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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
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...
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 ;)
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
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.
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