Trading Dynaudio Contour s5.4's for ???

I've never heard the Dynaudio's described as warm... even at the dealer, while it didn't strike me as thin, I never found it warm.

Anyway, when I tried the Helicon 400's in the same room, they sounded completely opposite.. very warm, but almost too warm, the high end was very muted.

I have a big wide room and the speakers aren't anywhere near the corners. They're also not that far into the room (they're only 2 feet from front wall).

The room is carpeted. A plush large sectional couch (material, not leather) on rear wall.

I use a Theta Casanova as a pre-amp (it's a long story).

Speaker cable is MIT Terminator 2. Interconnects between preamp and amp aren't anything special (Bryston), but they're balanced.

For source I use a Classe CD player (as a transport only). I also feed the Theta with a PC running iTunes for casual listening (all songs using Apple's lossless encoding).

Ian

Something like this: http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrfull&1128653896
Silverline uses Dynaudio drivers in many of their speakers, but they sound more musical/less exacting than the Dynaudio speakers, which I also find to be too analytical. They reproduce beautifully, but to my ear they have no warmth at all.
Good luck,
Howard

Madfloyd - Before changing speakers, I would focus on the room. Good dynaudios like yours have very meaty mids but room acoustics are very crucial. What is your room like? Have lots of space around the speakers, nothing in between them? Have you dealt with sidewall reflections? Windows around? (not good) ALso - Ive found a tube preamp is a MUST with dyns. What preamp are you using? A SS preamp with your bryston would not be optimal for the dyns.

I have the 5.4's and I wouldn't decribe them as thin. I only got them from here actually, a few weeks ago, and they're a lot warmer than the Special 25's they're replacing. I also have the little Contour SR's, and they're a little warmer still (with a Velodyne DD15 sub). The treble is nicer, smoother more detailed on the 5.4. Better than the S25 even though its the same tweeter. In fact the treble is nicer on the SR's than the S25's in my room, and the SR's have the lesser tweeter.

I have no problem with the 5.4's midrange. The S25's were definitely too forward for me.

For your interest, I'm using the BelCanto eVo2i and Arcam FMJCD33.

Hey Ian,

1st off, remove the MIT cables from the system, get some cheap $1ft speaker cables because you now have direct experience with how the MIT's can mess with a good speaker system. Your DALI experience also reflects how disasterous these cables can be with quality speaker systems. That is step one.

Another easy to check item is to make sure that your L & R distances are set the same on the Casanova, having them set to different distances (even .5ft) can greatly effect the sound for two channel playback. Creating strange phenomena like you have experienced with the DALI's and Dyn's.

Address these two issues first than we can look into room issues. I have direct experience with the symptoms you describe and they were fixed by addressing the two issues above.

Once these two variables have been removed, we can look at room interaction.