Danny Richie tears the Dynaudio Special 40s apart

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

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  1. MrMumbly

    MrMumbly New

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    Owners send speakers to Danny. Brand new or old, it is a choice the speaker owner makes.

    I have inspected the construction and components in many speakers ranging from $200 to several thousand. On occasion an inexpensive speaker surprises. Most of the time the expensive speakers disappoint when you look under the hood.

    Have been in corporate boardrooms listening to arguments over pennies. The bean counters almost always win limiting what the engineers can do. It is naive to assume that Dynaudio, or any brand, speaker always represents the best engineering effort. Good enough will typically sell sufficient numbers at a price point to meet a target profit. The majority of consumers do not know the difference.
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    All this is true. The same applies for stereo amplifiers, cars, dishwashers, and refrigerators too. This is nothing new. Companies expect to make profit. Without profit there are no jobs and no products for consumers.

    It's Danny's tone (and lack of full transparency, product pics, etc.) that is shitty, not his upgrades.

    Also, in this case, the upgrades do change the design parameters, flattening mids that probably didn't need to be flattened, improving vertical polar response while increasing the risk of tweeters overheating and screwing up the low/mid treble response. The thing is that we really don't know in this case what Danny did. There are only oblique hints in his YT video (discussed throughout this thread). We don't have schematics of the stock xover and we definitely don't have any of Danny's new design.

    You are right that most consumers don't know what goes on in the board room. However, even fewer consumers know what goes into a crossover and the many design considerations and approaches. The use of an electrolytic part doesn't automatically render a crossover shitty. Neither does the use or iron-core inductors. Mention of cheap iron-core inductors is misleading, a cheap rhetorical device because there aren't any in the stock design. If anyone, anyone has insights into this (stock and Danny upgrades), I'd like to know.

    All this stuff has already been discussed in this thread. Also, the stock Dynaudio xover isn't that bad. Decent, not boutique film caps used throughout, air-core inductors, some 'lytics in non-critical spots.

    To sum it up: I want solid information. A few aggregate FR response graphs and a stack of Soniccap white caps and inductors in a YT don't cut it. No Danny proponent has been able to tell anyone here what this specific kit consists of. This is SBAF. Not Head-FI. We want more than YT videos from a manufacturer saying my shit is guud, buy it. I don't know if anyone has noticed that this is still a measurements based site.

    Evil corporations intent of increasing profit margin isn't solid information. It's old news and often a great rhetorical device by someone who has something to sell you.

    And I've already said this: if the Dynaudio is so shitty with their cost cutting and cheap plastic cone woofer and spade connectors, buy one of Danny's kits. I'd be a lot more supportive of Danny if he just shat all over the Special 40 and told his viewers to buy one of his kits instead which would actually provide real value.
     
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    Last edited: Jun 20, 2021
  3. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

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    Obviously, I don't know - but I assume he measures the tweeters for resonance frequency and designs the networks accordingly. I mean it's network design 101. IF that is indeed the case, there should be no issues. If not, that would be serious incompetence.
     
  4. Pancakes

    Pancakes Friend

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    To the two people who disliked my above post, can you explain why? Is there something technically incorrect about my resonance frequency comment? It's simple stuff but perhaps I'm missing something?
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Fs for a tweeter shouldn't matter. There's not a huge difference between one 28mm soft dome ferrofiuld tweeter than another. The considerations are effective surface area, linear excursion range, and distortion. 1.4kHz first order XO is very tough and leaves a lot of excursion below that XO point.

    Max SPL (linear range) for a 28mm tweeter, assuming a 8.5Cm^2 sd and 0.5mm xmax (1/2 p-p) at 1m (these values are typical for 28mm or 1 1/4" as I do not have specs for the Special 40 tweeter):

    700 Hz 90db
    800 Hz 92db
    900 Hz 94db
    1000Hz 96db
    1200Hz 99db
    1400Hz 102db
    1600Hz 104db
    1800Hz 106db
    2000Hz 108db
    2200Hz 110db

    I went down in frequency a bit because first order XOs do not attenuate steeply. Their slope is rather shallow. We can see that tweeters really do not like to play down low. Heck, they don't even like to play down into the mids. Keep in mind that these SPL values are max. Likely distortion will be significant even before then.

    In Danny's defense, lowering the tweeter XO just in itself usually does make any speaker sound much better at lower/moderate volumes. 97% of users will not have a problem, especially if they are audiophiles with small speakers and know their limitations. The problem is someone like me. That 3% who goes: "Oh a Dynaudio!", and then proceed to plug in a Yamaha mixer into the power amps, then then a drum kit, guitar, and bass guitar without a compressor just so I can play Rock Band (not the video game, but real rock band) with my kids. I've done 1.4kHz XO before, just not first order. I guarantee you I will blow them up with Danny's XO. The only reason I haven't blown up the JBL LSR306 tweeters with similar 1.4kHz XO point (electrical 2nd order) is because their active electronics have limiters in them.

    Anyone who has designed speakers will understand why Dynaudio set their crossover higher to 2.2k and didn't bring it lower to better glue to the woofer so smooth out that small small 1.1kHz peak that Danny was bitching about. Yes, these are corporate considerations because Dynaudio doesn't want that 3% of buttheads like me to blow up the tweeters within the warranty period.

    The argument that Dynaudio is a cheapskate corporate entity, perpetuated by Danny, now parroted by consumers who practically zero knowledge of XO design, just needs to stop. If you have a problem with Dynaudio's corporateness, don't buy their speaker and then Danny's XO. Buy one of Danny's speaker kits.

    Locking this thread because it's run its course.
     
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    Last edited: Jun 20, 2021
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