Dynaudio’s recent run of great reviews may have raised a few eyebrows. Over the past six months or so, the brand has collected five-star ratings, a Group Test win and two gongs at our recent Awards ceremony.
The star of the current Dynaudio show is undoubtedly the £600 Emit M20, which walked away with our Speaker Product of the Year title. We weren’t the least bit surprised. We still fondly remember the Audience series from the late ’90s.
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That range – like the Emits, entryl evel for the brand at the time – had more than its fair share of great products. Our favourites were the Audience 52 standmounters. Take a careful look at these and you don’t have to squint particularly hard to notice the similarities with the M20s.
We doubt Dynaudio’s engineers have been sitting on their hands for the past 16 years, so we’re perfectly happy to believe the drive units from the new speakers are more highly evolved. But they don’t half look similar. Check the sizes - they remain 28mm for the soft-dome tweeter and 17cm for that distinctive domed mid/bass driver.
The box size has hardly changed either, the Emits being just a tiny bit taller and deeper.
Have things really stood still? Is our current favourite speaker little more than a rehash of a product Dynaudio made more than a decade and a half ago? Well, no.
Start listening and it’s apparent that, despite the many similarities including sonic character, the Emits are clearly a speaker for today. They’re clear, punchy and as dynamic as the rest of your system allows.
We love them – yet we can’t help but wonder what took the company so long to strike gold again.
MORE: Dynaudio Emit M20 review
