or even cotton, must sound "smooth" and "soft" mustn't they? Unfortunately in many cases, sound is judged by the description and the material, before even hearing them.
My experience is the same.
Neither musical enjoyment nor recognising the musicality (or its absence) requires super high quality systems.
OTOH it is fun and two things have definitely helped for me, more of the lower octaves and enough power/efficiency to get nearer the full dynamic range at home.
It is also true that if I am listening to music I already love anything missing is filled in by my brain - for example listening to a favourite Mahler symphony in my car. There is zero possibility of getting the full dynamic range in a car environment but I still "hear" the quiet bits in my head, even when they have disappeared into the background noise in reality. It does mean I am unlikley to appreciate a new piece of complex music in my car!
OTOH given the choice between listening to something I love on my stock car stereo or music I don't at home on the main system the car would win.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
For me it was the introduction of the Compact Disc. That was an unprecedented game changer. All the years spent chasing down perfection with a flawed medium (tape/LP) was thrown out the window.
All of a sudden, more power was needed. Quieter amplification. Ruler flat response gear and speakers that could take the phenomenal dynamic range of digital without vaporizing.
I still feel incredibly lucky that we enjoyed the transition to digital and benefited from it. Very little has happened in the last 35 years that is "game changing" like that. DSP is touted, but we had it in 1985* and apart from the fun you can have with it, it is not a universal panacea.
EDIT: I am referring to the incredible Yamaha DSP-1. I have several in my collection and it comes extremely close to "game changing". No other component has wowed me the way it did (and still does if I pull it out just for fun). Yamaha created the original six channel DSP to enable concert piano players to experience what their pianos would sound like in world famous venues. We got the consumer (pro) version to play with.
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OP
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #75
I think the Contour 20s run the risk of needing more space from the walls than you have in a 12 x 14 room, unless you want to sit really close. And if you're sitting really close, you don't really need the extra loudness capacity the Contour 20 has. You can try it, but based on my experience, that's a risk.
I also think buying the Contour 20 if you're going to be using them for HT 80% of the time is a waste of money. What they're best at is imaging, detail retrieval, and a neutral tonal coloration, things that are really important on music -- which is what they're designed for. You don't need what they're best at just to render dialog and SFX.
As for the tweeters: the differences between the Dynaudio tweeters grades are subtle. I'd only look at that as a secondary criteria, especially for
movies.
Anything I said about the Excite 18 would be pure speculation as I've only heard them briefly quite a long time ago.
I have no experience with Outlaw amps. I use 2 x 400 watts mono blocks right now with the Contour 20s and they get pretty warm if i'm running them with the taps open up enough to make the Contour 20 come alive.
I really don't have anything additional to add to what I already said, sorry, unless I just start making complete speculative guesses.
Summary:
Using the Contour 20 as a HT speaker in a small 12x14 room is not a great match for what the engineers designed them to do best. I wouldn't recommend them for that scenario based on my experience with them.
The Focus 20 / Special 40 are more right-sized for a small room like that. And I really wouldn't use the Special 40 for HT.
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OP
watchnerd
Grand Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #76
Who knows?
Or maybe I just thought the speakers were visually ugly and didn't like the sound for that reason.
But I don't spend my time listening to speakers blind, so whatever cognitive bias I might have is baked in to my reality.
I have owned Alu dome tweeters in the past; long ago I had some PSBs that had metal domes, and it didn't cause me issues.
So I don't *think* I have an issue with perceiving all metal domes a particular way. But I have no empirical evidence to refute the possibility, either.
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I started with one of these in the late 1960's to late 1970's. It was a novelty to have it in the house with a old pump organ and we had about 50 records.
I bought one when it came out but stopped using it decades ago after the companion amp had a channel blow up and burn out one of my surround speakers.
It is still in storage though.
I sold all those early high end Yamaha DSPs They could get pretty complicated. People would walk in the door and simply buy them and then there was the occasional techy type wanting to spend hours with it. Most all of them bought later rather than sooner but those type of customers are golden over the long haul. We had surround sound rooms dedicated to the systems. Near unheard of in those days to have surround sound rooms.
