Dynaudio Confidence serie

I have been happy with a venerable pair of standmount Contour 1.3 SE's in my office for many years.

Dynaudio is a good company.  I'm sorry to see them leave.

Dynaudio Leaving North America

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/dynaudio-leaving-the-us

Bought the Dynaudio Contour Legacy last year. One pair of 1000. Could not be happier with this end game speaker for me. I like the Dynaudio sound and philodophy. Always regretted not buying the Special 25 back then. Did not miss the opportunity this time around. 

I bought a new pair of Confidence 60's about 2 months ago. My price range was $25K to $80K, give or take. I listened to Dynaudio Confidence 50, Sonus Faber Amati G5, Magico S5 2024, KEF Blade 2 Meta and Wilson Audio Alexia V. Buying a pair of 5 figure speakers is one of the hardest things I've ever done (my Confidence 60's were $50k). There is simply no practical way to audition several models of large heavy floor standing speakers in your home, especially when the nearest dealer is 200 miles away. You have to hear them at a dealer or at an audio show and hope that you can correlate your impressions to make the best decision you can.

The five speakers I auditioned were magnitudes more different than I expected. I'll give a very brief review of what I heard. The Dynaudio 50's were the most balanced and just sounded "right" to me. They sounded a lot like my Thiel CS6 which was a good thing. The Amati G5 and the Magico S5 were night and day. The Amati G5 had more bass than the Confidence 50. The Magico S5 had much less bass than the Confidence 50. I would characterize the Amati as quite warm (maybe even bloated) and the S5 as very lean. The difference between the Amati's and S5's was nothing short of astounding. I'm still having trouble processing the fact that those two speakers could sound that different in the same room driven by the same electronics. The midrange and treble of the Dynaudio, Magico, and Sonus Faber speakers I heard were good. There were differences but I think I could have been happy with that aspect of all three. The Confidence 50 had the best imaging but the G5 and the S5 were no slouch.

I also listened to the Blade 2 Meta and the Alexia V at a different dealer. The incredible difference here was in the midrange. The two speakers were radically different in their presentation. The Blade 2 was very recessed in the area of vocals. Vocals were way back in the mix. The rest of the frequency range was very nice. The Blade 2 had the best bass of any speaker I heard - tight, detailed, and punchy. On the Alexia V the vocals were absolutely front and center - exactly the opposite of the Blade 2. The bass was strong and tight but not as good as the KEF and the treble was a little crisper than the Blade 2. Overall the Alexia V was my second favorite speaker behind the Dynaudio Confidence 50.

The good news is that my Dynaudios are broken in and sound glorious. They do everything better than my Thiels, even the imaging, which I did not expect. The sound I'm getting is perhaps the best I've heard anywhere, even the 7 figure rooms I've heard at shows, but I'm probably jaded. Let me just say that I've heard a lot of rooms where the cabling cost more than my entire system and those couldn't hold a candle to my current setup. I couldn't make it to AXPONA this year but I'm going to the Dallas show in July so I'll have a chance to calibrate what I'm hearing at home.

It looks like Dynaudio is leaving the US and I'm troubled by this but I'm glad I bought my Confidence 60's when I did. They are my endgame speaker and they should easily have a longer lifespan than me (I'm 71). I'm sure that Dynaudio will support these speakers in case a driver fails.

It will be interesting to see if Dynaudio blows out their remaining inventory. If so, that could be an excellent opportunity to pick up a pair of fantastic speakers at a discount (I paid full price for mine).

One more note: I added an SVS SB17 Ultra R subwoofer to my setup which put the icing on the cake. I run the Confidence 60's full range and set the woofer crossover at 34 hz. On music that has low frequency content it shakes my belly like a bowl of jelly but it stays completely out of the way for most recordings.

@8th-note Fantastic comparison of speakers. Well done. Enjoy your 60’s!