And Now for Something Special... Dynaudio Special 40 Stand Mount Loudspeaker

40 years have passed since Dynaudio set up shop in their HQ in Skanberg. 2017 marked their 40th anniversary and they have only gone and progressed to one of the finest manufacturers of music reproduction in the world.  Progression through technology, manufacturing techniques, research and development has allowed Dynaudio to take the mantle of the best selling speakers of 2017. Here in our Manchester branch anyway.

Instead of reeling of some recycled tech specs from the website, it would be better to give a true, honest opinion of the 40th anniversary Special Forty's, they are impeccable. 6 months on, nothing has changed, they are still regarded one of the most formidable stand mount bookshelves to be considered if you are in the market for a pair. 

Fast, agile, dynamic and driven are some of the adjectives that come to mind, with the added bonus of such a distinct premium finish leaving other competitors in the dust.

The Special Forty's have a Trapezium shaped cabinet, primarily for strength and to reduce standing waves. Layered MDF then cross cut to give a layered look to the cabinet.

The new Esotar Forty tweeter has been refined and remastered featuring improvements with DSR, new tweaked air flow within the tweeter, 3000 HZ roll to have ample rollover between the tweeter and the woofer leaves a lovely sweeping roll off between the mids and highs. A new refined dampening material has been used, DSR coating applied to the tweeter to give their tweeters the signature sound. Dynaudio have redesigned the cavity behind the tweeter, by having a refined port for the tweeter has reduced unwanted pressure build up behind the tweeter.

Here at Manchester and Cardiff we have come to the conclusion that Dynaudio have done something “special”. Created an amazing sounding speaker, using hand crafted techniques, with an exquisite look and finish, all at a very respectable price point. Even somebody not into “Hi-Fi” cannot fault what Dynaudio have achieved, and just to enforce that opinion, (such are the hardships of a hi-fi salesman) all the staff at Audio T Manchester always look forward to the next demo in our dem room just so that we sit in with the customers and enjoy the Dynaudio "very" Special Forty. 

Feel free to watch the short promotional video below on the Special Forty's shot right here in our Manchester branch. 

Hopefully we will see you enthusiasts in store soon, where you can hear these incredible standmounts.

Bye for now from Dave, Munir, Mike, Simon and Haden.

Dynaudio Hi-Fi products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Online, Oxford, Portsmouth, Reading, Southampton, Swindon

Dynaudio Celebrates their 40th Anniversary in Style!

Dynaudio had their 40th anniversary last year and they didn’t just celebrate by sitting around eating fastelavnsboller! (A Danish dessert so I’m told!) They carried on their tradition of releasing anniversary speakers with the Dynaudio Special 40.

Dynaudio have a history of making brilliant compact speakers but never a company to just look backwards, they have continued to innovate with their latest offering, bringing inspiration from their higher end Confidence and Evidence series drivers the new Special 40’s are some seriously impressive stand mounts.

A truly great set of speakers needs to both sound good and look good and the special 40s certainly grab your attention. The cabinet is a stunning high gloss birch in either grey or red and could easily fit into either a traditional or more modern styled room.

As is often said it’s what inside that counts! And there’s some very clever technology that has gone into the special 40s. The crossover incorporates Dynaudio’s unique Phase alignment and Impedance alignment technologies and is extremely accurate in ensuring the correct frequencies are going to the correct drivers, which themselves have extended frequency range and overlap to really give you that cohesive performance that is so important.

Dynaudio uses the same proprietary MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer) material that is in many other speakers they produce as they say that it has the best combination of rigidity, stability and damping resulting in what they say is the best driver they have made yet, which is quite the claim! They also claim that unlike other materials MSP never changes, so the driver will last an exceptionally long time without sounding tired. Like all other MSP cones it is a one piece design giving it a very strong connection to the voice-coil, and plenty of stability when you decide to turn it up a bit. Behind the driver there have been many changes to the voice coil, suspension and magnet to improve performance.

The new Esotar forty 28mm tweeter which has been made from scratch by Dynaudio is an intriguingly named DSR (Dynaudio secret recipe) precision-coated soft-dome. A lot of very clever engineering has gone behind it such as the new precision conduit which is shaped to allow more and better dampening it also reduces back pressure and its shape also significantly improves airflow.

In our demonstration room we found that the Special 40’s sounded best about a foot and a half from the wall and slightly angled in, this of course is very much room dependent but as the speakers are rear ported they do like space behind them to stop any bass boominess.

The speakers are pretty easy to drive at 6ohms and we found out even amps like the Rega Brio is capable of driving them although more power than that certainly doesn’t go amiss as we found when we went up to the over 100 watt per channel Rega Elicit-R. They also worked to stunning effect on the end of the Nytech CP202 and CPA402 pre and power amplifiers which we use for many of our speaker tests. We didn’t find the Special 40’s suited one genre over another in particular although some highlights from our listening included Audioslaves ’Like a Stone’ where the powerful voice of Chris Cornell (R.I.P) sounded huge and authoritative and Tom Morrelo’s guitar solo had an incredible 3D depth to it, sounding layered from the front to the back of the room. The John  Butler trio track ‘Ocean’ showed off the incredible subtlety of the speakers which managed to show off the intricate acoustic guitar work perfectly, managing to convey warmth and detail at the same time. All through our testing we were very impressed by the low end these relatively small speakers can put out, which is both impactful and musically pleasing, they image well with even orchestral pieces allowing you to easily pick out individual instruments whilst still retaining the sense of grandness and scale.

Overall the Dynaudio Special 40’s impress in both build and sound quality and will have you glued to your seat for a long time to come. They are available for demonstration in store right now so please get in touch to have a listen to these magnificent speakers.

Dynaudio Products are available in the following branches: Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon.