Editors' Choice Award – Hi-fi Choice
Cutting-edge Acoustic Technology in a Classic Dynaudio Design
The new Special Forty anniversary speaker draws on 40 years of cutting-edge research – and brings it totally up to date with Dynaudio's most celebrated techniques and technologies.
"The Dynaudio Special Forty is the rare product that somehow manages to reconcile all the important hi-fi performance metrics - transparency and tenacity have no quarrel - yet doesn't hype or hinder the music," notes David Vivian in his February 20, 2018 review for Hi-fi Choice magazine, which honored the Special Forty with an Editors' Choice Award.
"Tonally, the Special Forty is smooth and easy, but as I continued to listen it was the speakers' clarity and resolution that made the biggest impressions… The little speakers can play surprisingly loud in small- to midsized rooms. The sound had a deliciously organic feel to it," reports Steve Guttenberg, CNET.com, September 2, 2017.
"How do the Fortys sound? We keep coming back to three words in our notes: confident, muscular and subtle. They're also magnificently detailed, digging out the low-level acoustic clues that define a recording venue with ease. This resolution is apparent whatever genre of music we play," raves What Hi-fi? magazine, October 8, 2018. "The Special Fortys are easy speakers to underestimate. They're not an overtly cutting-edge design using the latest in high-tech materials, nor are they styled to stand out in a crowd. But once we start listening none of that matters. We're far too busy having fun."
A Tradition of Innovation
Some companies might be content to sit back and be complacent about their successes after 40 years of constant innovation. Not Dynaudio, which only gets hungrier for new techniques and technologies. That's why the company developed the Special Forty. Dynaudio wanted to revisit those innovations and see what we'd do differently this time.
What you won't find here is anything revolutionary. Instead, you'll discover a look at Dynaudio's past along with some special sneak-previews of the future. The Special Forty is classic Dynaudio, featuring all the craftsmanship, attention to detail and total love of authentic sound you've come to expect. It's the connoisseur's choice – a simple pair of passive hi-fi speakers. But it isn't about looking back, misty-eyed, at past glories and leaving it at that. It's about using those glories as a platform from which to launch the next set of breakthroughs.
Greatest Hits… Reimagined
Dynaudio does compact speakers really well and always has. So, as a nod back to classics including the Special One, the Special Twenty-Five, the Crafft and the Contour 1.3SE, Dynaudio kept the Special Forty pure – if incredibly advanced. Of course, it wouldn't be an anniversary speaker if it didn't include some of Dynaudio's greatest hits. But it isn't the same old stuff, unchanged. Dynaudio remixed, remastered and rearranged things to bring those old favorites into the present day – and beyond.
That's why it has one of the company's classic first-order crossover designs, incorporating Dynaudio's unique Phase Alignment and Impedance Alignment technologies. The crossover expertly marshals the input signal between the woofer and the tweeter, so that each driver gets only the frequencies it's supposed to, and can perform at its very best. Its specially selected components handle the impedance optimization and, because both drivers have extended frequency ranges for even better overlap and integration, that performance borders on the mesmerizing.
The Song Remains the Same
The Special Forty uses Dynaudio's proprietary MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer) material for its main driver. MSP delivers precisely the right combination of rigidity, damping and stability for the most faithful sound reproduction. And, unlike other cone materials, it doesn't change over time – so your Special Forty speakers will still be singing just as sweetly year after year after year.
The cone itself uses a painstakingly developed symmetrical excursion for even better midrange performance. Behind it sits Dynaudio's asymmetrical spider, a passive harmonic rectifier. It minimizes upper harmonics to further tighten the performance and make it possible not only to pick out individual parts in a piece of music, but even individual instruments in an orchestra. (So now, finally, the Third Violin section can have its day in the sun.) And, like all Dynaudio's other MSP cones, it's a one-piece design (you can tell by the special balance ribs around the central dust-cap). This gives it an incredibly solid connection to the voice-coil, as well as stabilizing its form – which is crucial when you decide to turn it up to 11.
It all sits in Dynaudio's special AirFlow Basket, which is the component that holds the whole driver motor securely in place in the cabinet. Its development was one of those 'Eureka!' moments when Dynaudio's engineers seem to get a few times a week in Dynaudio Labs. It reduces internal reflections and increasse air movement without compromising the basket's stiffness or stability.
Airflow is King
The new Esotar Forty 1.1" tweeter takes air-movement to another level. It moves the air in typically sweet fashion in front of the DSR (Dynaudio Secret Recipe) precision-coated soft-dome, but there's a lot of engineering going on behind it as well.
Take the new pressure conduit. It's a shaped vent in the back of the hybrid magnet system that allows more space in the rear chamber. That space packs in more damping material and reduces back-pressure, while the shape itself optimizes airflow coming backwards from the rear of the dome.
Then there's the outlet, the aero-coupled pressure-release system. It sits underneath the voice-coil and reduces unwanted pressure build-up that could affect its movement. Stopping those pockets of air from forming reduces resonance, and less resonance equals even greater potential for detail.
Flux Optimization and Beam Control
Physics wins in the end, but the engineers at Dynaudio almost always manage to bend it to their will along the way. Just like they have with their magnet systems. The magnet turns electrical energy that flows from your amplifier into the voice-coil, into the physical back-and-forth movement of the driver diaphragm. These movements are very small and very fast (especially in the tweeter), so they need a lot of finesse if you want to hear all that luscious detail and emotion in your music.
Behind the Woofer
In the woofer, Dynaudio achieved that finesse in two ways: by placing the magnet inside the voice-coil, and by playing with magnetic energy itself. Other manufacturers typically put it around the outside edge, leaving the voice-coil hollow. Putting the magnet inside keeps the magnetic energy (or flux) in the optimum position for getting itself wrapped around the voice-coil – where it should be. That means it can use more of its power for a given weight. It also reduces internal reflections because there's less material for sound to bounce off inside the driver.
Second, Dynaudio uses a hybrid magnet for even greater control over the flux and voice-coil movement. An incredibly powerful neodymium rare-earth magnet provides the muscle and flings flux around with abandon, while a ferrite magnet tempers that enthusiasm by gently moving the flux back to exactly where it's needed most. The result? Symmetrical excursion, a reduction in second-harmonics, and an even more accurate, authentic sound.
Authentic and Honest Finishes
And then there's the finish. Whichever veneer you've gone for, the Grey Birch or the Red Birch, Dynaudio's designers have given you a treat. The Special Forty pushed the design team to come up with something different, and they took that to heart. That's why they're raw; visceral; striking. Dynaudio wanted the Special Forty to look as authentic and honest as the music they're playing sounds.
