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Moving from Dynaudio Confidence 3?

hi

first, to avoid confusion, these are the Dynaudio-made, now out of production two ways, not the 3-way Dynaudio Acoustics C3s.
I bought them about one year and a half ago at a good price as the owner switched to Reference Series Infinitys.
I'm using them with a DIY class D amp and an obscure (local brand) DAC.
while they are great for certain types of music, the overall impression is that they're rather uninvolving and tend to sound good only at medium to high volumes. I tried few amps and DACs (nothing fancy) but the overall impressions remained unchanged.
most reviews say they need a power plant as an amp but I'd rather not embark that frustration-producing merry-go-round of synergistic amp searching.
I'd rather move to less demanding speakers that sound more musical and involving and make me stop listening to the gear.
I don't want to go up in price and for me the key points are decent bass (not necessarily super-fast) and musicality. maybe I should mention that I'm not exactly the soft jazz listener, there's basically few musical genres I don't listen to so a speaker that excels with say chamber music but is barely listenable with everything else is not a good speaker in my book.
what is your opinion? sell for something else? keep and try to enjoy them best until I find their "soul mate" amp?
gn77b
8 responses Add your response
extravaganza
373 posts
 
May be move to contour line s1.4 or s3.4 ,because these are less power dependent
Or just need amplifier and dac which can give you exciting full sound impression.In your case with c3 I will risk with ASR emmitter integrated amplifier ,the which makes rock dynaudio speakers
xti16
1,525 posts
 
My original C1's always sounded better the more you turned them up. That was fixed with the MKII/Signature. But I think the problem is with your amp. I had a Bryston B100sst and although it sounded very good with the C1's it wasn't the best for me. It lacked the 'control' over the music. I ended up with an Octave V70se w/black box. Less watts (180 vs 70) and the Octave in my opinion just trounces the Bryston. But that was also going from SS to Tubes.

That being said most Dyn speakers are somewhat laid back (so to speak) when compared to B&W or Focal (just a couple of examples). I say laid back because they are not forward in any of the frequency ranges. Some may refer to that sound as uninvolving. To me the Dyn S25's Sapphires and Consequence UE are more lively with a punchier bass - more forward upper mids and the highs that have more 'sizzle'. I prefer 'sparkly' highs. I like them all but in the long term I never get fatigued even after 14 hrs. The Sapphires on the other hand sound great but for me only in the short term. So all and all after upgrading to the Octave and C1 signatures I listen to the music again and not the individual instruments - vocals and equipment.

That's my opinion
brownsfan
1,508 posts
 
Interesting, I had exactly the same reaction when I auditioned the C-2's. Very uninvolving, downright boring actually. If the C-3s are at all like the C-2s, they may not be the right speaker for you. However, I agree with most of the comments above that you are not going to be able to really know unless the surrounding equipment is of sufficient quality to permit a fair judgement to be made.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
agree to the comments above to reconsider to replace amplifier.
there are also DIY class D modules that have sufficient power to drive your dyns and for 2 channel you can stay within $lower-hundreds
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,370 posts
 
I think you are right about them sounding better played loud I find the same to be true with the many dynaudios I've owned. Not so much with the dynaudio xeo wireless speakers which may be something you could consider such a simple and great sounding system for the money and if you only run digital then it's a good match for you.
ejlif's avatar
ejlif
1,370 posts
 
I'd agree that likely unless you've tried a nice amp with these you haven't really heard them. Sim audio solid state sounds great with dynaudio if you don't have a big room or play to loud the i5.3 is a good match
cmo
471 posts
 
Wow... I do realize there are different tastes in all things (even Hi Fi equipment;)), but the Confidence 3's are world class speakers. Even though they are "monitors", they have tremendous bottom end and will rock..... I'd look at your class D amp before changing out speakers. They do take some good quality juice to play well - look at a nice ARC or class A SS (Pass?) amp..... Or sell 'em to me ;)
pdreher's avatar
pdreher
1,208 posts
 
I've owned many pairs on Dyn speakers over the last decade, all of the way up to the C4's. IME, it's difficult to find a speaker that excels in every music genre, so if you have not already done so, consider trying a higher powered tube amp or tube integrated (at least 100WPC). Tube amps (not all of them) have a way of adding musicality & realism that I've yet to experience with SS amps.

If you don't want to try a tube amp and are set on finding a speaker that excels in musical involvement & emotional connection, look at offerings from Daedalus and Harbeth. Neither brand will excel with hard rock, but speakers that excel in rock or rap are unlikely to excel in more subtle genre's like jazz, classical, vocals, etc...
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