It was at the NAMM show in January 2019 that I was introduced to what was then Dynaudio’s yet to be released Core series of speakers. I remember their predecessors, the AIR series, when they were released in 2002. In those days DSP in monitors was groundbreaking and the AIR series embraced the digital future wholeheartedly.
My first experience of DSP and room measurement was in live sound with the early generations of digital loudspeaker controllers used in conjunction with software like SMAART. In those days using measurement tools and interpreting the results was seen as the skilled job that it is and while with successive iterations, particularly those aimed at the studio sector, the technology has become more and more accessible it was Dynaudio’s finding when making visits in the field that the majority of AIR monitors they encountered were set to default. Was all that sophisticated DSP not being used because users found it too complex?
This is an interesting finding and tallies with my own experience of using Genelec’s GLM system with their DSP monitors. Being fairly technically minded I did set it up, take the measurements and deploy the DSP when I first got the monitors (8250s in this case) but when that system was moved to another room I didn’t set it up again, in this case not as much of a conscious choice as an omission but I’m sure that if the setup had been quick and simple I’d probably have set it up for this new room too. As it was, I skipped that setup procedure and never went back to carry it out. I suspect that omissions like this might account for a significant proportion of these AIR monitors that went uncorrected.
Enter The Core
What does this have to do with the Core series? Well in this next generation of professional monitors from Dynaudio, they have designed these speakers with the majority of end-users in mind in that they have deployed sophisticated DSP and presented it via the simplest of user interfaces - a small number of switches on the back. Designing a DSP system to bring the greatest benefit across the entire user base, because everyone actually uses it, shows the clarity of vision behind this design and I find it refreshing. Does this clarity of purpose carry through the rest of the design?
Core 7
The Core 7 is a 2 way front ported design, with an exposed soft dome tweeter and the distinctive crennelated dust cap in the woofer, visually is is very typically Dynaudio. I spent years mixing on the old passive BM5’s, something I remember with affection and its good to see the physical resemblance remains.
Physically they are as deep as they are tall and size-wise they are roughly the size of a PMC twotwo.6 at approximately 9“x15”15”. The main impression they leave me with is one of sturdy construction, coming in at over 30 pounds or 15Kg a piece. The solidity of the cabinet reminds me of the cabinets of quality touring PA enclosures. So far this looks good, the cabinet is so important and this one is done right. I’m on record as being a fan of sealed box speaker designs as ported designs can suffer in the time domain with group delay issues resulting in the bass, which hangs around just that little bit too long. However, when done right, ported designs can be truly excellent and I can report that I had no issues with the timing of either of these monitors. Prices vary so contact a dealer but the Core 7 are approximately £3000 a pair.
The Sound Of Core 7
The details of amplifiers drivers and crossovers will be discussed together with the Core 59 later in this article but the experience of actually hearing these monitors is, of course, unique to each model. So how to the Core 7 sound? In a word very, very nice. Imaging is great, the bass is tight and deep, there is a notable absence of any sense of colouration from the cabinets and certainly no hint of distortion with an effortless, smooth top end which gives an impression of detail without ever sounding in any way abrasive. I would, and did mix on these, finding them extremely easy to get on with, my only concern being a feeling that they are possibly a bit light through the midrange, with material which I’ve previously thought problematic through the midrange sounding great.
Core 59
The Core 59 is an altogether more substantial proposition. The same quality of cabinetry as found in the Core 7 results in a 25Kg weight from a speaker which is actually rather compact. There are a few other products in this bracket, which is bigger than the compact 3 ways like the ATC SCM25 and Neumann KH310. Dynaudio’s newest Core speaker, the Core 47 sits in this part of the market but these smaller full size monitors is a style of speaker with which I’m not overly familiar - smaller than big, non-soffit 3 ways like the ATC SCM100 or the Genelec 1238A I’d say the closest comparison I’d draw would be something like the Focal Trio 6 Be.
This in-between size is impressive in practice as the speakers, while big enough to present issues, particularly if you are installing them alone, are still just about small enough to serve as very, very capable nearfields. This is reflected in the fact that the same Hexis equipped tweeter as found in the Core 7 and the 5” midrange driver are mounted in a rotatable circular mounting plate which allows the speakers to be used in landscape mode with the 9” bass driver to the side of the other drivers or even upside down, where the order of drivers with the cabinet in portrait orientation would be woofer, tweeter, midrange driver from top to bottom. Prices vary so contact a dealer but the Core 59 are approximately £5000 a pair.
The Sound Of Core 59
The sound is markedly different from the Core 7, with effortless bass, which is perfectly in proportion and as tight and dry as a sealed box with no smeared timing I was aware of. The midrange driver caters for a large portion of the spectrum and this results in added smoothness. One of my favourite tracks for assessing the midrange performance of a speaker is No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. This track is all about midrange and the snare and guitar fall together on the backbeat with the snare occupying the top end of the midrange and the darker guitar filling out the bottom. Which instrument draws the attention and dominates beats two and four tells you a great deal about how a particular speaker handles the critical midrange. The Core 59 handles things beautifully with neither sticking out, just as it should be. The top end performance is every bit as sweet as the Core 7, it is the same tweeter after all, but the presentation doesn’t draw attention to itself, however favourable that attention was in the Core 7, because of the quality of the midrange it sits above.
Drivers
Dynaudio make their own drivers and these are all new designs, with bass driver in the 59 being the only one with a copper voice coil, the others all being aluminium. The model numbers denote the driver complement, so the Core 7 has a 7” bass/mid driver and the 3 way 59 having a 5” and a 9” respectively as well as the tweeter. On the subject of the tweeter, I remember that old pair of BM5s as rather soft at the top end and pleasingly full through the midrange for a 2 way passive box. The Core 7 is a very different beast. I should acknowledge that it is a much larger, more expensive and more capable box, but brand associations being what they are I can’t help but draw a comparison.
The tweeter in the Core 7 and 59 is to some extent the star of the show for me. I like soft dome tweeters but this one is exceptional. It has a new neodymium magnet for higher sensitivity but I think the difference I’m hearing is because of a mysterious device installed behind the tweeter called Hexis. This very specifically shaped plastic device helps control the airflow and resonances in the space behind the dome of the tweeter. You can see it through the semi transparent membrane of the dome. The total effect is one of effortless performance without even a hint of distortion all the way up. The transients are all there but presented in a slightly different way to a hard dome and particularly an AMT tweeter. I’d describe it as civilised, even a little luxurious! Whatever it is, I like it a great deal. That being said, I did find the Core 7s bright which was a surprise, not harsh but on the bright side of neutral. Setting the switch on the back to “Dark” fixed this in less time that it took to type this sentence and the voicing suited my ears and my room perfectly. No measurement mics and swept sine waves needed.
Crossovers
These are of course active monitors. The speakers are about as digital as a transducer can get and it might be best to think of them as digital speakers with an optional analogue input and a compulsory analogue output! Most monitors are essentially analogue devices and if they have a digital input then that digital input goes through D/A conversion and then joins the analogue signal path through the analogue crossovers and through the amplifiers. In this case, the DSP hosts crossover filters as well as filters for speaker correction and boundary effects. In my recent article about DSP in speakers, I touched on the advantages of using DSP for crossovers, with consistency being one of the most significant. Supposedly identical analogue components vary in their performance and while we value that in analogue synthesisers we probably don’t in crossovers. People are always wary of digital elements in parts of the signal chain which have previously been purely analogue but the Cores only introduce around 1-1.5 ms latency (about one foot in distance) because of the AD-DA conversion and the use of look ahead compressors as the protection limiters.
In the two way, Core 7 the crossover operates at 2.3KHz with a 12dB/Oct LPF and a 6dB/Oct HPF. The 3 way Core 59 has an LF/MF crossover at 385Hz with a 6dB/Oct LPF and a 12dB/Oct HPF and crosses over between the midrange driver and the tweeter at 5KHz with a 12dB/Oct LPF and a 6dB/Oct HPF. A couple of things strike me about this, the first is the use of 6dB/Oct filters, which suggests good phase response and secondly the bandwidth covered by the 5” midrange driver. 385Hz - 5KHz means that most of those three and a half octaves of critical midrange information is comfortably away from the troublesome crossover regions.
Amplifiers
The Core series are driven by class D amplifiers from Pascal Audio. They provide 500 watts to the bass and midrange and 150 watts to the HF in the Core 59 and 500 watts to the bass/mid driver and 150 watts to the HF in the Core 7. Headroom and dynamic range have been thought about carefully and instead of a trim pot, the back panel offers a four-position switch which sets the speakers maximum SPL level for a nominal input. This can be set to 88, 96, 100 or 112dB. If you are using the digital input then this is referenced against digital full scale but if you are using the analogue input there is a second four-position switch, which can be used to set the input sensitivity to the output level of your console or interface, from +24dBu to 0dBu for consumer-level equipment. With a nominal input level established, the SPL switch sets the output of the loudspeaker so that -6 dBfs or -6 dBu from the analogue input sensitivity dBu setting, gives the indicated SPL at 1 metre.
The two sensitivity (analogue input and SPL) switches should be used to make sure you get the highest bit depth through the filters in the DSP as possible. When using an analogue input it’s important to use these switches together so that you have maximum input signal going through the ADC to get the best performance of the filters implemented in the DSP, so the SPL switch should be used to set your listening level and the input sensitivity should be used to match your source.
To limit the SPL by selecting a lower input sensitivity such as using the 24 dBu setting with an 18 dBu source might seem a good way to extend the options these controls offer but this results in an underperforming AD converter which then means the effective bit depth going through the DSP is reduced, which in turn results in lower performance from the loudspeaker. While these differences might not seem significant, it’s worth bearing in mind.
A/D Conversion And Sampling Frequency
The A/D converter operates at 192KHz with an analogue input. The Core series don’t use a sample rate converter in the audio flow within the speaker, the speaker will mute and reconfigure itself to sync with the incoming sample rate when used with digital sources or word clock. Because of this, Dynaudio chose not to support some sample rates (they support 32, 44.1, 48, 96 & 192 kHz), so no multiples of 44.1 but the benefit is that they don’t suffer the inherent limitations of Asynchronous Sample Rate Conversion such as clock drift or inter-sample peak distortion problems when operating close to 0 dBfs.
DSP Settings
Dynaudio are proud of the work they did on the DSP in the Core Series, this isn’t something you’d necessarily be aware of from looking at the back panel as the controls on offer are as simple as they could be. The DSP doesn’t offer the comprehensive “room correction” facilities we’ve become accustomed to, though the complement of filters on offer is on a par with speakers offering such facilities. Up to 8 biquad filters are available per boundary setting, but rather than offering direct control over these filters, you have such limited choices that setup should take under a minute.
Two three-position switches offer control over the boundary settings. The first asks where the monitor is in relation to the walls. Is it in free space, against a wall or in a corner? Engaging the relevant setting introduces as many of the aforementioned 8 filters as is necessary for that setting and unlike the old fashioned analogue filters on non-DSP monitors, the switches remind me of, rather than just introducing a fixed low shelf the setting is rather more sophisticated.
The second position switch offers similar choices about monitor position: Anechoic, Desk or Soffit. The Desk setting is interesting, When using the Core 7’s on tall stands at home I found I was able to get the tweeters right next to a pair of 2 way Genelecs on some slightly shorter stands if I installed the Core 7s upside down. This brought the tweeters to approximately ear height and I thought I was perfectly set up for some meaningful AB comparison. Quite what to do with the Desk setting was something of a conundrum as, while I was sitting at a desk and a prominent first reflection would definitely be present, a fixed setting like this would be making some assumptions about the geometry between the speakers, my desk and my ears, none of which were going to apply in this case. Auditioning the difference between Anechoic and Desk I preferred Anechoic. Not surprising as with the speakers inverted I had fundamentally changed the relationship between the assumed position of the drivers relative to the desk but also this setting has been created for a monitor sitting on the meter bridge of a typical large format console, not something similar to the setup I had.
The conclusion is to use your ears but it does illustrate something which is inevitable in this approach. That while the DSP is accessible to all, there will always be people who are frustrated by the lack of access to these filters. My setup ended up being position switches set to wall and anechoic with the sound balance set to dark and under these conditions, the Core 7s sounded very nice indeed in my small studio. The Core 59s were inappropriate for testing at home, they are simply too big to be a sensible choice in my space so I made arrangements to audition them in a more fitting space.
Conclusion
Both the Core 7 and Core 59 are very, very nice speakers which are easy to live with, easy to mix on and sound wonderful. They ooze quality and their use of tech is comprehensive but discreet. If you enjoy measuring your room and correcting your monitors then the way the DSP in the Cores is presented might frustrate you. If that sounds like you there are plenty of solutions which can be used in combination with the Cores to add that extra functionality. These are great and I look forward to hearing a pair of the Core 47s.