Dynaudio or Ohm?

I have had OHms and Dynaudio Contour, not Focus, running concurrently off teh same gear in different rooms for several years now. So I am very familiar with these two.

There are significant differences between OHM Walsh and Dynaudio for sure. It should be easy to pick teh right one between the two based on your room, listening habits, associated gear and general likes and preferences regarding sound.

Build quality of Dynaudio Contours is pretty much as good as it gets in teh price range IMHO.

I can't really fault OHM build quality either however. I've owned OHM Walshes and run them regularly since the early 80's and have never had an issue or failure. They also have the ability to go as loud and clear as ever needed with the right amp without ever showing any signs of strain or breakup. Its a benefit unique to the Walsh driver design used I would say. Small Dynaudios do well for their size but like most conventional dynamic speakers will compress and peak out much sooner, although perhaps not at any practical volume in many cases. So if build quality = performance, there is nothing better IMHO. Whether or not one likes the aesthetics is another valid question.

There are many differences in that the OHMs are a totally unique design...too many to summarize but most aspects of teh OHMs are well documented here and elsewhere.

Regarding tonality, I would say the OHMs tend to be as dead neutral as anything I have heard whereas the Dynaudios tend to have a touch of warmth and a hotter more exiting top end that can also tend towards a bit more fatiguing depending on what's upstream, clean power, etc.

I've never heard an OHM sound fatiguing. More often they might sound flat or un-involving if things are not going well upstream.

I have also found taht OHMs and Dynaudios tend to work best with similar placement with some distance away from walls. Surprisingly, Dynaudios seems to sound best further apart and well away from teh rear wall in particular whereas OHMs can also go within a foot or so of side walls but just a couple feet from rear wall and sound their best.

I could probably live with either happily when set up correctly and well. I think both lines are absolute top notch and hard to fault save for individual preferences.

My Dynaudios are smaller monitors and cannot compare to my OHM 5s or even smaller OHM 100s for large scale classical works at realistic volumes. The OHMs are champs at that (with suitable amplification, the more watts and amps the merrier, same with Dynaudio) in their size and price class. The Walsh design just seems to enable more clean sound out of a given size driver and cabinet. My 100s (comparable to current 2000s) use an 8" Walsh driver and my big 5s an even larger one, 12" I believe and are the bomb for large scale works at realistic volumes.

Both are very sensitive to what they are fed and both respond to quality amplification, power, current, source, etc. I hear clear differences with most any change I make, including ICs, with both, but with the big OHM 5s teh most.

I run both OHMs and Dynaudios off Bel Canto ref1000m monoblocks. Performance and sound quality with both is absolute top notch. The Dynaudio Contour 1.3 mkIIs are small but the Dynaudio build quality delivers a lot of sound for the size. Pre-amp is an ARC sp16. I use both phono and digital sources, mostly music server for digital.

Mapman,
Nice write up.

Thanks, Mapman for such well thought-out information. It makes me want to hear some symphonic music thru the Ohms.

I have good power conditioning and a high power/high current amp with the Sunfire, so driving either speaker is no problem. The only flaw of the Dynaudio is the less than stellar performance at low volume; once it receives enough current is when it performs.
How does the Ohm perform at lower volume, IOW late nite listening?

The OHMs tend to shine best opened up at higher volumes, but do fine at lower as well and I listen to them both ways frequently. An amp that does not have too low a damping factor will help keep things clean and tight at all volumes.

Some might prefer speakers that tend to be a little hotter or brighter at lower volumes though. Frequency response of human ears is not flat and tends to drop off for higher and lower frequencies at lower volumes in particular. Loudness controls used to be mainly to help compensate for that.

If I were restricted to low volume listening, the OHMs would probably not be my first choice. A smaller good quality monitor would work just fine. I tend to like my little, easy to drive Triangle Titus XL monitors best at low volumes actually, though in a quiet room in particular, The OHMs or Dynaudios are fine as well.

I think it has more to do with the dropoff from speakers playing at realistic volume levels to artificially low ones. With teh OHMs, the difference is bigger. With smaller monitors in particular not so much. In fact small speakers tend to sound their best at low volumes when not under much strain. It is really not very hard to get good sound at low volumes. Higher volumes is what separates the men from the boys.