They're here. They're finally here.
Meet the all-new reference-grade bookshelf from Dynaudio, the Dynaudio Legend.
Earlier in the year we were invited by Dynaudio, under NDA, to come and be in the room with the first handful of people to ever hear these little montsers, after hours at a Hifi show. Surrounded by media types and professionals alike, we settled down to a quite personal listening session.
It was late on a Friday, the weather was miserable, it had been a long day and we still had plenty of hours left on the road to get home, but somehow, all of these subconscious gloomy thoughts were wisped away by the sound of these special little speakers, in a way that only good sound can do. You forget yourself, where you are, what the day has been like, even those who you're with (who are likely having the same experience) and you just become enchanted by these electrical signals presenting themselves as real sound through the medium of moving parts.
Extremely well made, beautiful moving parts.
It took me 3 seconds to mutter the words "good speaker" under my breath. I don't know where that skill comes from but I can tell immediately if we're going to have good time, and this speaker may as well have had "I CAN PARTY" tattooed across its Esotar 3-adorned forehead. What a wonderful speaker.
I was immediately impressed with their resolution. I've heard every iteration of Esotar tweeter, so I'm familiar with their hyper-realistic sonic signature, however, each time I hear a speaker with this driver, the speaker as a whole sounds different. It's to do with the crossover and it's involvement in the integration between the drive units that Dynaudio nail.
Every. Single. Time.
The way in which male vocals projected from the speaker with physical accuracy and strength was very impressive. The male voice can be extremely powerful, low yet sharp at the same time and this speaker was throwing it into the room in bucketloads. Never fatiguing, just loud and proud, and yet, within a split second it can retract itself back into the delicate shimmer of a cymbal's decay to near silence.
Looking at it's numbers (The boring bits, of which I was not privy before the session) you would think this a bass-light hard-to-drive design. -3db at 60hz would suggest it has no bottom end. I've heard it in-room, before the numbers and if asked, I would have written significantly different numbers. These speakers were playing kicks, toms, bass guitar without any train or any obvious lack of any sort. Rhythm was great and the timing was among the best I've heard.
83db sensitive (I can hear the YouTube comments from here!!) would suggest we need a monster to drive them, Right? And, although not to my choosing, they were demonstrated with Naim amplification, we're not talking Sellafield here, this was moderate power driving to tons of grip/output. I can only imagine what they'll do strapped to other pieces of kit.
Of course, they're small, so, vanish they can and vanish they did. Delivering a wholesome 3-dimensional stage while stepping back from the picture. At this point I tried to get a picture (as if taking a digital image of them would somehow keep me similarly stimulated) and was promptly reminded we were under NDA.
Take a look at the light-play from this cabinet. I could look at it all day. they're all made by hand, each wooden panel is selected and matched by eye, then they're made a mirror of one another. So, whilst this speaker isn't a limited run, each set are a true 'one of one' set, no other will look the same.
There were too many people around for me to 'wrap test' them properly, but I can assure you, had I got my knuckles out, they would have tapped like they were turned from one solid piece of wood.
Anyway, it was a great night at another launch of a speaker I'll back with complete confidence. They're £5500 and they're available here at our family-run store where real people can talk to you about them - Dynaudio Legend
If you have any questions, we're just here - https://studioincar.co.uk/pages/contact-us
All the best,
Carl - Studio Incar
