Danny Richie tears the Dynaudio Special 40s apart

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by Puma Cat, May 9, 2021.

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  1. JoshMorr

    JoshMorr Friend

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    Forte III were probably about that MSRP, but no one should ever pay MSRP for anything. 25% off are listed at most shops, and you can talk some down to 35-40%. Klipsch has since come out with Forte IV.

    In his videos, Danny does measure speakers and redesign the crossovers based on combination of what he hears and what he measures. I bet he has preferences like everyone else, and he probably tunes them that way. Won't be for everyone and certainly changing designers intent. But, that also doesn't mean they will be worse (or better).
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's the tone and some implied misinformation. I'm sure he is passionate.

    By standard audiophile measures, the XO parts in the Special 40 are above average for the price. The stock design is exceptional for Dynaudio's vision.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2021
  3. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    @purr1n he made what is definitely a good speaker with a bbc type bass bump into a typical mediocre hifi bookshelf. The phase is more important than very slight fr improvements that aren’t as much as moving your chair in a purpose built room. He actually made the fr worse in the treble as you pointed out.

    If anyone would take a Neumann KH or Genelec speaker that’s equalized to hell with higher order crossovers to be a flat line over active ATC (active only. You want the electronic delays to phase align everything) or passive Dunlavy/Duntech (which do it physically), they’re pretty much just stupid and prefer bad sound.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2021
  4. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Yeah making it flat does not equal good sound. Case in point when i let Dirac correct full range ie flat it sucks out all the life and emotion out of the music. Correcting to just above the shroeder frequency works best, rest is sorting out the acoustics and setup and getting speakers you actually like in the first place.
     
  5. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Just look at this massive beautiful thing: https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649739111-dunlavy-mark-vi-walnut-panels-floor-stands-included/

    Like, seriously... I want one, but how am I even supposed to move a 530 lbs speaker into my house?
     
  6. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Danny just posted another weekly video, this one discussing/fixing some Tannoys. I feel like he’s almost directly addressing a lot of what we’ve been raising in this thread (starts around the 2 minute mark).

     
  7. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Yeah i had the same thought. I think he posts on some other forum, forgot which one though. So not far fetched he reads this one.
     
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Not really.
     
  9. M3NTAL

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    AudioCircle is the 2Chan hangout where he has a GR Research sub-forum the last I checked. He was behind the BE718 Tiny Dancer crossover and quite a few other solid hi-fi designs.
     
  10. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Another good speaker ruined. The majority of the records you like were made on only three brands of speakers, Altec, Tannoy, and Yamaha, for good reasons. Why add all these filters in the path?
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2021
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    School of perfect EQ. Lots of guys who take this approach run class D amps, 0.0001% THD gear, and usually inefficient speakers.

    Much of the stuff he fixes does need help, e.g., the Klipsch Forte III with the excess bass boost, etc. Other stuff is more a matter of different, or missing the point, as opposed to better.

    The general problem is this: no analysis or study of what was before, and none such after. I'm not talking about the selective plots in YT. All I hear is "trust me", wink-wink, hand-wave. This may be enough for http://www.orfas.org , but it's not good enough for me.

    I'd like to see schematics pre and schematics after. The after can be broken down into module black-boxes without component values. As if any of this is a black art today.
     
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    Last edited: May 29, 2021
  12. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    I suspect that most of his customers are perfect EQ, orfas guys. His retort might be that even if he offered proper pre/post analysis, schematics, etc. that 98.456% of his customers could not understand them (which includes myself to a significant degree) and/or would not care. If I recall correctly only Moth Audio (but not EC - perhaps I am wrong on this) and perhaps 2 or 3 others ever offered schematics.

    In this sense I see your point about Danny being positioned firmly in the orfas camp and not in the more transparent DIY/moding scene of which SBAF is more of a part.
     
  13. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    These type of guys are pretty much magical thinkers. They’re not designing the best objective loudspeaker. They’re priortizing minute changes in frequency response that can change by walking a few feet around a purpose built room or putting a coffee cup on a desk. They don’t care about phase, amp distortion, amp clipping, impulse, phase, current, headroom, and driver distortion. They just handwave it all and pretend it doesn’t matter. Then they hate on the inefficient speakers that are objectively designed to be as good as possible in all those areas like Duntech and the ATC actives. They’d probably just break them by bottoming out the woofers in a pathetic attempt to get bass distortion or blow the tweeter by clipping some class d monstrosity.
     
  14. Pancakes

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    You should spend some time on the various DIY speaker forums. You can tell such losers as Andrew Jones (a regular contributor and commenter) how to design speakers. I'm not saying the above is untrue of Danny in particular but a general statement on the community as whole is pretty pathetic. Oh and since it's apparently an attribute of good or bad speaker designers, Danny runs only tube amps. Off only batteries.

    For the record, I'm not defending Danny - I don't have intimate knowledge of his designs (if you do, please share).

    My point is, there are hacks in all areas of life. You can't generalize.
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    He doesn't even offer a picture of this mods. Note that competitors do. For example, Crites does with this Klipsch xovers. Heck, the component values and where the wires go are even visible.

    EC doesn't need to offer schematics. Craig isn't selling a modding service, nor does he handwave and say trust me. He's more like: go buy someone else's amp. In any event, there really is only one way to build a two stage SET amp. The equivalent would be like Craig selling a tube amp with a YT video of a bunch of boutique parts and a few FFTs showing SINAD and power curve.
     
  16. nishan99

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    <off topic>

    I always thought the same about SETs in general.
    So would you guess the chinese SETs (speaker amps) will be a great value given the chinese products tend to lack actual engineering but have exotic/overkill parts?
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2021
  17. DigitalMaven

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    Sorry, I'm in the Danny Camp. This guy has over thirty years of tweaking and repairing problematic crossovers for his own speakers as well as other manufacturers. I'm with him for analog crossovers because of the complexity for the average consumer who can't do the calibrations for time alignment in actives. The cost and complexity for multi amp set-ups would be daunting for the average consumer and if there are problems with active speakers your stuck trying to get repairs for it. He's analog for a reason plus he is about transparency because of the over designed passive crossover components. (Big Air core inductors, Quality caps, and high end mills resistors) cumulatively add up to overall better sound. He does look at CSD and he does really improve the ohm load on most of his speaker crossover designs which affect what the amplifiers sees when going through all the frequencies. If your blowing up drivers with his crossover designs your just really abusing the hell out of your own product. I cross over lower on my tweeter designs but use a third order to cut down quickly at the crossover point. As for classic speaker designs....they didn't have computers 50 years ago for speaker and driver design like they've had over the last 10 years. My only complaint about Danny is his insistence in pushing very expensive Caps which really run-up the cost on crossover design. The Cheap Audyn's from Parts express are Phuking Phenomenal and can save you a fortune in your passive designs. (Wink-Wink!) I think his bread and Butter is selling you expensive Caps and No-res parts. LOL!
     
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Depends on whether the amp actually has exotic / overkill parts. The most important part of a SET speaker amp is the output transformer. You get what you pay for. Good parts can be had in China. Finally, a bunch of good parts doesn't necessarily mean good sound. I've been to enough headphone meets where people slap TOTL components together to get meh results. The chef must still know how the get the proper ingredients and make a proper dish.

    This sounds like you are the DIY "Imma cheap bastard and not orfas.org" camp vs. Danny camp. Unless I am mistaken, I don't see you rushing out to buy his xovers. The Sonicap whites are priced too much for their performance IMO. Also, keep in mind resellers put a huge markup on boutique caps.

    If anyone were to tell me that I needed a big air coil for a 7mH inductor which required a DCR of less 0.3-ohms, I'd tell them to go f**k themselves. And again, I don't see any iron core inductors on the Special 40 xover board a few posts back.

    FYI, I like red Audyns too. I've tried the more expensive Audyns and found them to not always work. They are maybe "better", but it depends because tone and timbre is different. Generally with the red Audyns, I find them to be pleasant if not the most transparent.

    PXL_20210529_232145981.jpg

    FYI, this is a great resource for caps: http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cap.html I find Mr. Gee's descriptions of the sound qualities of the caps more important than the numeric ratings or their price. Mr. Gee is a saint for offering his impressions of caps (and his designs, his approaches, etc.) for free and only really charging for people who cannot or do not wish to DIY.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2021
  19. Aklegal

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    I'm not sure why you took this as being a "you are either with him or against him" proposition. Danny designs speakers using drivers he commissions for his original designs or for manufacturers like Tyler acoustics and Usher using drivers and parts he okays. This is a whole separate thing from him redesigning crossovers for speakers he had no hand in designing and that often use drivers he dislikes. I have never heard any of these tweaked speakers but I can't imagine them sounding better than his original designs which are uniformly stellar imo.

    I have never been able to figure out who the consumer base is for tweaked speakers. Anyone who buys a new speaker with the express intent to send it to Danny to be redone before even listening to it is an idiot (exception being IF you actually heard the modded version beforehand of course).

    I guess if you have a pair of speakers that you are not super satisfied with and then upon hearing one of Danny's original designs you wanted your speakers to sound a little more like that, then maybe having Danny mod them is a ok idea. But that seems like a waste to me.
     
  20. DigitalMaven

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    I might be biased because I've watched a few of his videos and he's been legit in tearing apart some of the cheaper speakers that some of the big manufacturers have put out like Klipsch on the cheap end. This might be one of his first videos where he actually has dissected a more expensive speaker.
     
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