DYNAUDIO C4 VS B&W 800 D3

Thank you for your views.

I'm from the camp that get the speaker first. They all have a general 'house' sound. Find the sound that suits you the best. Then worry about an amp to help refine the sound.

IMO both the B&W and Dynaudio are fine speakers but very different sounding. Personally I find B&W fatiguing after some time (even quicker if played really loud) where Dyn's I can listen to forever. (disclaimer - I owned Dyn C1's for about 5 years). The C4 is my favorite in the Dyn lineup but too big for my room.

Thank you for your valuable input. I will try out the speakers and then decide on the Amp.

Get the 800D3 with German Symphonic Line RG mk4 monoblocks and Cardas Golden Cross shot-gun bi wire speaker wire . These are best solid state amps on the market, and great match with the diamond tweeter. Mac amp are mediocre to say the least..... 800d3 give much broader and stable soundstage, so you need not to sit in the sweet spot, unlike most other speakers that I ve heard (and I ve heard alot). The C4 while fine sounding no doubt , are mostly for for the obsessive compulsive audiophiles who like to tinker with the SOUND..... you know the type which describes you the best.. ;) If you get the above keep in mind that both the amps&800d3 and Cardas speaker wire need about 1000 hours to fully break in ... The combo will sound amazing! Many audiophile in Europe who are in the know only use B&W with the Symphonic Line amps.... search the web...

I too have gone through this. I originally started out with C4’s, MC452 and a McIntosh C2500. Prior to the C4’s, I had a pair of B&W 804 D2’s. Not even close to the 800 D3’s, though I’ve listened to them and still preferred my C4’s.

The MC452 was absolutely not enough power for the C4’s. It sounded ok at low to medium listening volumes, but turn it up and you will begin to hear awkward upper frequency decay. I don’t want to mince words when I say decay, as it wasn’t decay in a literal sense, as in room interference. Almost choppy, but not distorted. I had GIK Acoustics design my acoustic paneling, so I do have sound treatment, but it wasn’t quite clipping either. I don’t know enough about the interaction of capacitance and voltage to make an accurate assessment of what was going on. When we built our house, I had a dedicated 20 amp line ran for my listening room and use Shunyata Research power cabling and conditioning, so I know it wasn’t for a lack of available voltage to drive the amp. Nonetheless, I can share from experience, I was not happy, at all, with the setup. The MC452 is not enough power for the C4’s. The monoblocks would be more than enough power to drive them. As for what the MC series amps sound like with Dyn’s, there are plenty of opinions and thoughts on it. Me personally, I no longer prefer the McIntosh amp sound, especially with Dyn’s.

At low to moderate volume levels, the combo just didn’t sound transparent and organic enough to me. Almost muddied with some music and I listen to a wide range from Miles Davis to Lamb of God.
I sold the MC452 and went with a set of PS Audio BHK300 mono blocks and they sound epically awesome now. I’ve swapped out the preamp with other makes, attempting to improve it and I didn’t find a better sounding pre, to me, in the $6k-$8k range. The C2500, I did swap out the tubes for a OE vintage set of Mullard’s, those paired with the PS Audio’s more than covers down on everything I like to hear in my music.

And reading Kot's post above regarding obsessive compulsive Dyn owners...it's true.  The C4's take time to get into position and the toe in on them is the most I've seen of any speaker.  They're not very efficient, so do require gobs of power and they can be sensitive to various other items in your signal chain, but they sound friggin' sweet once dialed in.

Happy hunting!