Usher 718BE or Dynaudio S1.4

Usher and Dynaudio are two different companies whose design philosophy and customer base are again different.

Usher is also good but for me their best product is their entry level S520 and not the 718BE. Funny, IMO, most Usher speakers don't look as good as their cheap brother S520.

For a second system, you don't need fancy speakers like the 718BE to enjoy the house sound of Usher. The S520 is a lot of music for the money.

Krix Equinox is another good speaker. But Krix had to exit the US market simply because they cannot find a good US distributor who is willing to PR well like the people who distribute Usher in North America. See, the speakers they feed to the press for review may not be the speakers that you buy at your local dealer...

I agree with one of the G that buying speakers based on press review is a costly mistake.

After all, those reviewers at Stereophile, 6 Moon, Absolute Sound, etc...don't have your room acoustic and your cheap NAD (as in my cave) and don't have to live with the speakers you bring home. You do.

Well, buy what sounds good to your ears is my point.

I like Dynaudio a bit more than other brands. I like them a little bit more every day that I bought another pair of entry level Audience 52 for my sister.

The Ushers are rather sensitive to room placement. And I would not say the mid-bass is overblown, but i might suggest the upperbass/lower midrange might be with certain placements.
I have 718s, non-BE, and my experience is that, in a room that is reasonably flat, they are reasonably linear. Somewhee around 250Hz, they might have a little more energy than they need to, but otherwise? Not really.
As for not using tubes with them? also not true at all. I've used the Antique Sound Lab ASL AQ-1003, the Hurricanes, a Cayin (not enough power, of course) and Arcam FMJ A-22, a Vincent SV-236 (or whatever that model number was) and found them very good. The areas where they are not state-of-the art:
microdynamics: a little slow in the 718s. Perhaps the BE version improved it, which would be likely, as the tweeter determines the micrdynamic abilities of a speaker. For example, a Mirage 490, with a Titanium dome tweeter, fed by an Arcam Alpha 9, JVC XL Z-1010TN, MIT interconnects, a la 1994, Transparent (1993 generation) speaker cables, has much greater microdynamics than the Usher 718, which has Transparent MM2 speaker cables, Nordost Valhalla inteconnects, Rega, Cambridge, JVC or Meridian CD players. The tweeter is a significant determining factor in realism. I cannot imagine the Ushers sounding quite as poor as Audiofeil says, but I do not know his room. Mine as only a 1 db deviation until somewhere around 80Hz using Stereophile's Test CD. Perhaps in between the frequencies they use it isn't, but otherwise it has good octave-to-octave balance.
I've heard the Usher sound overly warm, but that is not due to tubes: that's just plain wrong. It does not have a particularly low noise floor, but to remind people of Rick Fryer's observations years ago, " transparency decreases as power requirements ASCEND." The Ushers are not sensitive at all, being around 84-85db efficient. This can make them sound somewhat less liquid than some other speakers, but they're certainly not bad at this. However, with the Cambridge 840, I was actually able to hear the floor in some recordings with the ASL 1003, but couldn't hear it withe the Arcam FMJ A-22. They're revealing enough of changes in equipment, which is not indicative of a poor equipment.
I believe it to be a good speaker (the 718), but I imagine the BE version is better.

I write this "review" more to complain about how some HiFi equipment is set up and displayed than to say much useful about either of these speakers.

I really like Dynaudio's house sound, at least for their entry level speakers including the Contours. I don't find them overly warm as has been described here, but think of them as more neutral and enticingly punchy when the source material calls for it and amplification is up to the task, and a high bass output to volume quotient.

I was very excited about the 718 BE's when I first learned about them. I got a chance to hear them at a local store recently, and like previous reviews here, the listening situation and experience was unsatisfactory.

They are certainly nice looking boxes with great fit and finish as is the case with all the Usher's I have seen previously. Unfortunately, they were set up in the entry way of the audio shop in one of those awkward standing displays where the space has only one proximal wall, and that is a glass doorway! On top of this, the speakers were being driven by a low-to-mid-grade tube amp and CDP, the brand escapes me, and the sound was just so so. Not bad, but not anything like the advance hype. The mid range was nice and while the bass was surprisingly strong and lifelike, I did not hear the bass bloat noted by another post. But neither did I hear the much talked about high end to die for out of the BE tweeter.

I was left with the impression that the 718 BE's need and probably deserve some really powerful and quality amplification and sources to get the best out of them, and that they have the potential, although it was difficult to be certain, to be a screaming HiFi deal. It would be ideal for you to listen to both speakers in your room with your equipment and then decide - perhaps trying to purchase used and trade out if you are unhappy with the result.

Knownothing, very good observation - dealers take notes. :)

Ones again - it is not easy speaker to work with.
I listen to 718 Be and AAD 2001 in the same room and the same gear and felt that AAD was far better due to ease of setup and less sensetivity to componet choices.
They cost less too.

It shows you how important the setup, room and choice of components is while auditioning gear or speakers.

Nice write-up Knownothing.

Cheers
Mariusz

Mariusz, Thanks! It is a real disappointment to feel like you can't get a good demo - helps keep my money in my pocket. As the man says, dealers take note.