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Review for Dynaudio BM5A powered pro speakers

I bought these speakers as an experiment just before Xmas. They are self powered pro-audio speakers. Currently directly connected via XLR cables from Bel Canto DAC3/preamp. Using a Sony DVD changer as transport.

Room: Master bedroom on top of a large dresser with a 40" LCD TV inbtween. Speakers are 2-3" in front of the TV
Music: 20% Vocal Jazz, 60% Jazz, 20% Pop/Rock
Speaker Build-in equalization are set to flat

1st 20 hrs was a little depressing. Not impressive or clear in any way. Decided to put on auto play during the day to break in.

20-100 hrs. Clear/Transparent sound, but lack any bass resolution. Treble is becoming warmer sounding. Sound stage not quite right. Play with toe-in and it works much better with a very slight toe-in angle.

>100 hrs: Everything comes together now. Transparency with a gentle treble. Definitely not bright nor mellow at the same time. Reproduce the full frquency exactly the same as on a set of Sennheiser HD-555 headphones.

This extremely system replaced a Cal Alpha DAC -> Dared VP-845 -> Coincident Triumph UHS system. It's a much different perspective and presentation. Dared 845 SET tend to round off the leading edge a bit but still reproduce a reasonable well rounded sound. There is less bite for rock music. No longer the case with Bel Canto DAC3 -> Dynaudio BM5A. Every nuance comes through but without becoming unlistenably bright sounding.

Next step: Maybe try out a Dyanudio pro subwoofer. Maybe a pair of ATC active or larger Dynaudio pro active speakers.

Eric
ejliu
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
You had a big adjustment to make judging from your initial disappointment in the first 20 hours. Do you think the change from harmonicly rich tube sound to SS has much to do with it or is to all speaker related?

My experience is that SS gear sounds thin in the bass and lower mid range if you have become long accustomed to hearing your favorite tunes on tube gear. This adjustment takes time until reaching the point that one can recognize when a recording engineer has used tubes to compress the kick drum and give it more thud compared to some recordings where a kick drum may be recorded/mixed more naturally with less compression.
ejliu OP
109 posts
 
Shardorne, I don't think the initial difference comes from tube vs. solid state. Within its power limit, Dared VP-845 is not euphonic at all. It's actually slightly on the bright side. IMHO, the treble is not grating because there is less odd harmonic distortion content.

I did not stay in the room to listen most of the time for the first 20 hrs because I was cooking a series of large Xmas dinners. So I just had time to stop at the master bedroom and listen for maybe 1 hr and then leave. Actually my wife did the same and she had a rather similar conclusion about the Dynaudio break-in process. The only thing she misses now is the pretty bright light from 845 tubes.

Rkerv, I have a few follow up questions:

1) How do you feel about the difference btw home version of Dynaudio vs. pro-audio version?
2) Do you feel a large difference btw BM6A vs. BM15A?
3) How far does the BM15A have to be for all the drivers to integrate well?

Eric
dirtyragamuffin
213 posts
 
My studio reference monitors are Dynaudio BM15As. They are non-fatiguing for studio monitors, clean, quiet enough to show any noise floor issues in the mix, and the mixes translate pretty well. They have plenty of power to fill medium to large, heavily damped control rooms. I feel that they are best set up midfield with a bit of toe-in. I'm curious what some cabinet deadening would do to them but I am not going to fiddle around with them.

I agree with Rkerv, no sub needed with these bigger brothers of the BM5s, and yes...Yammie NS10s...double ugh!! Don't mean to go off-topic here but I don't know why anyone bothers with those things...yet sure 'nuff they're in every studio from here to Timbuktu and half of our music collections were probably checked through them before pressing...
rkerv
51 posts
 
For some reason I can really feel out vocals, kick depth and reverb depth on the NS10's, but always use tissue paper over the tweeter so my ears bleed less. Hahahaa. Its more of a double checking speaker more than anything.
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