Loudspeakers

This is an active speaker, with both analogue (tested here) and digital inputs, so many standard lab tests – impedance/phase and speaker sensitivity – are redundant. This leaves frequency response, pair matching and distortion, the latter predominantly second/third-order but very low at <0.3% for much of its working range (re. 90dB SPL/1m, 100Hz-10kHz). Despite the onboard processing, Dynaudio has resisted the urge to flatten every dip and bump in the drivers’ output – that said, the mere ±2.05dB and ±2.1dB response errors and 0.5dB pair matching (re. 200Hz-20kHz) are excellent by any standards [black trace, Graph 1].

A subtle ±1.25dB response shaping is also possible via the ‘Dark’ and ‘Bright’ contours [purple and red, respectively, Graph 1] just as the ‘Wall’ and ‘Corner’ settings invoke a ~2dB and ~4dB attenuation in bass output, respectively, below 100Hz [dashed black and grey traces, green shaded area, Graph 1]. The grille brings a 5dB notch at 4-5kHz [blue trace] so you may wish to remove it for ‘serious’ listening. Dynaudio’s Esotar 3 tweeter is capable of a 34kHz treble extension (–6dB re. 10kHz) but is limited to ~24kHz here as a function of the 48kHz input ADC and custom IIR digital filter. Latency is a mere 1.4msec, some 10x less than many high-end network-attached active speakers.

The large, down-firing port, flared and diffusing out over the top of the stand, is tuned to a low 24Hz and is clean aside from two quarterwave/tube modes at 700Hz and 1.12kHz (coinciding with a notch in the nearfield output of the 180mm bass driver). Combined with this actively-driven NeoTec woofer, the port supports a diffraction-corrected bass extension of 32Hz (–6dB re. 200Hz) below which there’s a steep 5th/6th-order roll-off [green shaded area, Graph 1]. This impressively deep extension would unlikely be achieved by a passive speaker of equivalent cabinet volume and driver size – for example, the Contour 20 BE reaches down to 41Hz [HFN May ’25]. PM