Dynaudio Contour 20 Black-Edition - Standmount Speakers

Dynaudio’s long-standing Contour family has a new member. Contour 20 Black Edition is a super-premium version of the award-winning Contour 20i.

Good engineers aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy. Not in an existential way; more that it means they’ve found something they want to improve, and the solution is nagging at them. (Although sometimes, of course, that can definitely skirt the edges of an existential wobble…)

They went through it in 2016 when Contour was revamped into its current look. It happened again in 2020, when the family gained the ‘i’ badge after being perked-up by a raft of trickle-down Confidence tech.

And they went through it once more in the months before the first Contour 20 Black Edition rolled off the production line. During development this time, their unhappiness made them extremely happy, because they got to throw the kitchen sink at it.

Cabinet Construction

Contour already had a brilliant foundation. The cabinet construction is stellar: thick, solid and with a shape that minimises unwanted vibrations and standing waves. And the heavy aluminium baffle (which is actually a lot thicker than it looks) does wonders for increasing stability and eliminating diffraction.

So, how do you improve on the rest? You reach into the bag of tricks Dynaudio Labs has been filling up since 1977 and pluck out the best bits of the best bits.

Esotar 3 Tweeter

Let’s take it from the top. High frequencies are handled by the Esotar 3 tweeter. It comes directly from the flagship Confidence range – and is, quite simply, the best tweeter Dynaudio has ever produced. (So far.)

The soft-dome diaphragm is finished with a DSR coating. It’s a high-precision method, formulated and mixed by hand and applied by robots, that puts the coating at the exactly right density in exactly the right places, so you hear exactly what you’re supposed to hear.

Hexis Dome

The Hexis smooths out the tweeter’s frequency response and reduces unwanted resonances, the kind that colour your music, by gently guiding the moving air behind the fabric dome. It channels the flow in exactly the right way in and out of the conduit system in the rear chamber behind the magnet. The movement is minuscule – only fractions of a millimetre – and it happens tens of thousands of times a second.

It means you’ll hear high frequencies with all the emotion you’re meant to. The sharp attack of a well-rosined bow on a cello string as the player digs in. The epic, soaring crescendo of the first violins.

Mid-Bass Driver

The super-powerful neodymium magnet gives a boost to what’s an already powerful ferrite unit in Contour 20i, and the extended voice-coil winding improves excursion linearity. And because the magnet is smaller, there’s more space for the kind of air movement we want inside the slim cabinet.

Overall, the driver is more sensitive (so there’s less stress on your amplifier) while bass extension is maintained (it’s normally affected by higher sensitivity). Here, it’s the best of both worlds.

Your ears will notice it, too: more attack and better imaging.

The rest of the driver is classic Dynaudio: a one-piece MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer) cone, directly anchored to the extended aluminium voice-coil via its moulded balance ribs; a glass-fibre voice-coil former for reducing eddy currents (and improving agility); and optimised ventilation. It’s a formula that’s trusted across the hi-fi world – and even into professional studios.

And the rest...

The crossover has been given the all-star treatment, too. Contour 20i already has an incredible unit – which makes things difficult. How do you upgrade an upgrade?

You go back to the beginning and start again. Contour 20 Black Edition has a brand-new crossover using the smallest amount of components Dynaudio could manage – and the best versions of those parts. They've used Mundorf capacitors and resistors, a gigantic air-coil and top-quality internal cables. It’s a second-order topology for both drivers – so there’s no correction circuitry necessary.

You’ll hear that simplicity, too. Directivity is tightly controlled, thanks to the smooth power response. And that means a precise, focussed performance – with no detail left unrevealed.

Technical Specifications

• Sensitivity (dB @ 2.83V/1m): 86
• IEC Power Handling (W): 180
• Rated Impedance (Ohm): 4
• Minimum Impedance (Ohm): 4.6
• Lower Cutoff (Hz @ +/- 3 dB): 50
• Upper Cutoff (kHz @ +/- 3 dB): 23K
• Lower Cutoff (Hz @ -6 dB): 43
• Upper Cutoff (kHz @ -6 dB): 33K
• Box Principle: Bass reflex, rear mounted dual flared port
• Crossover: 2-way
• Crossover Frequency (Hz): 3600Hz
• Crossover Topology: 2nd order
• Tweeter: 28mm Esotar 3 with Hexis
• Woofer: 1 x 18cm MSP with Neodymium magnet system
• Weight kg: 14.6
• Dimensions W x H x D: 215mm x 440mm x 400mm

Further Information

Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition - User Manual (PDF)