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Dynaudio Special 40 Upgrade: Big brand low quality ripoff or DIY Quackery?


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Have seen a few vids with him and New Record Day. He did upgrades for the Klipsch bookshelves and some who ordered them said it sounded worse afterwards

 

Makes some good points though and seems crazy bigger companies use such cheap parts. I understand doesn't always make a sonic difference and expensive isn't always better

 

Have seen a few posts on FB too showing pretty poor QA on newer Dyns like the Evoke series. A shame for one of my favourite brands

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A classic case of expectation bias from a trusted brand who end up being as dodgy as a fox in a chook house. Top it off with a Special Forty Anniversary tag and the deception is complete.

Just imagine spending $4,500 and then finding out the design is essentially faulty and the components are ordinary to say the least.

 

"Dane's Don't Lie"    Pfffft!:angry:

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The Poor measurement of the mid-bass driver is a little disappointing that's for sure, but they do sound very nice and have been very popular, they can't actually keep up with the demand. Hat's off to them I say!

 

As dodgy as a fox in a chook house? that's a bit harsh.

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I’ll say that if it sounds good to you, don’t lose too much sleep over this video 

I own this and I’m listening to the Heritage right now and with my unprofessional ears they sound fine. 

I’ve been to their large Jupiter test room in Aarhus and did listening tests there and my personal non objective opinion is that they sound fine. 

So if you own a pair, keep calm and carry on ? 

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4 minutes ago, petetherock said:

I’ll say that if it sounds good to you, don’t lose too much sleep over this video 

I own this and I’m listening to the Heritage right now and with my unprofessional ears they sound fine. 

I’ve been to their large Jupiter test room in Aarhus and did listening tests there and my personal non objective opinion is that they sound fine. 

So if you own a pair, keep calm and carry on ? 

Heritage!! very nice indeed, enjoy!

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Yeah I saw this, and as an owner of a B-stock pair I'm conflicted. 

 

On the one hand, I'm disappointed in the woofer measurements, and they might actually explain a couple of things that I'd attributed to an amp I was using at the time (as the issue was somewhat lessened with a tube amp, for reasons I can't begin to explain). 

 

On the other hand, there is a fair bit these speakers do right. Massive, fast bass, and a tone that I like that's missing from my better measuring KEFs. They also don't dip to stupidly low impedance so they don't need mega amps to drive them. 

 

I'm not going to bin them because I've seen a graph, but I'd be open to upgrading them if I heard them side by side and liked the sound of the modifications.

 

Definitely wouldn't commit to the mods unheard, though. 

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18 hours ago, Tony B said:

Heritage!! very nice indeed, enjoy!

 

I won’t diss his findings but if everything is fine, then you don’t need mods and there won’t be any upgrade videos ;)

 

57DA8F09-3AE8-4B20-9BB0-31D7D8D761A7.jpeg

 

image.thumb.png.e2d68307143f0567829b11b4d9c8321b.png

Edited by petetherock
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Have watched a few videos and do enjoy the content. Rather than rambling on about the measurements I would like him to listen to the speaker first and discuss what he heard. I would be truely interested to see if he could pick out all these short comings without the measurements.

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13 hours ago, kelossus said:

Have watched a few videos and do enjoy the content. Rather than rambling on about the measurements I would like him to listen to the speaker first and discuss what he heard. I would be truely interested to see if he could pick out all these short comings without the measurements.

Ok I own Special 40s and love them - so I am totally biased but

I agree 100% he talks a good talk but seems totally focused on "his measurements" and how he can improve those rather than listening to the end result. No matter how cynical you may be, no way Dynaudio releases speakers without total understanding of all those measurements and many many more, as well as lots of listening to the product. Their decisions  are deliberate to get what they believe is the best sound. For example the simple first order cross over Dynaudio is used to prioritise the time domain ( something he does not measure or refer to).  As for the "measurement" of the bass/midrange driver on its own, well without details on how that was done ( free space ?) it seems to me irrelevant as the driver is designed specifically for cabinet loading.  In the end its almost imposable to find a negative review, by people that listen to the speakers, even the Sterophile review referred to comments they "sound better than they measure" while admittedly noting a cabernet resonance at 512hz on the side walls that seems dependant to some extent on on the speaker / stand interface.  

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10 minutes ago, Chill3 said:

Ok I own Special 40s and love them - so I am totally biased but

I agree 100% he talks a good talk but seems totally focused on "his measurements" and how he can improve those rather than listening to the end result. No matter how cynical you may be, no way Dynaudio releases speakers without total understanding of all those measurements and many many more, as well as lots of listening to the product. Their decisions  are deliberate to get what they believe is the best sound. For example the simple first order cross over Dynaudio is used to prioritise the time domain ( something he does not measure or refer to).  As for the "measurement" of the bass/midrange driver on its own, well without details on how that was done ( free space ?) it seems to me irrelevant as the driver is designed specifically for cabinet loading.  In the end its almost imposable to find a negative review, by people that listen to the speakers, even the Sterophile review referred to comments they "sound better than they measure" while admittedly noting a cabernet resonance at 512hz on the side walls that seems dependant to some extent on on the speaker / stand interface.  

Yeah he was a bit vague on how it was tested.

Pretty sure Dynaudio can test better than he can

 

dynaudio-room-xl.jpg

Edited by Bunno77
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It may be of interest to note and recall that he referred to JA's measurements of this speaker in Stereophile, which were/are almost exactly the same.

 

Perhaps they are both wrong?

 

Let me be clear, I am not about slandering these speakers and have heard them at length on several occasions.

They made no particular impression on me, either good or bad, just ordinary, but equally, I am not completely surprised about both sets of measurements.

 

***Please note, I have no particular axe to grind, just looking at the evidence***

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33 minutes ago, rantan said:

 

It may be of interest to note and recall that he referred to JA's measurements of this speaker in Stereophile, which were/are almost exactly the same.

 

Perhaps they are both wrong?

 

Let me be clear, I am not about slandering these speakers and have heard them at length on several occasions.

They made no particular impression on me, either good or bad, just ordinary, but equally, I am not completely surprised about both sets of measurements.

 

***Please note, I have no particular axe to grind, just looking at the evidence***

Good point

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42 minutes ago, rantan said:

 

It may be of interest to note and recall that he referred to JA's measurements of this speaker in Stereophile, which were/are almost exactly the same.

 

Perhaps they are both wrong?

 

Let me be clear, I am not about slandering these speakers and have heard them at length on several occasions.

They made no particular impression on me, either good or bad, just ordinary, but equally, I am not completely surprised about both sets of measurements.

 

***Please note, I have no particular axe to grind, just looking at the evidence***

No one is questioning the accuracy of the measurements.  His whole critique is similar to what goes on at the Audio Science Review forum. They give you a million measurements to show a product is rubbish but never provide listening impressions before hand. That's what rubs me the wrong way.

 

 

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agree this is very ASR....

 

have no doubt dynaudio anything cant be improved upon... anything can... but id no 1 expect a modder to dis something and say the mod he sells improves upon it... but no 2 not sure id hand over any cash to likes of him just on his say so... :D 

 

if i wasnt happy with the dyn here ...  id just buy something else.. there are a lot of folks very happy with the dyn... and chances are there is much wrong with most folks rooms that woudl create far more anomalies than speakers here have ! 

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Note he also bags out the internal wiring as "cheap run of the mill" - its actually Van den Hull ????

 

I am sure better caps and so on in the cross over will make a difference, certainly so do Dynaudio given 

that one fo the additions to the Heritage Special. Every thing is a cost v benefit and unfortunately in the world of

manufacturing additional component costs usually work out to be 4x in the final RP.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Bunno77 said:

Yeah he was a bit vague on how it was tested.

Pretty sure Dynaudio can test better than he can

 

dynaudio-room-xl.jpg

I've been there, and listened to their setups.

https://peteswrite.blogspot.com/2018/05/dynaudio-factory-visit.html 

Very scientific, but I think you have to give it some subjective personal opinions too..

Edited by petetherock
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Just now, petetherock said:

I've been there, and listened to their setups.

Very scientific, but I think you have to give it some subjective personal opinions too..

Wow that would be great.

 

Yeah definitely, I was lucky enough to meet and talk for a while with Roland formerly of Dynaudio and they do value the subjective and objective as do I

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It's funny that this guy actually has a YouTube beef with Amir about whether speaker wire matters.

 

41 minutes ago, kelossus said:

His whole critique is similar to what goes on at the Audio Science Review forum. They give you a million measurements to show a product is rubbish but never provide listening impressions before hand. That's what rubs me the wrong way.

 

I think the problem is that Amir honestly doesn't believe he's susceptible to bias, and so he doesn't feel the need to control for it. He sees any argument against his methods as an argument against the raw data. It's a very old problem of ego and science, and I say that as someone with a fair bit of respect for his efforts. 

 

 

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does amir even have any formal qualifications in speakers/acoustics ? or what speaking about ?. best i know is he has an electrical engineering and computer science degree from 1980s ! and worked in video and software in some top rolls but all this  here is hardly his field of technical expertise I would think ?....

 

am tending to put all this including the modder above in same category of another man and his opinion... dont have to look hard on the web for those :) 

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6 hours ago, twofires said:

 

I think the problem is that Amir honestly doesn't believe he's susceptible to bias, and so he doesn't feel the need to control for it

I’ve seen many accusations raised against him, some more reasonable than others but this one really surprises me. 
I’m quite sure he would say he is as prone to bias as the rest of us (ie a lot). That’s one of the main reasons why he puts so much store in measurements. 

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