A review of Dynaudio C2 vs KEF Blade 2

 

This is a somewhat long read for my journey to buy a Blade 2 after being in the hobby for 2 years.

Due to lifestyle constraints (late 20s, still living in an apartment), I like small, tall, lightweight and thin speakers. Hence my journey started with Bang & Olufsen Beolab 8000 in 2019 - and life was simple back then. Then in 2020, a friend of mine mentioned the existence of Audiogon, and out of pure curiosity I found a great deal and bought a used Dynaudio C2. The C2 started a rabbit hole of my interest in speaker system, I started hunting listening sessions in people’s homes, dealers, and had subsequently acquired Paradigm Persona Bs, Klipsch Heresy & Forte, Magnipans, and B&W Formation Duo alike (they’re either thin and tall, or bookshelves). I love the speed and detail of the Persona B, the midrange of the Klipsch, the dynamic and shockingly punchy bass of the B&W Formation (especially sitting close to it), but for a long while, nothing really quite beat the holistic experience of my C2 - yes, it’s not nearly as detailed and speedy as the Persona, not nearly as gripping and punchy as the Klipsch and B&W, but I can listen to long sessions without fatigue and enjoyed the massive imaging depth and breath + natural extension of mids and highs, which I don’t find in my other speakers so I never thought about replacing them until..

One day I was thinking that Persona B really needed a sub to bring more bottom end, and I started shopping around subs. As Persona is a very fast speaker, I needed a fast sounding sub, and I eventually settled on the KEF KC92 (tried Rel, SVS, etc), which to my ear is super fast, neutral, punchy and able to match the speed and characteristic of Persona B really well. The KC92 also, in my opinion, beats the Formation Duo’s super fast and punchy bass in fast transient in a small room (I have no idea how Formation Duo is able to achieve its bass performance, with the caveat that you can’t sit more than a few feet away). And that was also the first time I wondered how the KEF speakers would sound with the same sub technology integrated..

Fast forward another few months, by pure accident, I encountered the entire B&W D4 line on show in my local best buy. Out of pure curiosity again, I listened to the 802D4, 803D4, and 805D4 for a good 2 hours. I was impressed by the 802D4 (which could make another impression thread by itself), but before I left, the salesperson pointed out to me about the Blade that’s hidden in another room, and when I saw it, I thought I caught the KC92 driver mounted on the side of it (at the time I knew LS50, heard about “Blade” before, but I didn’t know it had side firing subs). I thought this is the perfect opportunity to see how the KEF sub drivers work together with the LS50 drivers. So I started listening to them for 10 minutes, then another 20 minutes, then another hour and I left when the shop closed…

The KEF Blade in the showroom left a somewhat ambivalent feeling for me when I left the store, I was slightly disappointed by its bass performance, although deep and punchy, it didn’t feel it to be as fast as the standalone KC92, and in comparison to the 802D4 which impressed the hell of me with a very addictive mid and high frequency shimmer but never felt dry (somewhat an issue for Klipsch and Persona for me), the mids and high energy of the Blade felt slightly rolled off. All I remember that was positive for the Blade was it has this tremendously big sound stage and well rounded naturalness at advantage to the 802D4, but I couldn’t find anything that immediately jumped out that screamed a $30k speaker, On my way home I thought the Blade is also similar to the sound of Dynaudio C2 I enjoyed which could be why I’m not so impressed due to familiarity and the 802D4 sounded more alien to me…

After I got home and I had to validate my reality by playing the C2 right away, with the same sound tracks (I played the whole album “Post” by Bjork when I auditioned the Blade), and the C2, all of the sudden doesn’t sound exactly as I remembered… I thought the C2 would have a similar presentation of mids and highs as the Blade, but it added a slight veil to Bjork’s voice, and the bass energy and detail also felt a bit blurry relative to my memory of the Blade. I thought hmmmmm I probably got whiplashed by the 802D4 to set a higher acoustic standard before listening to the Blade.. Or maybe I just got too tired for listening music for 4 straight hours that day..

So then I started more research about the Blade and Blade 2,.I went to BestBuy again to listen to the 802D4 and Blade a few times (mind you, the Blade was driven by Devialet and 802D4 is by McIntosh so I can’t really control the amp setting and Salesperson said the Devialet is a fat sounding speaker for the bass department). Because my C2 was at home, and I couldn’t directly A/B/C, after a few more critical listening, I can only conclude from my memory that the sound stage and imaging of the C2 is pretty close to the Blade, but the Blade had more details in the higher octave as well as the lower octave, while the 802D4 paints much more depth in soundstage between the vocalist and the music and less of a width - and had more finesse to the mid range and brighter and shinier highs, it doesn’t feel necessarily more detailed than the Blade in those regions except the energy in the upper mid range was higher. I also felt both the C2 and 802D4 were missing / had a blurrier low mid bass region relative to the Blade.

That was enough for me to consider bringing a new pair of speakers home to replace my C2. For a week or so I was considering maybe I should get a 802D4 (BestBuy offered me 10% off), as it exceeded all my expectations in terms of soundstage depth and the nuances in the mids, but ultimately, it’s not a thin, tall and lightweight speaker that fits my original criteria. So I settled on the smaller Blade 2 for my apartment for this round of speaker hunting.. worst case I could just return it

My Blade 2 finally arrived in my place 2 weeks ago, since then I’ve done numerous direct A/Bs with my Dynaudio C2 with a modest stack of Topping D90SE (DAC), Benchmark ABH2 (AMP) and Schitt Freya (Pre-amp). As much “new and shiny speaker” bias I have with the Blade 2, here is a somewhat detailed breakdown that I think it’s more than fair assessment between the two:

Sound bubbles. While both speakers can pull off the “disappearing” act, the C2 to my ear has a clearly audible, bigger, deeper soundstage, and smaller and clearer phantom center positioning than the Blade 2 when positioned in the same spot. If I had to put a number on it, I would say the staging of C2’s sound bubble is around 15-20% bigger and the center imaging “spotlight” for the singer is about 30% smaller. I’ve tried numerous toe angles, with both speakers having at least 5 feet of space around them, yep, the 15 years old design of the C2 is no slouch when it comes to sound dispersion and imaging. I don’t think bigger bubble and smaller singer stage is necessarily superior as it can also feels the stage is a little sparse (think HD800s vs LCD4, or Empire Ears Odin vs 64 Audio U12t) but overall, bigger sound bubble and more focused center stage definitely make a more "unique" experience as symbols and singers are stretched further apart with their own positionings. I didn’t really try to put the Blade 2 further apart to stretch the perfect triangle I’m sitting in, but I assume at some point the Blade 2 sound bubble could reach equally big. This might have something to do with the fact that Blade 2 is physically smaller. I would give C2 a moderate win for this round.

Bass. The Blade 2 has superior bass control in terms of slam, speed, and depth relative to the C2. I always thought C2 is not particular strong in the bass region and could be easily outshined by most other speakers I owned so I think this one is pretty self explanatory. Given the innovation in bass drivers and placement strategies, I feel the Blade 2’s bass is not only sharper, more focused and more detailed than the C2, but also at the same time more room-feeling. The center "kick" and "slam" imaging of the mid bass is also a surprise to me as I never thought mid bass would have a clearly audible deep center thump at a focal point. Relative to the Formation Duo, the mid-bass slam of the Blade 2 sitting at 6ft away is fairly close to Formation Duo at 3ft away, The Formation Duo’s bass feels quicker than the Blade 2, but nonetheless is missing details and nuances in complex bass notes, as well as missing the very bottom end somehow in the lower bass that I can only hear on the Blade 2, even though technically Blade 2 is rated higher HZ in low end extention than the Formation. In short, the Blade 2’s bass sounds stunning to me, it’s very pure, clean, and borderline addictive for non-electric drum notes. Unfortunately, I never had other premium floor stander other than the C2 to really pitch against the Blade 2, so I have no further reference on how good Blade 2’s bass is but I suppose it’s probably “pretty darn good” I would give Blade 2 a clear win for this round.

The mids. Similar to the C2, I would classify Blade 2’s mid range to be obsessively neutral, realistic, resolving, but also uncharacteristic. The Blade 2 is slightly less warm and has notch up in detail and meatiness than the C2. This was something I was a bit afraid of when I ordered the Blade 2, I was so in love with the C2 and didn’t want to lose that aspect of its signature if I had to replace the C2. The Formation Duo and Persona B’s vocal both feels more “decorated” and “hifi” than the C2 and Blade 2 to my ear, but over a long period of time I also found to my personal preference that the “hifi” vocal sound become either too bright or too bland and singers become universally similar sounding which ultimately fails to capture the individual nuances. I really couldn’t pick a clean winner here for the C2 and Blade 2 in the mids, I feel for certain songs, I feel the Blade 2 is more intimate and meaty, for other songs, I prefer a slightly more distant but still warm vocal of the C2. If I really have to sell Blade 2’s mids to myself again and justify why Blade 2 is “25k”, maybe I would say, you get similar if not better mid range on the Blade 2 WITH a better bass performance integrated into one seamless package? I would give Blade 2 a minor win for this round.

The highs. Another tough area and I found this to be the most challenging to put experience into words.. The C2’s highs, especially on string instruments, is otherworldly smooth - it’s extremely energetic, detailed and at the same time tamed and controlled. I could swear C2 is made for guitar lovers. The Blade 2’s high has more resolution, detail, and I would describe as a “maximum” philosophy than the C2, but the presentation is less creamy and extended than the C2. I felt the C2 has a “beautiful minimalism” that although isn’t the most true to the recording, focuses on the octave and harmonics most enjoyable to the ear. In comparison, Blade 2 often throws me notes that I didn’t know existed but also didn’t have to know they exist to enjoy the music. For this reason, I personally also enjoy the Heresy and Forte’s high frequency tuning as I see them as having similar “minimalism” top end. In terms of harshness, I think the C2 sets a pretty high standard for me and I don’t find the Blade 2 to have any sign of sibilance and harshness from the rich details. The only speakers I had in my experience and found to be harsh in the high octave are B&W Formation (I had to dial treble down to -2 in the app), as well as during my visit to audition the D4s in Bestbuy (I found the 802D4 to be relatively smooth, but the 803 and 804 are audibly sibilance on my test tracks). All in all, I would give C2 a minor win for this round due to my likeness to its minimal sound.

The dynamics. I wouldn’t say C2 is less dynamic than Blade 2. The slightly slower low end performance pairs really well with the smooth top end performance, and can paint a rather intimate presentation when playing for quieter, high dynamic range recordings that favor minimalism, such as Bjork’s early albums. When it comes to more modern music that involves speedy bass reflexes, and more of a ASMR styling in vocal intimacy such as Lorde’s latest Solar Power, the Blade 2 really shines. With that being said, more often than not, I could hear more passion put into the performance and sound mixing from more genres and musicians on the Blade 2 than the C2. I would give Blade C2 a moderate win for this round.

The design. I think both are very attractive and expensive looking speakers. I think whe C2 will integrate better with more types of rooms due to the rectangular furniture style and yet smooth and curved front face (I am not a fan of the black oval side plates on the C2, I think it adds unnecessary visual complexity). The Blade 2 feels more of a piece out of a museum but could also draw too much attention from the rest of the home settings and it would make an awesome set piece for sci-fi films.

If I were to summarize these two speakers, I have to say they both serve their original design purpose well. Blade 2 being a top to bottom accurate, neutral speaker from its driver alignment philosophy to how it sounds, the speaker is trying to inject as few modifications as possible to the sound, and use neutrality as the strategy to depict realism. It makes me think it as the "purist" speaker and probably would also function very well as studio speakers.

C2 is also a top to bottom neutral, albeit less accurate, but slightly more romantic and the speaker wants to just slightly taint and play with the sound to be a bit more relaxing. Some might find a slight lack of dynamics in these speakers on poor recordings, but none of these couldn’t be significantly alleviated by some tweaking tone controls.

And here is a bonus thought for the B&W Formation and the Persona B. Other than the respectable bass slam of the B&W Formation and brighter vocals that could sound uniquely enjoyable for male vocals, I don’t find there is many other aspects in my sessions with Blade 2 that’s audibly favorable to the Formation. Although in simpler music, especially EDMs and vocal-less sound tracks these two could trade blows, on more complex passage and layers of vocals, The Blade 2 provides a realism in presentation and overall scale in dynamic and naturalness that simply surpass the Fomration. As for the Persona B, which has survived all the buy & sell history since I’m in the hobby - I do think the Persona is somewhat a trolling enigma in the speaker industry that it makes music sound a little bit into the "surrealism" category. Without sounding bright and harsh, it has a sheer level of eargasm-inducing density and clarity in sound resolution as well as speed that I would rate higher than the Blade 2 across all spectrums, whether or not intended by the mixing artist (they wouldn’t know that’s how their music would sound in Persona B with their studio equippments). As a friend of mine who tried the Persona B noted, listening to the Persona B is like watching hardcore porn and you will not need to pay attention to the story structure, plot and everything else.

Is Blade 2 worth 2x more than C2’s original MSRP? At this point I would say from a technical point of view, it is a very noticeable improvement in its bass performance, top end resolution and overall dynamic presentation, and the speaker would perform better in a wider range of genres (and if you like novel design look and feel, smaller cabinet space, I guess it’s also a plus). But had I didn’t known about the Blade, I would probably be perfectly happy with the C2 for another few years to come…

At the time of the writing, the C2 was already picked up and now moving to its new home to be enjoyed. Who can I blame except this darn forum.

Music used for A/B testing
- "Marble House" The Knife
- "Ryland" Julian Lage
- "Headphones" Bjork
- "Quarrel" Moses Sumney
- "Solar Power" Lorde
- "Aquamarine" Heather Nova
- "Darkseid" Grimes
- "Sex Money Feelings Die" Lykke Li
- "Love Is a Bitch" Two Feet