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Onhifi.com with Wes Phillips, February 1, 2002 Dynaudio Evidence Temptation Loudspeakers "If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster," said master conductor Gustav Mahler. In the rough'n'tumble world of high-end audio, sometimes the best way to make yourself heard is to whisper. Not a week goes by that I don't receive a press release announcing a new audio product that re-establishes the state of the art. New products are "orders of magnitude" better than old ones. Minor circuit changes challenge "the bleeding edge" of what's possible. And I'm the queen of Roumania. So you can understand how different it was when Dynaudio unveiled its $85,000 Evidence Master loudspeaker at Chicago's HIFI 99. Other than publishing the speaker's specifications (20Hz–26kHz, +/-3dB), Dynaudio made no claims. They didn't need to -- the speaker spoke for itself. Even under show conditions, the Evidence Master sounded special. Best speaker in the world? I don't know. One of 'em? Without a doubt. So I wasn't surprised to see the Evidence Master anchoring the Dynaudio display at the Home Entertainment Expo 2001 last May. After all, when you've got something that works, you stick with it. But when I asked Dynaudio's Mike Manousselis for a price rundown of the demo system, he told me the speakers were $30,000. Wait a minute! I thought the Evidence went for over twice that. They do. What Dynaudio was demoing was a speaker designed to offer all but the last iota of Evidence performance at a fraction of its price: the Evidence Temptation. The Temptations are slightly smaller than the Masters and lack some of the Masters' labor- and material-intensive modular construction (not to mention having slightly smaller woofers), but their performance is embarrassingly close to that of their more expensive siblings. In some rooms, in fact, they may even work better. There's no question about it: They're the best loudspeakers I've ever lived with -- and by a wide margin. God delights in our temptations The Dynaudio Evidence Temptation is a tall, slender, but deep tower (78.5"H x 7.9"W x 19.3"D) that houses two 1.1" soft-dome tweeters, two 6" polypropylene-cone midrange units, and four 8" polypropylene-cone bass drivers with 3" voice coils and hybrid magnet systems. The five-way first-order crossover (300Hz, 500Hz, 2.3kHz, 8kHz) -- in concert with the mirror-image woofer, woofer, midrange, tweeter, tweeter, midrange, woofer, woofer driver array -- makes the speaker's vertical dispersion uniform over its entire frequency response, which is said to be 29Hz–25kHz, +/-3dB. The crossover is stuffed with polypropylene capacitors; large-gauge, multi-wire air-core inductors hand-wound to a tolerance of less than 1%; and zero-compression, low-inductance, low-capacitance, wire-wound resistors with high heat stability. The individual components are arrayed upon double-thickness, multi-layered, fiberglass-reinforced printed circuit boards with thick copper traces. Internal wiring consists of high-purity, matched-crystal, oxygen-free, silver-coated copper. No detail was too small for Dynaudio to obsess over. Dynaudio is almost unique among speaker companies in that it designs and manufactures its own drivers. The Temptation's drivers evolved out of Dynaudio's six-year R&D for the Evidence Master. The 1.1" soft-dome tweeters are nakedly exposed on the speaker's aluminum center section -- protected only by a single titanium-wire "guard." They employ pure-aluminum-wire voice coils with magnetic-fluid cooling, vented pole pieces, 72mm neodymium magnets, and aluminum-alloy rear chambers designed to disperse heat. The 6" midrange cones are molded from single pieces of polypropylene and sport 38mm pure-aluminum-wire voice coils. The four 6.8" woofers are, again, cones molded from a single piece of polypropylene, driven by a 75mm pure-aluminum-wire voice coil with massive neodymium magnets. The Temptation sits upon a square steel plinth outfitted with adjustable spikes. The bottom woofer cabinet sports a super-sturdy pair of WBT binding posts, which were a joy to use. The speaker's cabinet is solidly constructed, with separate internal chambers for the various drivers. The center module (the speaker is not modular like the Evidence Master, but is constructed from separate modules bonded together at the factory) is milled from solid aluminum, carefully chamfered for superior dispersion. The casework and finish quality on the speaker towers is first-rate -- my pair came with side panels of beautifully finished Birdseye Maple veneer with black lacquer contrasts. Including the steel plinth, each Temptation weighs 249 pounds. It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptation There's a frequent mistake committed in high-end audio reviews when we assume that first-rate components are all that it takes to create first-rate products. Oh, it helps -- just as it helps to use the freshest, purest ingredients when cooking. But, the most memorable meals you've ever eaten probably have more to do with your physical and emotional surroundings than the quality of the ingredients. Mine sure do -- they include supping on cold water, canned sardines and saltines while sitting in an underground chamber after a five-mile crawl through a streambed, gazing at fossil evidence that the Blue Ridge mountain cave I was in was once under water, and the cava and chocolate cookie "lunch" I wolfed down with my new wife after my lunch-hour wedding, before returning to work. Designing a good loudspeaker has far more to do with the judgment of the designer than it does with its parts list. Loudspeakers, even more than other components, require a complex series of compromises in order to achieve a balance of elements. You could even claim that the deliberate choice of performance tradeoffs is the equivalent of the setting for memorable meals -- it's what puts the sound out where you can consume it. Seriously flawed designs can nonetheless express certain levels of musical truth that transcend their shortcomings. The classic examples of this sort of "compromised" performance are the original Quad ESL 57 and the venerable LS3/5A. The Temptation is an even rarer speaker -- not only does it sport an impeccable list of ingredients, its compromises were so astutely chosen that they seem to fade to insignificance. It's rare in another sense, as well. We all know of loudspeakers that sound far better than they measure. Well. The Dynaudio Evidence Temptation measures almost perfectly -- and it sounds even better than it measures! I never resist temptation . . . the things that are bad for me do not tempt me Despite the Temptation's actual size, its apparent size within a listening room is not that overpowering, thanks to its narrow width and its ability to be placed nearer to the side walls and front wall of the listening room than most full-range loudspeakers. In my listening room, I ended up placing the speakers 26" from the side walls, with the speakers' back panels 40" from the front wall. The Temptations were toed-in to the point where I couldn't view their side panels in order avoid the first side-wall reflection points. As long as I kept the toe-in adjusted so I could see only the face of the speaker and not the side panels from my listening position, I could adjust my distance from the speaker from a relatively close-in 8' to a comfortable 15'. My perspective changed, but not the quality of the soundstage or imaging. What the speaker delivers is detail, detail, detail. Not some details at the expense of the others, but -- seemingly -- all of them. I've never heard a more seamless top-to-bottom presentation of music. The degree to which an instrument's sound was informed by its environment was remarkable. I never heard the instrumental sound superimposed upon the room sound, as the popular cardboard-cutout-in-front-of-a-painted-background analogy; rather, the two were indivisibly intertwined. And yet, for all of my sense of infinite detail, I never felt as though the Evidence Temptations were "ruthlessly revealing" or some sort of audio microscope. I've heard audio products that seem designed to reveal just how hard it is to make a good recording. You could be sitting there entranced by the performance and they'd practically elbow you in the stomach, pointing at clumsy edits or loud breathing or fretting noise. Oh, you can hear all that through the Temptations all right -- just as you would were you present at the event -- and just as though you were present at the music making, it's such a minor part of the experience of enjoying music, its importance is insignificant. No, the Temptations aren't an analytic instrument, they're a musical instrument. That is not a trivial distinction -- it harks back to the design choices made in the speaker's genesis. Dynaudio got the balance right. The best way to get the better of temptation is to yield to it Maybe it's a character flaw, but when confronted with big, honking speakers like the Temptations, I dig into my record collection for performances I reckon will, ahhh, challenge them. Recently, my weapon of choice has been the CSO/Barenboim Le Sacre du Printemps [Teldec 8573 81702-2]. From the opening bassoon notes, I knew I was in for a treat -- they floated in space like a zephyr. As other instruments join in tentatively -- a sustained note here, some twittering and chirps there, the piece builds an incredibly living picture of a world awakening. As sound builds upon sound and rhythm beats against rhythm, that world becomes wild and explosive. It was pure theater -- I was as engrossed as if I was present at the concert. Conventional measures of audio greatness seemed meaningless. There was the music and there was me. Speakers -- what speakers? And the ritual dance of the chosen one? I was jelly. The sound buffeted me with wave after wave of pounding, penetrating rhythm -- all completely informed by its Orchestral Hall acoustic. What's that almost meaningless critical phrase? I was transported. No, really -- my room just ceased to exist. To tell you the truth, after listening to La Mer and Notations VII, I was ready for something a lot less challenging. To me, I mean; the Temptations hadn't even raised a sweat. So I pulled out Together at the Bluebird Café by Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, and Guy Clark [American Originals AMO 4006-2], thinking that solo troubadours would be a welcome emotional contrast. What was I thinking? The Temptations beamed life-sized Guy/Townes/Steve into my living room. And, while you laugh a lot at these guys' concerts, they aren't exactly up kind of guys -- and listening to a seemingly alive, seemingly present Townes Van Zandt was an emotional wrench of a completely different sort. But that's life with the Dynaudios. They are an intensely communicative loudspeaker -- and what music communicates most of the time is emotion. If that's not what you signed up for when you bought your hi-fi, you won't like the Temptations because you can't turn it off. With most speakers there's a specific loudness where the "real" pops into focus -- this is what prompted Peter Walker's famous comment that there is only one correct volume for any given record. Nobody bothered to inform the Temptations of this, however, and when you turn them down they don't relinquish their emotional stranglehold on you. I offer this for what it's worth. Maybe it's a sign of how low their inherent distortion is, or perhaps it’s a sign of their complete lack of music-sapping resonances. I couldn't even begin to guess. If you want background music, though, you'd better play a radio in some other room -- the Temptations are hard to ignore at any volume. In my case, ignoring them was the furthest thing from my mind. I wanted to hear everything through them. If it wasn't for deadlines -- which are as implacable as Death his own self -- I'd probably never have left my listening chair. Oh, I just got it! That's why they're called Temptations. I can resist anything but temptation So there you have it. In a world filled with claimants to the throne, the Dynaudio Evidence Temptations are as close to the perfect loudspeaker as I have ever experienced. If they have a flaw, it's that I can't afford them and will therefore have to live without them. (I will confess that I contemplated cashing in my IRAs and worrying about my old age sometime later -- but after Enron, I'm not sure I could actually swing a pair.) If you can afford them and you relish the emotional intensity of experiencing live music on a daily basis, I wouldn't even think about it. Just buy 'em. But make sure you have the strength of character to continue going to work and spending time with your family -- listening to 'em is as addictive as crack cocaine. Only a lot better for you. ...Wes Phillips wes@onhifi.com Associated Equipment: Preamplifiers: Ayre K1x, Conrad-Johnson Premier 17LS, Krell KCT CD players/transports: Krell KPS-28c, Sony CDP CX-400, Musical Fidelity A3CD D/A converters: Bel Canto DAC1, Perpetual Technologies P-3A Power amplifiers: Ayre V-5, Krell FPB-300c, Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 300, VTL TT-25 Cables: AudioTruth Midnight, DiMarzio M-Path interconnect, AudioQuest Dragon, DiMarzio M-Path, DiMarzio Super M-Path speaker cable, Illuminations Orchid digital cable, Kimber KCAG Accessories: Osar Selway Audio Racks, AudioQuest Big Feet and Little Feet, Vibrapods, Audio Power Industries Power Wedge Ultra 116 Room treatment: ASC Tube Traps, Slim Jims, Bass Traps
$30,000 Dynaudio’s Temptation excels at what only big, expensive loudspeakers can excel at: massive dynamic contrasts, deep bass extension, and the ability to reproduce the loudest climaxes with effortless grace and ease. Essentially a scaled-down version of the $85,000 Dynaudio Master, the $30,000 Temptation nonetheless brings nearly all of that flagship speaker’s performance to a more “affordable” price level. Reviewer Anthony Cordesman bought the review samples. Reviewed By Anthony H. Cordesman in Issue 134
I wish I could afford the $30,000 Dynaudio Temptation loudspeaker. It outperforms its $85,000 elder sibling in my listening room, providing the tightest, most natural bass I've ever heard. The imaging is superb, and the transparency and air have a level of detail I have never heard before in a dynamic speaker, and a naturalness I have never heard from a ribbon or electrostatic. Other hallmarks are a superb midrange and remarkably flat and extended highs, with no loss of musicality. Far too many speakers at no-holds-barred prices are more spectacular or euphonic than musically real. This is the kind of speaker Mozart deserves. A balm in Gilead.
A year ago, I reviewed the Dynaudio Evidence Master and I found it to be one of the finest speakers ever. At $85,000, however, it existed as a demonstration that the finest in state-of-the-art components are beyond most real-world audiophiles. This year, Dynaudio has issued a sibling—the Evidence Temptation—with almost all the same technology, but at $30,000. In addition, the Temptation is a superb speaker— the best-sounding I have had in my home in nearly two decades of reviewing. I am n o t saying that the Evidence Temptation is better than the Evidence Master. I am saying that the Temptation sounds better in my middle-sized listening room than the Evidence Master, which needs a larger room to sing its best. My listening room has great standing waves in the bass that I cannot eliminate, and I could not really get the best out of the Masters. The listening room really is the most difficult component of all, particularly below 100 Hz; but when you get synergy between the speaker and the room in the deep bass, you approach audio Nirvana. I also am not saying that the Temptation is better than the other speakers I’ve reviewed. If my review also reads more like a love affair than an objective analysis, please note that I have a similar love affair with two speakers I use as references—the Revel Salon and Thiel 7.2—and I remember the Wilson Maxx with almost equal fondness. Nevertheless, I am writing this re v i e w after a long weekend of trying to prove to myself that the Temptations are flawed, that my favorable impressions are not valid, and that I should keep adding qualifications to my praise so the reader will be suitably cautious. In the process, I went through all of my audio tort u re tests of deep bass and dynamics. I blew my circuit breakers twice because the sound of the most complex and demanding music remained so clean that I didn’t recognize the levels and power drain. I ran through my most difficult classical and jazz records to see if the ones with elevated highs would grow hard and fatiguing. I did comparative listening to see if the midrange was really that clean and the imaging that precise. In the end, I simply confirmed my response of several months of care f u l listening: This speaker is truly excellent. My judgment is not driven primarily by the fact that its bass response happens to interact First, I should explain the design concepts behind the Temptation and how it compares with its $85,000 elder brother, the Master: The Temptation has the same basic design concept. Like the Master, it is symmetrical, with two 28mm tweeters (one atop the other in the center), two 15 cm midrange drivers (one above, one below the tweeters), and four 17 cm bass drivers (two each at the top and bottom sections of the cabinet enclosure). A key to its success is Dynaudio’s driver technology, which uses custom-made drivers that require extraordinarily careful assembly and then are individually tested. (Having visited the factory, I can testify that this is no hype. It was more like visiting a watchmaker than a speaker manufacturer.) The Temptation uses the same drivers for tweeter and midrange as the Master. The bass drivers are smaller, and all have a hybrid magnet system with neodymium combined with ferrite. The center section of the speaker utilizes a massive 40mm thick, CNC-machined, solid aluminum baffle into which the tweeters and midranges are integrated. The mechanical precision of the driver mounting is exceptional, and this along with the high mass of the baffle material helps integrate the midranges and tweeters while ensuring that the reproduction of dynamic detail in the high-midrange band has only limited coloration. Dynaudio states that this combination of mechanical precision and high mass is important because the amplitude of the mechanical movement of the tweeter is small and the acceleration of the tweeter mass is extremely high (calculated at 19,000 G acceleration for a 1,000 watt transient). The four bass drivers are specifically designed for optimized performance in the Temptation cabinet, and they offer an extremely fast transient response. In total, the bass drivers’ four 75mm (3 inches) wide, long-throw aluminum voice coils produce an incredibly high dynamic output. Similar attention is paid to minimizing midrange and treble coloration. The front baffle of the dual bass modules is 40mm thick HDF (high density fiber-board) and the walls are extremely well damped. The Dynaudio Directivity Control symmetric driver array and advanced crossover-filter technology give the speakers greatly reduced vertical dispersion. This limits transfer to the floor and ceiling, and reflections or cancellations off of these boundaries are reduced by at least 75 percent. This, in turn, makes the Temptation less dependent upon room acoustics and listening position than most high-end loudspeakers. The four cabinet sections (two bass modules; one mid-high module; one crossover module per speaker) are bolted together, and the speaker is housed, in effect, in one enclosure. The middle section is divided into two parts: One provides the air volume for the midrange drivers; the other houses the crossover. The crossover module cannot be rapidly modified and adjusted as in the Master. It is, however, specifically vented to maintain a stable operating temperature for all components, even when the speakers are listened to at high volume levels over an extended period of time. The section’s back plate is made of a non-magnetic aluminum alloy. The crossover components are soldered onto a double-thick, glass-fiber reinforced PCB (printed circuit board) that uses extra-thick copper traces. The impedance corrected crossover design of the Temptation employs low loss dielectric capacitors, zero-compression resistors, and OFC (oxygen-free copper) cable throughout. The Temptation’s cabinet is similar in finish to the Master, though is finished in-house, in contrast to the authentic Steinway & Sons lacquering of the Master. The Temptation is thinner and shorter than the Master; is deeper than it is wide. This makes it far less conspicuous. It is massive, weighing 249 pounds each, and mounted onto a massive bottom plate with an adjustable spike assembly. Yes, I know that no list of features will convince some audiophiles that any speaker can be worth $30,000, but I hope it will show how serious this speaker is and why there are good technical reasons for its extraordinary performance. And yes, the Evidence Temptation is extraordinary. I’ve already said that it is extremely clean at very high power levels. Well, I mean levels well above a measured 115 dB with no detectable change—no dulled transients, definition, timbre. Like the Master, the Temptations produce an incredible amount of measurably flat, deep, bass power in my listening room. They are superb with a demanding test band such as Track 18 of the Chesky Gold Stereo and Surround Sound Set-Up Disc [CHE 151]. This test tone sweeps down from the lower midrange to 20 Hz, and is designed to demonstrate the limits of speakers and subwoofers. The Temptation was still clean at a volume where room (and house) vibrations made a louder test impossible. The Temptation also made an even smoother transition in my listening room from the bass you can hear to the kind of bass you can feel than had the Master. What really counts, however, is the ability of the Temptation to handle difficult music and deep bass at the same time and do so with coherent detail and imaging. Any good recording of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony will serve as proof. I also use two organ spectaculars: "The Great Gate at Kiev" on the Jean Guillou performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition [Dorian 90117] and the climax of the Second Movement of the Royal Philharmonic recording of Saint Saëns’ Symphony No. Three [Telarc CD-80274]. Getting clean and coherent sound and the best soundstage is difficult with both these. Getting really clean sound at the loudest climaxes is much harder. Yet, no speaker I know has done as well here as the Temptation, even at levels well above 105 dB. Moreover, no speaker has produced fewer standing-wave variations in bass energy at different points in the room while keeping the midrange and maintaining a wide, deep soundstage over a wide listening area. It’s equally good with jazz and rock. My son took the Temptations from low listening levels to far above those he could stand while remaining in my listening room. (He listened to levels above 105 dB from the kitchen.) He assures me that the Temptation is also the cleanest speaker he’s heard in reproducing rock at high levels. (The most I could stand was an old Creedence Clearwater Revival LP called Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits [Fantasy Stereo CCR-2] at levels around 107 dB. "Proud Mary" remained as clear as ever, but I’m just too old for rock-concert levels.) Like the Master, the Temptation can reproduce the full dynamic range of SACD and 96 kHz/24-bit digital recordings, and its superb midrange and treble detail are particularly apparent with such source material and the best LPs. The reproduction of voice is exceptional. Bass voice is clear and realistic. Tenor and soprano are as clear and clean as the recording permits, with no added hardness or exaggeration of breathing noises. I have long enjoyed the Lenneke Riten and Thom Janssen recording of Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben [van den Hul VDH99CR07]; it’s one of the most musically natural female vocal recordings I’ve heard. The Temptation drew me into the music with constant minor discoveries of new levels of detail. The same was true of the SACD of Jacintha’s Autumn Leaves [ Groove Note GRV-1006-3]. The natural detail and timbre—and a really good performance of Johnny Mercer’s best songs—is almost a cure for Washington. At the same time, I also again heard new levels of detail from a reference recording I thought I had worked to death—Jennifer Warnes’ The Hunter [Private Music 01005-82089-2]. One key test for any speaker is if it breathes new life into overused favorites. The Temptation does so splendidly. Like the Master, the Temptation does a beautiful job with choral music, even on complex orchestral passages. The Robert Shaw version of Mahler’s Eighth [Telarc CD 80267], so rightly called "symphony of 1,000" has never sounded better. Both voice and instruments are beautifully reproduced and detail and imaging are preserved in sudden transitions from low level to high. The realism and coherence of the grand piano is also the best I’ve heard. If you audition the Temptations, be sure to bring a solo piano recording. And don’t forget demanding string music, as well. The L’Archibudeli and Smithsonian Chamber Music Players recording of Octets for Strings [Vivarte/Sony SK 48 307] is a relatively close-miked recording of demanding chamber music, recorded with all Stradivarius instruments. Flat, open speakers with air often sound hard with this music, but a speaker that is warm or blurs detail loses vital information. The midrange and treble of the Temptation had an almost perfect balance, and imaging detail and soundstage depth and width were equally good. Like the Masters, the Temptations give great live recordings air and life. The Temptations share with the Masters some potential drawbacks—for some audiophiles. They are not the speakers for clumsy multi-tracking, close-miking, poor digital processing, and the flaws of analog recordings and front ends. will hear every mistake, with no romance or forgiveness. They have a remarkably flat and extended upper-octave timbre and the upper octaves may seem slightly elevated. At the same time, the Temptations do not have peaks or shifts in the upper midrange and treble that create a false picture of detail. As I said of the Master, the result is both more intellectually convincing and emotionally involving. The Temptations also are front firing speakers intended to produce a coherent point source, and so do not offer the touch of added air and soundstage expansion provided by dynamic speakers with rear-firing tweeters. As for ergonomics and set up, the Temptations required only minimal experimentation with set up. If the test of room dependency is getting good performance in real-world listening rooms, then the Temptations are much less room dependent than most large speakers. Only one amp and one speaker cable are needed per channel to provide the best performance. These speakers are an easy load, although they average 4-ohms impedance and require an amp with high-current capability, and the ability to handle moderately low impedance loads. I compared their performance with Pass X600 amps and lower-power units, and found that the superb dynamics benefit from power levels over 100 watts. These are revealing speakers, and you need real power to get the best from them, dyamically. They are instantly revealing of the normally small sonic differences between speaker cables. The top-quality Discovery Cable did fine, but I preferred the top Kimber Select and the Transparent Audio Reference XLs. (The Kimbers had the more natural timbre, but the Transparent Audios added a touch of welcome apparent detail.) I warned you that these speakers gave me so much musical pleasure, my judgments may be colored. Indeed, I’m so involved that I am teetering on the verge of buying them, in spite of the price tag and the practical problems their size will cause me as a reviewer. This is the stuff of audio legends. You really should listen for yourself.
Film sequels are a mixed blessing. If an action movie holds my attention, I can't wait to see the sequel: same characters, same actors, new adventures. And if the first film was successful, studios are more than willing to oblige. So Jurassic Park begat The Lost World, which begat Jurassic Park III. But the results are often unsatisfying. Which brings me to Dynaudio's Evidence Temptation speaker system. Ever since their flagship loudspeaker, the Evidence Master, left my listening room (see Stereophile, May 2000, Vol.23 No.5), I've been waiting for its sequel. Although it costs an astonishing $85,000/pair, the eight-driver, nearly 7'-tall Evidence Master is one of the best-sounding loudspeakers I've ever heard, surpassing all comparison loudspeakers in its lack of grain, total freedom from distortion and dynamic compression, topnotch focus for nearfield and farfield listening positions, and deep, wide, layered soundstage. It did all this without listener fatigue, without an overdone bass response, and without muddying the separate lines of complex musical textures. On the test bench, John Atkinson found the Evidence Master to have "superb measured performance" with an "astonishingly flat" farfield frequency response, "superbly well-controlled lateral dispersion," and a clean cumulative spectral-decay plot that was "free from resonant hash." He concluded that the Evidence Master "represents a serious attempt on the state of the loudspeaker art."
Could Dynaudio transfer the Evidence Master's technological advances and musical magic to a less costly model? I didn't have to wait long for an answer - Dynaudio launched the $30,000/pair Temptation at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show. When the opportunity to grab a review pair arose, I eagerly volunteered, hoping the Temptation would buck the trend and prove a satisfying sequel to the Master. Design Both the Temptation's and Master's crossovers use polypropylene capacitors and large-gauge, multi-wire air-core inductors hand-wound to a tolerance of less than 1%. Resistors are zero-compression, low-inductance, low-capacitance, wire-wound types with high heat stability. All components are wired into double-thickness, multi-layered, fiberglass-reinforced printed circuit boards with thick copper traces. All internal cabling consists of high-purity, matched-crystal, oxygen-free, silver-coated copper. The drivers were developed during the six-year gestation of the Evidence Master. The 28mm soft-dome tweeter is protected with a titanium wire guard, has a 40mm aluminum-alloy front-panel mount, a pure aluminum-wire voice-coil with magnetic-fluid cooling, a vented pole piece, an aluminum-alloy rear chamber with high heat dissipation, and a high-sensitivity, 72mm neodymium magnet. The 6" midranges employ a one-piece molded polypropylene cone and a 38mm pure aluminum voice-coil. Each of the four woofers has a 6.8", one-piece, molded-polypropylene cone, a 75mm pure-aluminum wire voice-coil, and large amounts of neodymium magnet material for high sensitivity. If the Master and Temptation look the same and use the same drivers, how did Dynaudio reduce the Temptation's price by $55,000/pair? First of all, the Temptation's cabinets are not modular, but are bonded together at the factory. They therefore don't need the Evidence Master's interlocking rail system and external van den Hul wiring. (This explains why the Temptations are shipped in two long flight cases rather than the eight cases that brought me the Evidence Masters.) Still, a few CNC-machined aluminum sections are common to both systems: the one-piece midrange-and-tweeter baffle and the adjustable floor spikes. The Temptation is slightly shorter (78.5" vs 80.7"), narrower (7.9" vs 9.5"), shallower (19.3" vs 22.8"), and lighter (249 vs 297 lbs, with base plinth attached) than the Master. The volume of the Temptation's bass cabinets is smaller (64 vs 106 liters, top and bottom cabinets combined), and the Temptation uses slightly smaller polypropylene woofers (7" diameter vs 8"). Its voltage sensitivity is also lower (90dB vs 92dB (B)/2.83V/m), and the long-term IEC power handling is lower (500W vs 600W). Although both use first-order slopes in their five-way systems, the Temptation's crossover frequencies (300Hz, 500Hz, 2.3kHz, 8kHz) differ slightly from the Evidence Master's (250Hz, 400Hz, 2.5kHz, 7.5kHz). The five-way system is used to make the vertical dispersion uniform across the speaker's frequency range. However, only the Evidence has an impedance-corrected crossover. But the two models' quality of construction are identical. The Temptation's bird's-eye-maple veneer is every bit as beautiful as the Evidence Master's. There is extraordinary attention to detail, as shown by the precision machining of the center section's front baffle, the slightly asymmetrical cutouts for the woofers, and the adjustable, spike feet. The fit'n'finish represent the state of the cabinetmaker's art. The Temptation's overall visual effect is elegant, but its package is slightly smaller and more suitable to most living rooms. Setup Wilfried Ehrenholz, Dynaudio's CEO, was already waiting with me at my home for this delivery, along with Dynaudio North America's Mike Manousselis. They mounted the base plinths with hex-head socket screws. Manousselis pointed out that the plinths have a 2.5" raised area that elevates the entire cabinet, so the MTTM center section is raised to optimize the sound for the seated listener. They then pulled the long Temptations to a standing position and positioned them 22" from the back wall and 82" apart. Manousselis then used a spirit level from the toolbox on the sides of the upper bass cabinet, and leveled each column using the adjustment screws - one at each of the base plate's four corners. Next, to fine-tune the towers' positions, they removed all of the furniture from one end of my listening room. Then, one by one, the pieces of furniture - a marble table, four upholstered chairs, an area rug - were returned to their original positions, after a listening check to make certain that the speakers were still optimized. The rug had to be moved several feet back so that the loudspeakers could sit directly on the wooden floor. After another hour of listening tests, Manousselis positioned each Temptation 48" from the back wall, 43" from side walls, and 82" apart (measured from the tweeter centers) - toed-in slightly to focus on the farfield listening position, and facing the full length of my narrow listening room. (The room is 26' long, 13' wide, and 12' high, with a semi-cathedral ceiling. The far end adjoins a 25' by 15' kitchen through an 8' by 4' doorway.) The Temptation, which has a relatively high voltage sensitivity - if lower than the Evidence Master's - produced ample output when powered by a 250Wpc Mark Levinson No.334 or 1200Wpc Krell FPB 600c stereo amplifiers, or by 954W Bryston 7B-ST monoblocks, all rated for a 4 ohm load. Each amplifier added its own sonic fingerprint: the ML No.334 was transparent and sweet; the Krell was solid and dynamic, with sledgehammer bass; and the Brystons had bass with massive heft, but were brighter and harder on the top end than the other amps. The Temptations, driven by the ML No.334, were left in position to serve as the front two channels for a multichannel SACD-player review. I used the opportunity to compare nearfield (9') and farfield (18') listening positions, phase checks, channel checks, and the orientation of my large blue velvet chair for the best imaging and soundstage depth. I found that moving the four upholstered chairs away from my listening position and covering a nearby table with an afghan throw stabilized the imaging and widened the sweet spot. Later, I connected the Temptations to the Krell FPB 600c amplifier and ran the low-frequency warble sweeps from Stereophile's Test CD 3 (STPH006-2). In my listening room, the Temptation's deep bass output was flat to 40Hz, then shelved down by 4dB for a plateau that ran from 35Hz to 25Hz, and then fell off smoothly below that, with no doubling. Although at 39" the Temptation's lower tweeter was only 2" higher than my seated ear height, the tone of the pink noise dulled when I stood up during the "sit down, stand up, walk around" portion of the nearfield—but not the farfield - tests. In my room, the Temptation's MTTM assembly - measured from the bottom tweeter to the floor - was 4" lower than the same dimension of the Evidence Master. For setup tests and music sessions, I left the grilles covering the woofers on, as they probably wouldn't affect the sound below 300Hz. Listening Once I realized that the Temptation was capable of exceptional bass definition, I went directly to my deep-bass reference CDs, among them Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy (Circa WBRX2); "Assault on Ryan's House," from James Horner's Patriot Games soundtrack (RCA 66051-2); David Hudson's raspy, pulsing bass didgeridoo, from Didgeridoo Spirit (Indigenous Australia IA2003 D); the title track of John Horner's Casper soundtrack (MCA MCAD-11240); the tight, controlled synthesizer rumbling that opens Emmylou Harris' "Deeper Wells" (Spyboy, Eminent EM-25001-2); the stand-up acoustic bass from the title track of Natalie Merchant's One Fine Day (Columbia CK 53146); and the bass-drum strokes that open "Prelude and Aztec Dance," from H. Owen Reed's La Fiesta Mexicana (Reference RR-38CD). The resulting bass notes were rich, tight, tuneful, and defined, with speed and impact. The speaker reproduced what JA calls "the sharply defined edge to the onset of the bass sound, with then a literally visceral impact" (Stereophile, August 2001, p.95), as shown by the tom-tom strokes that open "I'm So Afraid," from Fleetwood Mac's The Dance (Reprise 46702-2). Held synthesizer notes also generated a heavy, oppressive, sinister quality, although less intense than heard over the Revel Salons. The Temptation brought a solidity, power, and grandeur to organ-pedal notes. Its deep-bass pitch definition helped me follow the deepest notes on César Franck's Pièce Héroïque, from the CD reissue of Marcel Dupré's Recital (Mercury Living Presence 434 311-2); from "Gnomus," from Jean Guillou's organ transcription of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (Dorian DOR-90117); and from Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (Stereophile Test CD 2). The Temptation also excelled in the midrange. Voice, piano, and solo instrumentals were reproduced with good pitch distinction. Its two tweeters and midrange drivers had the speed, frequency extension, and timbral accuracy heard from the MartinLogan Prodigy electrostatic loudspeaker. From the midbass through the treble, there was a seamless, even quality that enhanced instrumental detail. Etta Baker's acoustic guitar, playing the title track from Railroad Bill (Cello Music Maker 91006-2), conveyed the metallic sheen and blurred buzz of the treble strings, as well as the soundboard's resonances. The Temptation was free from treble grain, rendering a superbly clean-sounding upper register with plenty of air and transparency. Billy Drummond's Zildjian ride cymbals, which open "The Mooche" on Jerome Harris's Rendezvous (Stereophile STPH013-2), sizzled like the real thing rather than sounding like static. This clarity permitted the Temptation to reproduce complex orchestral works without getting in the way. The dynamic opening of Dvorák's Carnival (from Nature's Realm, Water Lily Acoustics WLA-WS-66-CD) is a lively, raucous Slavic dance rhythm. Played over the Temptations, the strings, tambourine, castanets, and cymbals maintained their individuality and separate characters, even when the tempo was most frenzied. The Temptation also did a great job with macrodynamics. At high peak sound levels of 106dB, the speaker was fast, clean, and effortless. Dynamic compression did not occur often, although I did note an occasional flattening of macrodynamics when the Krell FPB 600c was driven hard. However, this was understandable - the Krell clipped at 1200Wpc into the Temptation's 4 ohm load. Stereo imaging was precise, particularly in the nearfield, resolving musical textures in new and provocative ways. Although a large speaker, the Temptation produced a deep, wide, layered, airy soundstage that gave a vivid sense of the recorded space. On "Lord, Make me an Instrument of Thy Peace" (Requiem, Reference RR-57CD), the layered-in-space voices of the Turtle Creek Men's Chorus and the deep organ accompaniment gave me a sense of being in a huge performance hall -in contrast to the intimate acoustic of Patricia Barber singing "Use Me" in the Green Mill night club in Chicago, from her Companion (Premonition/Blue Note S 22963 2). The speaker also rendered one of the most natural, spacious presentations of Robert Silverman's Beethoven sonata cycle (Orpheum Masters KSP-830) I have ever heard. However, I must add that the sweet spot - where the depth and width of the soundstage was almost palpable - was in the nearfield. If I sat in just the right place, Stevie Nicks singing "Rhiannon" (from The Dance) became a three-dimensional being. I could close my eyes and imagine just where she was standing and the space around her - as long as my head was in the right spot. I could be wrong, but I recall that the Evidence Masters' sweet spot was larger in the nearfield, but accessible in both the nearfield and farfield. The Temptation's sweet spot enlarged considerably when it was used in a multichannel system driven by the Sony SCD-C555ES SACD player and TA-P9000ES multichannel analog preamplifier. The speakers brought out the best of the SCD-C555ES's natural, liquid midrange, the tight midrange-bass, and the effortless, wide-open dynamic range. The ambience of the Trinity College Chapel in Hartford, Connecticut was so real that, listening to "Ubi Caritas" from DMP's Sacred Feast (SACD-09), I was there. I particularly enjoyed sensing the space of the hall, the resolution of different vocal textures in the 31-member chorus (Gaudeamus, conducted by Paul Halley), the layering of voices, the clarity of the reverberation, and the intense reproduction of the bass. The chorus was placed solidly in front, with ample but natural reverberation in the surrounds. Just before the speakers were picked up by Dynaudio's Mike Manousselis and Al Filippelli, to be transported to JA's lab for testing, I put on a new recording of the 16-member Venice Baroque Orchestra playing Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (Sony Classical SK 51352). I had just heard this group at their American debut concert in Alice Tully Hall the night before, and had been awestruck by the speed, dynamics, technical brilliance, and warm tone of the violin soloist, Giuliano Carmignola. After I've heard a live performance, my system often sounds pretty pale. Not this time. Listening to the last movement of Winter on the Venice Baroque CD, I immediately recognized the warm, rough timbre of Carmignola's 17th-century Italian violin, his blazing speed, the tonal underpinnings of Tobias Lindner's pipe organ, and the light, clear notes of Ivano Zanenghi's lute. Conclusions But, like any sequel, the Temptations differed from the original. Their sweet spot was smaller, their soundstage imaging more readily apparent in the nearfield than the farfield, they were less sensitive, and didn't go quite as deep in the bass. On the plus side, their smaller size works better in small rooms than the Evidence Master. At 84% of the Master's weight and 35% of its cost, the Temptation will fit a few more living rooms and budgets. However, it remains an expensive investment, even for high-end audio. Each person will have to judge whether the Evidence Temptation's state-of-the-art sound is worth the price of admission. But whatever you conclude, I strongly recommend that you at least audition this loudspeaker. Then you can decide whether you agree with me that this sequel is as good as the original. Specifications Dimensions: 78" (1981mm) H by 7.9" (201mm) W by 19.3" (490mm) D. Weight: 249 lbs (113kg). Finishes: Bird's-eye maple veneer (or rosewood) with black, high-gloss black piano lacquer sidepanels; full high-gloss black piano lacquer, add $3000. Serial numbers of units reviewed: 712777, 712778. Price: $30,000/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 55. Warranty: 5 years. Manufacturer: Dynaudio A/S Sverigesvej 15, DK-8660 Skanderborg, Denmark. Tel: (45) 86-523-411. Fax: (45) 86-523-116. E-mail: sales@dynaudio.com. US distributor: Dynaudio North America, 1144 Tower Lane, Bensenville, IL 60106. Tel: (630) 238-4200. Fax: (630) 238-0112. Web: www.dynaudiousa.com. Associated Equipment Digital sources: Krell KRC-28 transport, Sony SCD-C555ES multichannel SACD player. FM tuners: Day-Sequerra FM Reference Classic, Rotel RH-10, Magnum Dynalab MD-102 and 205 Sleuth RF amplifier, Fanfare FT-1A. Preamplification: Krell KCT, Sony TA-P9000ES preamplifiers; Mark Levinson ML-7A with L-2 phono section, Margulis and Duntech MX-10 moving-coil preamplifiers. Power amplifiers: Mark Levinson No.334, Krell FPB 600c, Bryston 7B-ST (monoblocks) and 9B-ST (5-channel). Loudspeakers: Dynaudio Contour 3.0, Revel Ultima Salon, B&W 805 Nautilus (rear surrounds), Mirage HDT-FCH-1 (center), Velodyne HGS-18 subwoofer. Cables: Digital coax (75 ohm): Silver Starlight, Ultralink. Interconnect, balanced: Krell CAST, Bryston, Krell Cogelco Yellow, PSC Pristine R-30 silver alloy. Interconnect, single-ended: Randall Research, Mark Levinson HFC (with Camac connectors), Totem Acoustic Sinew, Coincident CST Interface, Ultralink Performance Audio. Speaker: Mark Levinson HFC-10, PSC Pristine R-50 biwired double ribbons, Ultralink Excelsior 6N OFHC, Coincident Speaker Technology CST 1.----Larry Greenhill Measurements The Temptation goes very loud with only a small input signal - I estimated its voltage sensitivity as a high 91dB(B)/2.83V/m. However, its impedance (fig.1) is moderately difficult, with a minimum value of 3.1 ohms at 120Hz and a demanding combination of 4 ohms and a 42 degrees capacitive phase angle at 80Hz. Fig.1 Dynaudio Temptation, electrical impedance (solid) and phase (dashed). (2 ohms/vertical div.) The saddle at 28Hz in this graph's magnitude trace indicates the tuning frequency of the twin large-diameter ports. Note, however, that the traces are free from the small wrinkles and discontinuities that would otherwise indicate the presence of cabinet resonances. Fig.2, a waterfall plot derived from the output of a piezoelectric accelerometer fastened to the side of the midrange enclosure, confirms that the Temptation's cabinet is acoustically inert. I detected no other modes of any significance. Fig.2 Dynaudio Temptation, cumulative spectral-decay plot of output of accelerometer fastened to midrange enclosure side panel. (MLS driving voltage to speaker, 7.55V; measurement bandwidth, 2kHz.) Fig.3 shows the individual outputs of the midrange units, woofers, and ports, all measured in the nearfield; ie, with the microphone capsule (a Mitey Mike II) almost touching the diaphragms or the boundary between the port and the outside world. The port output is the broad bandpass centered on the 20-40Hz octave; while there is some output visible both around 160Hz and in the middle of the midrange, this is well suppressed. The sum of the woofer responses has its minimum-motion point at the port tuning frequency of 28Hz, as expected from the impedance plot, and it appears to roll off smoothly above 200Hz, with a first-order slope. The sum of the midrange units' response also appears to roll off below 200Hz with, again, a first-order, 6dB/octave slope. There are some small peaks and dips evident in what would otherwise be a smooth curve; as it is not possible to drive the woofers and midrange units separately, it's possible that these effects are due to interference from the output of the woofers. Fig.3 Dynaudio Temptation, summed nearfield responses of the midrange units, woofers, and ports. The complex sum of the individual responses is shown in the left portion of fig.4. The speaker's bass response is down by 6dB at the port tuning frequency, with a 24dB/octave rolloff below that point. Higher in frequency, the midrange and treble regions - assessed in the farfield with a calibrated B&K microphone and averaged across a 30 degrees horizontal window on an axis midway between the twin tweeters - are basically flat, though with a couple of small suckouts apparent in the low treble. Fig.4 Dynaudio Temptation, anechoic response on axis midway between the two tweeters at 50", averaged across 30 degrees horizontal window and corrected for microphone response, with the complex sum of the nearfield midrange, woofer, and port responses plotted below 300Hz. There is a slight positive plateau evident between 9kHz and 15kHz, which might be thought to add a slight brightness to the perceived balance. However, the Temptation's lateral dispersion plot (fig.5) shows that the speaker is quite directional in this region. In a typical room, the resulting lack of energy in the top two octaves of the reverberant field will work against the on-axis boost, giving a neutral character to the speaker's treble, though the 5-9kHz region might still stand out a bit in small, live rooms.
Fig.5 Dynaudio Temptation, lateral response family at 50", from back to front: responses 90 degrees-5 degrees off-axis, central tweeter-axis response, responses 5 degrees-90 degrees off-axis. Other than the increased directivity above 9kHz, the Temptation's lateral radiation pattern is wide and even, which will help ensure stable, accurately defined stereo imaging. In the vertical plane (fig.6), the speaker's multiple drive-units and first-order crossover filters give rise to quite complicated behavior. To get the optimal sound quality, you basically need to sit close to the middle of the tweeters with your ears a highish 39" from the floor - as LG discovered in his auditioning. Fig.6 Dynaudio Temptation, vertical response family at 50", from back to front: differences in response 15 degrees-5 degrees above central tweeter axis, reference response, differences in response 5 degrees-15 degrees below central tweeter axis. In the time domain, the Dynaudio's step response (fig.7) indicates that the tweeters and woofers are connected with positive acoustic polarity, the midrange units with negative polarity. While the Temptation is not time-coherent, each pair of drive-units' step response smoothly hands over to the next lower in frequency, implying good amplitude-domain integration, as seen in fig.4. The farfield cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.8) is basically clean, particularly in the treble, but is marred by some delayed energy at 4.3kHz, the frequency of the lower of the two on-axis suckouts. I suspect that this is the result of acoustic interference rather than a resonance as such. Fig.7 Dynaudio Temptation, step response on axis midway between the two tweeters at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).
Fig.8 Dynaudio Temptation, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 50" (0.15ms risetime). Overall, this is excellent measured performance that indicates similarly excellent loudspeaker engineering.----John Atkinson |
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Winner: Dynaudio Temptation
The Absolute Sound, December 2001-January 2002
The Absolute Sound, Issue 134, 2002
Dynaudio Evidence Temptation Loudspeaker
