GREAT THIGHT BASSLINES,CAN TRUELY NUANCE THE BOTTOMLINE BASS
CLEAR MAIL AND FEMALE VOICES,WITH GOOD BODY,HIGH´S VERY CLEAR BUT WILL BE BETTER WHEN THE SPEAKER´S HAVE FINISED RUN IN.THIS WILL WILL TAKE SOME TIME,AS I WAS TOLD BY A FRIEND,WHO HAS DYNAUDIO SPEAKER´S,SOMETHING ABOUT 200 HOUR´S

NOTHING MUCH,ECCEPT THAT THEY WILL NEED FIRST CLASS EQUIPMENT,THAT HAS HIGH POWER IN LOW IMPEDANCE,AND NOT TO ANALYTICAL OR BRIGHT

I HAVE BEEN USING SNELL E MK.III FOR SOME 6 YEAR´S,AND THEY HAVE MANY GOOD VIRTUES,INCL VERY AIRY PERFORANCE OF THE HIGH´S,BUT THE LOW END IS MISSING AT LEAST ONE OCTAVE,WHICH I HAVE BEEN MISSING FOR SOME TIME,SO I WENT OUT TO AUDITION DIFF.SPEAKER´S INCL.BW 803,804 NATILUS WHICH I FOUND TO LAID BACK IN PERFORMANCE,THOUGH THEY ARE VERY HOMOGENIUS.I HAVE ALSO LISTENED TO JM LAB COBALT AND ELECTRA,WHICH PERFORMED VERY CLEARLY AND DYNAMIC,BUT ALSO VERY BRIGHT( I CANT AFFORD JM LAB MEZZA UTOPIA´S,THEY PERFORM ABSOLUTELY PERFECT)I ALSO LISTENED TO DALI EVIDENCE THEY WERE GOOD,THOUGH THEY LACK THE SOUNDSTAGING I WOULD LIKE.
SO FINELY I HEARD THE AUDIENCE 82,FRESH OUT OF THE BOX DIRECTLY FROM THE FACTORY IN SKANDERBORG IN DENMARK.
THEY CHOCKED ME,WITHOUT RUN IN TIME AT ALL,THE SOUNDSTAGING
WAS ABSOLUTELY STUNNING,HIGH,WIDE,BROAD,BUT OF COURSE THERE WAS NO AIRY HIGH´S YET,I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO THEM NOW IN 14 DAY´S AND THEY GET BETTER FOR EVEREY DAY,SO I HAVE BOUGHT THEM.MY MUSIC TASTE IS CLASSIC,JAZZ,ROCK IN ANY STILE
AND ALSO SURROUND MUSIC AND FILM FROM DVD AND LASERDISC.
MY EQUIPMENT IS
SIRUS DMX 100(NOW GAMUT D100)2X100W
MARANTZ SR 7000 USED AS PREAMP AND FOR CENTER AND SURROUND´S
PASSIVE PREAMP CUSTOM BUILT FOR THE SIRUS AMP(STEREO IS SLIGHTLY BETTER WHEN THIS IS USED)
JAMO CENTER 200,JAMO SURROUND 200 DIPOLE,AND IDEA SPEAKER´S
FOR DD EX,DTS EX,
YAMAHA E492 USED FOR THE EX SURROUND
ENERGY ES12 ACTIVE SUB IN THE BACK
2 TIMES JAMO SW600E ACTIVE SUB´S IN FRONT
PIONEER DVD 717,AND PIONEER LASERDISC 925
SONY CD 7 ESD AS DRIVE,AND LA AUDIO D/A CONVERTER
GARRAD 301 IN HEAVY HOMEMADE PLINT,AND HELIUS ORION TONEARM
LYRA LYDIAN PICK UP,DENON DL304 PICK UP
NLE 17 RIAA PREAMP(DANISH HIGH END RIAA,CAN BE SET FORE ANY PICK UP,REGARDLESS OF LOAD)
AUDIOQEUST FORREST SPEAKERCABLE,VAN DEN HUL THE SOURCE HYBRID,AUDIONOTE QSSC SILVERCABLE,+ SOME HOME MADE CABLES

Similar Products Used:

SNELL E MK.III

Clarity, soundstage, detail, bass for size.

Cabinet finish, but for $2400 MSRP it seems they concentrated mostly on the sound, and less on apperance. Goals that are well-targeted as far as I am concerned.

I have been into car audio for some time. I have long been a loyal fan of dynaudio's mobile audio products. Now that I have $10,000 in my car stereo, I figured I should start working on sound for my home before considering any more improvments on it. I set out looking for a pair of main speakers for my apartment. We have a medium sized living room in my college apartment, but I still was looking for something that I could move into a larger room upon graduation. I should have gone with my instincts and went with the Dyn's to start with, but I decided that it couldnt hurt to audition a few other options before buying.

I took a trip to Audio/Video, where I found the staff to be knowledgable and relaxed. I listened to a pair of $1600 Definitives, with a built in 10" subwoofer. They sounded decent with mildy detailed highs and mids, but the bass was slightly muddy during complex passages, and there was little blending between the midrange/midbass and sub-bass. It was completely obvious when the subwoofer was working, and while it didnt sound terrible, the lack in control and poor blending was certainly enough to bother me. Adjusting the subwoofer gain proved to be fruitless in resolving this. Not bad overall for $1600, but lacking for my tastes.

Next I listened to a pair of $5000 B&W's which I must say did sound good. They had a decent amount of bass which was far more detailed the Def's. At $5000 they were a little more than I was looking to spend on a college student budget.

I was in Austin the next weekend and decided to stop by Audio Systems. I listened to the 82's there, and I was astonished. The sound was extremely detailed from the highs all the way down. They had an enormous amount of bass for thier size. Obviously, no matter how much a speaker cost, or how well it is made, physics is physics. However the speakers sounded much larger than they are without the enclosure being revealing at all. The bass was also as detailed the rest of the sound. I would venture to say that they sounded as good, or better than the B&W's. Hearing the bass guitar strings vibrating, and the singers' mouths opening with the realism that the Dyn's possesed was more than enough for me. At the price point of $2400, I was sold. I doubt that there is another speaker at this price with that sound.

I found out that Listen Up was closing the 80's out at $1500 a pair, and jumped on it. I expect they will sound equally as good. Ill post a review for them when I get them and have a chance to listen to them.

In conclusion, I would recommend these speakers to anyone looking for something in their price range. If you are looking for bass that will rattle your pictures off of the wall then you will certainly need a seperate subwoofer, but at moderate, and even not-so-moderate, levels you could actually get away well without a sub.

Five stars for overall and six for value.

Similar Products Used:

Definitive, Dynaudio car audio.

Stupendous pacing; deep, tight, precise bass at all volumes; great soundstage, dynamics, separation and detail; uniform frequency response.

slightly small sweet spot (in my room); old school appearance may be a turnoff to some.

After three months of listening to as many speakers in the
$2k-$3k range as I could, I brought home the Audience 82s.

The unique element of the Audience 82s sound is the pacing;
their ability to present fast bass and percussion transients
without muddying the low end or affecting other musical timing information is unmatched in this price range. Dance music has a compelling "you must dance now" quality, more intellectual fare is engaging, almost visceral.

The Dyns are very neutral across the frequency spectrum. Highs are clear, smooth, no hint of edge or brittleness; mids are clearly defined but not forward or pushy; bass is
*wonderful*...tight, precise, tuneful, no bloat, no bloom, no lag. In my listening room, I can get down to the 25 Hz test tone on the stereophile test CD without losing oomph. I am driving them with an Arcam A-85 integrated (great amp, see my review), and I've found that the apparent relative freq volume stays constant as you turn it down; that is, the speakers don't lose bass or droop in the treble at evening or middle-of-the-night volumes.

Soundstaging is broad, but not as deep as some speakers I heard; that has more to do with my room than anything, as I have a very reflective fireplace dead center from the listening position. The speakers will disappear completely if you are sitting on point, but my assymetrical listening room makes that sweet spot a bit on the small side.

No other speaker I listened to at up to even twice this price had as many strengths as the Dynaudios. I heard a lot of harsh, fatiguing treble, and even more weak, flabby bass. It seemed to me that many speakers in the $2k range have had a lot of design emphasis placed on one particular sonic element, sometimes to the detriment of the overall sound. See my comments on the also-rans below for a few examples.

The fit and finish on mine, in black ash, is great; the speakers are covered in vinyl, but you would hardly know to look at them. The Audience 82s are not the prettiest speakers on the market, being your typical big black boxes, but they have it where it counts. One minor quibble about the cabinets: the 5-way binding posts have posts that are slightly larger than "standard", making it impossible to use standard spades unless you splay them outwards a bit. I can live with this, but it is somewhat odd.

For my audition material, I used the King's Singers, Kathleen Battle and a Kings College recording of John Rutter's _Requiem_ for vocals/organ/small orchestra, David Grisman's _Hot Dawg_ and a Django Rheinhardt compilation for acoustic instruments, Cibo Matto and Erykah Badu for pop (and deep, deep acoustic bass), the remastered _Kind of Blue_ (how much does the background hiss intrude on the music? Can you hear the air moving through the horn?), various live recordings of Spiritualized (the noise jam 1:40 into the first track of _Live at the Albert Hall_ will tell you all you need to know about separation and soundstaging), Steve Kimock, Miles, and Coltrane, plus trance and ambient electronic recordings from Cosmosis, Ultramarine, u-ziq, Spacetime Continuum, and Amon Tobin.

Becuase I know some of you are wondering, I determined fairly early in the process that integrating a sub that would satisfy me in terms of speed and precision was going to completely blow my budget, so I turned my attention mostly to floorstanding speakers. After six weeks with the Dyns, I don't regret my decision for a moment. I heard subs from CSW, PSB, Klipsch, Sunfire, and a few others, and they just weren't *musical*. They all lagged significantly behind the beat; on drum and bass material with long sweeping subsonics, this was particularly noticeable.

A few comments on the runners-up:

Gallo Nucleus Solo - only available on the used market, but well worth auditioning if you are in this price range. They are gorgeous, unique looking and sounding speakers that hide nothing. The Gallos have effortless midrange detail, soundstage, and separation; the King's Singers are all spread out in front of you in precise locations, and every nuance of the vocal performance comes through. In the end, however, that single (Dynaudio) woof couldn't keep up with the bass material I was throwing at it. Gallo made a two-woofer Reference model near the end of the production run; that would probably have done it, but I couldn't find a pair for sale.

Audio Physic Tempo and Yara - Utterly incredible soundstage and disappearing act, I mean, jaw-dropping, great midrange detail, no bass to speak of. Also, I auditioned these in a ridiculously treated room, which I do not have at home, so your actual mileage may vary. I wanted to audition the Sparks, which apparently have bass beyond their size, but couldn't find a pair in stock.

And as for the also-rans:

The CSW Newton T500 have lovely silk tweets, and are very pretty (as furniture) speakers, but a bit slow and heavy in the bass. I listened all the way up the chain on the B&Ws, and I can't get past all that metal resonance. They have a frequency separation that is startling at first listen, but it doesn't strike me as natural, and after a short time I simply can't listen to it. Again, it gives a precision that is laudable but unmusical. An extended B&W session only furthered my impression that silk dome tweets are where it is at. The Paradigm S80s and PSB Stratus Golds do everything adequately, but do not excel at any one thing. I wanted to like them more, and gave them a few chances to impress me, but no such luck.

The rest of my components:
Arcam A-85 integrated amp with phono stage
Marantz CC-3000 5 diwsc changer
Tascam DA-P1 DAT player/recorder
Nakamichi DR-2 and DR3 cassette decks
Technics SL-1500 turntable
An ancient Sansui analog tuner
homemade interconnects (Mogami quad mic cable with Canare
connectors) and speaker cables (braided CAT5 with gold spades).

Similar Products Used:

Audio Physic Tempo & Avanti, Gallo Solo, B&W 801, 803, 805, CDM7T, CDM9T, CSW Newton T500, PSB Stratus GOLDi, Paradigm Studio 80v2 and 100v2; various floorstanders and monitors from Wharfdale, Snell, Sonus Faber, JBL,

Price, beautiful rich sound

None discernible!

My wife and I previewed several similar (and more expensive) speakers, including B&W 803s, Monitor Audios and Linns. After several showroom visits and revisits, we determined that all of the aforementioned speakers were lacking something, whether it was sufficient fullness in the bottom, or a muddy sound at the top.

The Dynaudios, however, seemed to have the whole package, and our affection for them has only grown in the 3 months that we've had them. In fact, we're listening to much more classical music than we were before - in addition to the powerful yet clean bass response, these speakers are also very clear, at least to our ears.

As the label on the box says, "Danes Don't Lie."

sonic tonal response,excellent bass,all frequencies well
distributed.

NONE

LET ME BEGIN BY SAYING THAT WITHOUT HIGH END GEAR DO NOT
WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS PAIR FOR YOU WILL HAVE IT ALL WRONG.Secondly make sure you have proper interconnects and
speaker wire.
NOW TO THE PERFORMANCE-neutral clear highs,
smoooth midrange,is there more to say about these than what has been already said.I MUST WARN YOU that these speakers
wont perform immediately so patiance for a good 200hrs of
playing time.
MY SYSTEM
AMP INT MA6850 (MCINTOSH)
CD PLAYER 991 (ROTEL)
INTERCONNECTS SILVER STREAK (KIMBER)
SPEAKER WIRE 8TC (KIMBER)
EVEN WHEN NEW THE SPEAKERS SOUND VERY MELLOW.

Its a dynaudio

None

I thought I might be taking a big gamble buying these speakers *not* heard which is nuts I know, I have never done this with anything I ever bought previously. I was looking to replace psb stratus silveri & c6 in a ht setup that does a 50/50 split with music. Bought audience 50's from a friend last year for rears and just fell in love with them so I felt the 80 was the natural next step up to replace and improve upon the psbs. Went out to audition the 80 and found out it was replaced with the 82 which this place didn’t have in stock yet. Liked the new specs so I went for the order and a 122c which i did audition and thought was awesome. Easily matching the output of the larger C6 with much more detail and crisper bass response and ten pnds lighter which my tv enjoys. The 82's arrived in five days which was a week ago and now have about 15 hrs use. The few hours I listened to music today was great, they sound like 50's with typical great sound but just so much more. The bass is so powerful and sharp no subwoofer is needed at all with music and that’s great to me. Thought my previous stratus silveri's had great bass for a 50liter speaker but these are on another planet all together with. I feel they image superbly and go extremely loud with great controlled accurate bass with the larger 20cm drivers. The midrange and highs are typical excellent dynaudio traits as it seems to blend in perfectly with the 50's.HT performance is breath taking and ill be going through all my favorite movies again soon.These speaker are simply an incredible value for money IMO and I know they will get even better in the next few weeks, highly recommended. The rest of my stuff is

Anthem AVM2
McCormack dna1 drives 82's
Anthem Mca3 for 122c & 50's
Rega planet cd
Sony 570 dvd
Sony wega 36
Defintive 15+

Similar Products Used:

Psb stratus Silveri

Clear detailed. Amazing midrange. Clear bass lines.

Have not found any yet.

Having replaced my Mirage M790s after 8 years I did not realize I was missing alot of the music. The Danes have glorious midrange out the wazoo. Bass lines are clear and detailed instead of boomy mush. Acoustic instruments sound real. Piano Acoustic guitar, Flute and especially drums. Cymbals and rim shots are as clear as can be. I am not using a big amp and am sure they would sound better with a little more power.
I would recomend these to anyone with a room large enough.
Not too much else in this price range competes.