DYNAUDIO Evidence Master

MJ15.01.2012

Floorstanding loudspeakers

The ancient jangara cymbal sound is not unlike honing a samurai sword’s blade - the steeliness sends shivers down your spine. The surrealistic sounds like this immediately let you know that this is the real cream of speakers and not only another hyperpriced audio wannabe. The Dynaudio Evidence Master are full range speakers with understated look, big sound and studio monitor precision. If you value the extreme dynamic capabilities, fast reactions and transient accuracy then look no more.

100% reference

Function and form

80%
Ease of use
87%
Sound
98%
Appearance

Unusual is the speaker´s modular construction: the Evidence Master comprises of three individual sections. The two - technically identical - upper and lower sections house the bass drive units, while the middle section contains the midrange and treble drive units and the crossover, the latter which is further isolated within its own individual compartment. This construction offers a tremendous performance advantage, as each
section can be optimized for the differing requirements of precise bass, midrange and high frequency reproduction.

The middle section features a massive CNC-machined solid aluminum baffle which houses two special Dynaudio MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer) cone midrange drivers and two perfectly matched and meticulously selected Dynaudio coated soft-dome tweeters. The elegant design of the aluminum baffle is a direct result of geometric optimization for absolutely perfect sound dispersion. At the heart of the Evidence Master is the crossover. Contained within the aluminum middle section in its own sub-compartment, it is completely shielded from acoustic vibrations.

The upper and lower cabinet sections are both crafted from HDF to provide the ideal foundation for the four high performance bass drive units. These two compact cabinets house the woofers and provide a much more stable and resonance-free environment as compared to what a single, large cabinet would yield. At the same time the cabinet wall’s multi-layer sandwich construction ensures perfect energy absorption and resonance damping. Each woofer’s die-cast aluminum basket is secured to the HDF cabinet by no less than twelve screws.

The cones of the bass- and mid-range drive units are manufactured from MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer), a composite material developed by Dynaudio that is characterized by low mass, high rigidity and ideal internal damping properties. Ultra light-weight aluminum voice-coils with powerful magnet structures drive the speaker cones. The integration of four relatively compact woofers provides the higher dynamic range and faster transient response so typical of lighter and smaller cones – this in contrast to the ubiquitous single, large but therefore also slow woofer. The required total cone surface area necessary for deep and powerful bass response is achieved via all four Evidence woofers performing in tandem. The Evidence bass response is further enhanced by the bass-reflex ports located at the back of the speakers’ cabinets. These large diameter ports have been specifically shaped to eliminate harmful resonance.

The Dynaudio drive units are mounted from behind inside the solid aluminum baffle which itself has been CNC-machined from a single block, yielding no mountings or screw heads visible from the outside. The magnet assembly of tweeters is aerodynamically shaped and damped to fully absorb the energy dissipated from the rear of the tweeter dome. With specially coated fabric soft domes, the frequency response easily exceeds 28,000 Hz, with no distortion and without the problematic resonance and uncontrolled transient response so typical of, for instance, metal dome tweeter designs. Dynaudio tweeters are capable of handling over several thousand watts in transients without suffering any compression.

Bass management

Weight
80
Slam
93
Articulation
88

For this 1812 recording the Telarc staff went the extra mile and arranged Civil War era cannons to encircle the 8-microphone array routed directly to the Philips eight-channel DSD system. True is that when the cannons blasted then all the things in the room moved an inch or two apart from the speakers. Yes, there was a substantial mass of air firing out from the Evidence´s reflex ports during the cannon volleys but both cabinets remained to be dead silent and free of any vibrations – I could not sense anything even when putting my palm against the baffles. The same behavior the Dynaudios exhibited during the electronic pulses of Yello´s Planet Dada from The Eye. The extreme grip on woofers and absolute control were felt not only by myself but by neighbors too, for sure.

Clarity & delicacy

Detail
90
Air
86
Transparency
85

The very first moments of a spinning CD disc let you know that the Evidence Masters are packed with energy. The energy that explodes in an authoritative and effortless manner like it did in the a cappella remake of Metallica’s Master of Puppets (Van Canto, Tribe of Force). The naked human voices were thrown into the room with total realism - there was no room for questions as the Dynaudios provide only answers. Each element of the soundstage was perfectly spatially and temporally locked not unlike you look through a control room’s window. It is perhaps due to the height of the enclosures that the Evidence Masters project also believable vertical images of interprets. A drummer fiercely smashes drums‘ skins and despite the fact the recording is modern (read: compressed) its macrodynamics are fine enough to cause your mouth to dry out and goose-bumps to rise. The music - when played back loud - always causes the goose-bumps, however the moments of hearing the most fragile of nuances that are encoded on the CD let you know that there is something very special going on. You keep sitting on the tip of your listening chair completely mesmerized, eagerly expecting what will happen next.

Tonal accuracy

Timbre
88
Dynamics
85
Temporal resolution
82

What about lows, mids and highs? A tough question, honestly, I do not know. It is sufficient to say they are just natural. The tonal balance and the textural richness of human voices is so effortless and extended that I had no issue at all to visualize interprets in the listening room. Not only hovering voices but flesh and bones too. There is no merciful veiling or sweetening and the Evidence Master do never promise to caress you with comfortable sound. Quite opposite, the Dynaudios are extremely truthful in an almost brutal way. Please note that I do not say emotionally flat, sterile or just uninvolving. The speakers’ supremacy and authority leave no room for doubts and questions – the music is point-blank direct as if the Dynaudios say Why are you surprised?

Spatial resolution

Holography
89
Soundstage width
87
Soundstage depth
87

There are two cuts taken out of the aforementioned Stereophile sampler that I use to evaluate almost anything. Therefore I was really curious whether the Dynaudios can bring something extra to what I already heard through other excellent speakers. The transformation was subtle but clear enough to add precisely defined transient response to Dick Hyman’s piano in Topsy (From The Age of Swing) – the Evidence Masters are an unbelievably dynamic tool that does not cut even the weakest resonance of the piano’s string before it trails off into silence. And much more. The music does have a kind of compact feel and cohesiveness, however, it remains superbly resolved and if you want you can pick out any instrument and follow it throughout the track independently of the playback volume – nothing changes basically at any volume and this indicates that the modular design with antivibration decoupling proves itself to be the excellent idea. The dead-silent cabinets made the double bass topnotch contoured and, wow, directional.

Price as reviewed:2 250 000,- Kč

Recommended resellers

Audiostudio s.r.o., Olomouc, tel. +420 608 752 475

Associated components

  • Sources Plinius Toko, Yamaha CD-S3000
  • Amplifiers: Plinius SA Reference, Block Audio Mono, Power and Line
  • Interconnects and speaker cables: Furutech Lineflux and Speakerflux
  • Power cables: Furutech Powrflux, Nordost Valhalla
  • Power conditioning: Furutech Daytona

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