Mini Monitors - Dynaudio and JM Labs

maybe my post comes a bit late but just hope to help anyone who reads this.

i used to own dynaudio speakers. audience 60 and contour 1.3. they are both good at dynamic, open, imaging and bass punch. piano reproduction is always superior. but the tweeter, sorry to say, sounds less smooth to me, to the extend of harsh maybe. so violin and strings always sound a bit sharp and strain. it's very easy to give you a very good first impression but listening at it longer at home you may feel the sound overall is a bit hard and tired. and the tweeter needs big improvement.

was thinking to upgrade to the new dynaudio C1 but only a few minutes of listening at showroom i was surprise to find out the tweeter still sounded more or less the same.

then i got the micro utopia be on smu stands. overall comparing to dynaudio, it sounds light, easy and comfortable. the be tweeter is HEAVEN! it's so smooth and extended which makes the whole presentation airy and transparent. midrange is HEAVEN as well. smooth and so much definitions with a warm touch. violin or anything with strings sounds like a breeze. it helps reproduce piano as well. the top and midrange are steps better than dynaudios and many other brands to my ear. but, it's not perfect. the bass is far inferior than dynaudio. even my $600 audience 60 can produce much better bass punch and extension than the $6000 micro utopia be. most of the time, unless really good recorded audiophile CD, the bass punch for micro utopia simply doesnt exist. you can easily hear that the top is perfect, midrange is perfect but then the bass roll off sharply from maybe 150hz. it's pretty surprised that after you spend $6000 then find out the bass is missing.

imho, a sub for micro is a must just in order to complete the whole picture. now i am considering a REL Stadium III. i would love to have a sub utopia be but that will part me another $6000.

not trying to make any conclusions but just hope to help anyone reading this. bring a few violin CD when you audition c1 to test the tweeter, and bring a few normal recorded cd to test the bass of micro. the answer would be clear.

i am using YBA Passion Integre to drive the Micros. my amp is rated 50W at 8ohms which is not considered as powerful as SS amp but it has no problem driving the Micros. the quality of the amp matters much more because Micros is very revealing. the YBA amp has two kinda output: high damping factor output and low damping output (tube like). the low damping factor output has fuller sound and especailly fuller (or uncontrolled if you wanna call it in this way) bass with a bit loss of transparency and bass extension (as mentioned in YBA manual) but so far i feel it gives much better result for Micros for jazz music. it compensate the lean bass of Micros.

now comes back to the bass issues of Micros. maybe i rephrase my previous statement a little bit. the bass of Micros is OK for a bookshelf speakers. however comparing to the PERFECT tweeter and PERFECT midrange, it's obvious less perfect. but of course that's why there are high range models like Diva/Alto/Grand Utopia. the bass of Micros rolls out quite sharply from around 50hz. however above 50hz, the bass has tons of textures, details, speed, pace, with a warm touch. all i can say is, it does a good job within its limitations (50hz -3db) but not beyond that. i assume anyone who adopt Utopia series has the objective of pursuing perfect sounding without compromise. thus i feel a good subwoofer is still necesary in this sense.

frankly speaking, in my case, the changes from Triangles to Micros are mostly because of upgrade bug. :-) no clear reasons but just want to upgrade. need a new toy for my christmas to keep myself happy. that's it.

being both french speakers, the Triangles actually share the same sonic characteristic as Micros. they are both transparent, easy to drive, light and easy sounding. i feel that they are trying to produce same kind of sound. at least their understandings of how the speakers should sound are same or very close so i feel i have a very smooth migration without any shock, surprise or effort of getting used to "new" sound.

the differences are not fundamental but only technical. the Micros tweeter is clearly better than Triangles (and anything i have ever heard) with better treble extensions. this makes overall sounding of Micros slightly lighter and more transparent. but this doesnt suggest the treble of Triangles is bad. midrange of Micros is more round and neutral while Triangles is more laid back and warm. the Triangle has easier and better bass extensions but Micros has more bass texture above 50hz. however all these differences do not make them different type of sound. i am happy with Micros but also surprised to find out that being ten times cheaper than Micros (600 vs 6000), the Triangles clearly not even one time inferior. just imho of course.

i tried a few amps but still felt my YBA matches best with Micros (especially using low damping factor output). however, please be noted that what i have tried DO NOT include the well-known-good-match-amps like mointosh SS, jeff rowland SS or jadis tube amp. i would love to but unfortunately didnt get chance to try these amps. but i would highly suggest you go for the proven ones because i have heard how bad it could sound when pairing with a mismatch amp.