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

I owned Dynaudio 3.3's (the predecessor to your speaker) and ran them in the same room as my Vienna Acoustics Mahlers. In comparison, the Mahlers are warmer and meatier in the mids. Both speakers are open and transparent in the mids and highs. Each Mahler has two 7" midrange drivers (the same 7" ScanSpeak carbon-fiber midrange drivers used in the Wilson Maxx II) and two ported 10" woofers -- they have prodigious midbass and must be used in a large room, away from the walls, so as not to sound boomy. They also must be used with solid-state amps featuring bipolar output transistors (like your Bryston, Sim and Levinson) and stiff power supplies in order to control the two 10" woofers in each speaker, the impedence dropping to below 3 Ohms at various points under 100 Hz. I had best luck with Rowland Model 6 monoblocks (a supurb combo). Sumiko, the U.S. distributor, has used Kimber Monacle speaker cables to demo Mahlers, and I had best luck with Kimber Select (either 3033 or 3038), the Kimber cable geometry working very well to control the woofers (reviewer Anthony Cordesman confirmed this in his review of the Mahlers for Audio, available at Sumiko's website).

The Stereophile and Audio reviews of the Mahlers available on Sumiko's website (www.sumikoaudio.net) are both accurate in my experience and do a good job of describing the Mahler's strengths and weaknesses. In many ways, I prefer the Mahlers over the Revel Salons I use in my main system. Like the big Sonus Fabers, they have an inviting warmth that gives life and body to stringed instruments. They also have enormous slam and dynamic range, and beautiful cabinets.

Cinematic Systems: Thanks for your suggestion regarding the cables. I'll experiment with this.

Raquel: Much thanks for your post. I'll investigate the Mahlers.

Madfloyd - What preamp are you using? Before giving up on the dyns make sure you try a good tube preamp with your Bryston.

Preamp is a Theta Casanova, fed digital SPDIF from CD player (and for casual listening, computer running iTunes).

Are there any tube preamps that accept digital signals (i.e. have good DACs in them)?

One speaker that comes to mind is Sonus Faber Cremona. I am a Sonus Faber fan and own many of their products, Cremona is definitely on the warm side and too warm for my taste even, so I gave them to my parents. Amati Homage strikes a better balance to my ears, but you might find it too thin if you think Dynaudio is thin sounding.

Traditional Dynaudio is warm and full sounding, but not the newer line, so people should not assume based on their dated experience in this case. One of the older Dynaudio that combines warmth, detail, and speed all in one is Confidence 5. They don't play that loud, don't go very deep, and requires a million watt to sound right, but its a very fine sounding speaker and one of my all time favorite.