Dynaudio Special Forty vs. Contour 20

Always wonder how the Special 25 would fit in the conversation.
I occasionally see them available.

Hi @cortes - thanks for the kind words about the blog, always happy to hear if it's useful at all. I've fallen a bit behind on reviews the last few months (day job keeping me busy) but try to keep up with more regular updates on my Instagram/Facebook.

I haven't heard the active version of the Audiovector. No idea about the internal amp, but I can drop Mads Klifoth @ Audiovector a line to ask. It's possible with the flexibility of active, the integration between drivers will be even better - it's quite excellent as-is on the passive SR 1 Arreté, but with perhaps a bit of energy loss that my colleague Martin DeWulf referred to at the end of his quick take review. I've taken some rough in-room response measurements and see a little room for improvement in the 2-3kHz range that seem related to his (and my own) listening observations. That said, still a superb speaker, and IMO a meaningful step up in resolution and accuracy vs. the Dynaudios.

Experimenting with my dynaudio C1 signatures is been great fun and rewarding. I start with SS system from Audio GD that was amazing for the money. All the detail and good high end stuff one could ask for. After a couple of years and having no experience at all with tubes, I made a choice after much research and comparison between PCM and DSD to get a lampizator 4 DSD DAC and HQ player for my computer. What a surprise, not only I liked DSD better but also the tubes made the sound stage wider taller and deeper, textures, clearer and smoother sound, details and tones that to me sounded more like real live performances. After this dose of tube injection like a junkie I just wanted more. Next I rebuild my computer complete fan-less with linear PSU, Jcat USB card and DSD 512 capable, another big step on the right direction. Then I found a good deal on a used lampizator big 6, major steps forward. Finally I sold my Audio GD system to buy a Ayon Spirit lll generation 4 and never looked back. From the first listening sessions I liked this integrated a lot, but though bass was definitely good it was not near as powerful as the SS gear. Then my journey with tubes and cables rolling began. After I research some NOS tubes and experimenting with it, the sound got moving in the right direction again from top to bottom, better stronger and deeper bass. Now for cables at the time I was using Acoustic Zen Holograms for speakers and Krakatoa for power with great success with SS system. Finally I started messing with cable rolling and wasn’t until I tried some High fidelity cables that I felt the system was rewarding me with great improvements across the spectrum, but it was when I added the High Fidelity CT-1 speaker cables that the low end came to a level I could not believe possible for a cable alone to accomplish . Anyways the Ayon spirit lll is a great integrated amp for the Dynaudios and more, they have enough power and great synergy.