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Trading Dynaudio Contour s5.4's for ???

I have a pair of Dynaudio Contour s5.4 that aren't working out for me. While I love the clear, liquid highs, I find the midrange (especially lower mids) very weak. Vocals are always a little too recessed for my taste and instruments like piano, sax, guitar sound too thin to my ears.

I've tried different amps (own Bryston, Simaudio Moon W5, Mark Levinson 431) and I'm guessing the speaker is just too analytical for me.

A while back I tried Revel Performa F50's and thought they were decent (although low end wasn't as articulate as I'd like) and very recently tried Dali Helicon 400/800. I'm wondering if anyone can suggest something that's close to Dynaudio's but perhaps just a tad warmer.

Thanks!
Ian
madfloyd

Showing 2 responses by cinematic_systems

cinematic_systems
282 posts
 
MadFloyd,

Two things, the Dynaudios are pretty much the warm side, you may have a room problem like Direct sound being canceling by reflective sound.

Also it would be out of character for the Dyn's to be thin in the midbass.

What is the rest of your system? and what kind of room conditions exist, size, furnishings, treaments etc.

Are you using any power stuff or exotic cables?

All would be necessary to help you diagnose the situation.
cinematic_systems
282 posts
 
Hey Ian,

1st off, remove the MIT cables from the system, get some cheap $1ft speaker cables because you now have direct experience with how the MIT's can mess with a good speaker system. Your DALI experience also reflects how disasterous these cables can be with quality speaker systems. That is step one.

Another easy to check item is to make sure that your L & R distances are set the same on the Casanova, having them set to different distances (even .5ft) can greatly effect the sound for two channel playback. Creating strange phenomena like you have experienced with the DALI's and Dyn's.

Address these two issues first than we can look into room issues. I have direct experience with the symptoms you describe and they were fixed by addressing the two issues above.

Once these two variables have been removed, we can look at room interaction.
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