Dynaudio Contour 60 damaged at normal volume listening.

Three months ago i bought a pair of Dynaudio Contour 60. I broke them in for about 150 hours but then i stopped to listen to them because compared to my old Contour 3.3 they just sounded awful. So one month ago i decided to try sell them out online. About 6 days ago a few visiting friends asked me to demo them the C60 so i connected them again. We let them play at half volume for less as two hours. Suddently some smoke comes out from both speakers. Both midranges went damaged. May the tweeters and crossovers are damaged too. My dealer, Hembioconsult from Sweden, says that the warranty doesn't covers misusage. I didn't misused them. I never listen at high volume, i do not listen to bass heavy music, mainly jazz and classical and i understand wen the sound is even slightly distorted.
I amped them with two Linn LK 240 monoblocks with a Phase Linear pre amp which i use even today, since two years together with the Contour 3.3.
For the moment i only recived a prompt 3.000 euro quotation to replace midranges, tweeters and crossovers.
I will not spend that money on a speaker i want to get rid off. Dynaudio itself told me that i'm in the hands of the dealer.
Any advise about how to deal with that situation is welcome.
Thanks.

P.S. even during their last performance everyone agreed that compared to the contour 3.3 they sounded increadibly cheap. Extremely boomy bass, less natual mids, less sparkling highs, no sound stage at all, completely flat. The seemed to emit the sound from inside-out. I mean everyone listening to those speakers agreed that the feeling was of a sound emitted by a wooden box. Crazy. I even tried to amp them with a krell 400xi with very little improvement.

November 20, 2019 - 12:39pm

commsysman

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Last seen: 1 year 1 month ago

Joined: Apr 4 2006 - 11:33am

Speakers

I would ship them to the manufacturer and ask them to analyze what went wrong.

If they can find some fault that may have caused failure, they might take pity and fix them for a modest charge.

Having both speakers fail at one time is quite unusual unless excessive power was being applied.

If it was just one that failed, I would suspect an amplifier fault, but not both at once.

Daros wrote:

Three months ago i bought a pair of Dynaudio Contour 60. I broke them in for about 150 hours but then i stopped to listen to them because compared to my old Contour 3.3 they just sounded awful. So one month ago i decided to try sell them out online. About 6 days ago a few visiting friends asked me to demo them the C60 so i connected them again. We let them play at half volume for less as two hours. Suddently some smoke comes out from both speakers. Both midranges went damaged. May the tweeters and crossovers are damaged too. My dealer, Hembioconsult from Sweden, says that the warranty doesn't covers misusage. I didn't misused them. I never listen at high volume, i do not listen to bass heavy music, mainly jazz and classical and i understand wen the sound is even slightly distorted.
I amped them with two Linn LK 240 monoblocks with a Phase Linear pre amp which i use even today, since two years together with the Contour 3.3.
For the moment i only recived a prompt 3.000 euro quotation to replace midranges, tweeters and crossovers.
I will not spend that money on a speaker i want to get rid off. Dynaudio itself told me that i'm in the hands of the dealer.
Any advise about how to deal with that situation is welcome.
Thanks.

P.S. even during their last performance everyone agreed that compared to the contour 3.3 they sounded increadibly cheap. Extremely boomy bass, less natual mids, less sparkling highs, no sound stage at all, completely flat. The seemed to emit the sound from inside-out. I mean everyone listening to those speakers agreed that the feeling was of a sound emitted by a wooden box. Crazy. I even tried to amp them with a krell 400xi with very little improvement.

November 21, 2019 - 5:26am

Daros

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Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago

Joined: Nov 15 2019 - 7:14am

hope

Hi Commsysman, today the dealer asked me to send the speakers back to Dynaudio. Now i hope that they do not show up with a huge invoice after fixing them. I mean, if they show up with a 2.000 or a 3.000 euro invoice what shall i do? i do not have that money now.

December 17, 2019 - 8:56am

Daros

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Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago

Joined: Nov 15 2019 - 7:14am

Progress

My problem with the Contour 60 did not developed much till now. I sent the speakers back to the factory.
The key point is that it seems the Dynaudio customer care reads more to the Audiogon forum as their own mailbox.
In the last page you get the picture.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/dynaudio-contour-60-burned-at-120w

January 10, 2020 - 11:56am

Pampero

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Last seen: 2 years 1 month ago

Joined: May 28 2016 - 11:13pm

It's extremely unlikely that two drive elements in two separate speakers would blow at precisely the same time due to a fault in the speakers. Far more likely that the fault lies further upstream. By the way, smoke suggests DC to me, which can indeed be diagnosed during the "autopsy." If this is the case, no speaker manufacturer on earth will warrant a repair for this type of incident as it points to failure or a fault in the amplification chain.
It is possible something else is going on, but from a distance my best guess is that your amp passed DC to the speakers. Brace yourself for some bad news.

June 27, 2020 - 10:53pm

Daros

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Last seen: 2 years 6 months ago

Joined: Nov 15 2019 - 7:14am

Speakers repaired by Dynaudio

dear Pampero, fortunately Dynaudio decided to repair my speakers for free. Dynaudio even paid the shipping costs! I got the speakers about 4 months ago and i broke them in for 400 hours using exactly the same amplifier who smoked the previous ones. The interesting things now are two.
First, the fixed speakers sound way different from the smoked version. Bass is now much less prominent and much more controlled. Before it was impossible to listen to certain jazz recording because the bass was just totally out of control. I must admit that the fixed version sound way better as the smoked version. But isn't it interesting that the fixed version sounds so different from the first version i got?
Second, the old contour 3.3 i own still sound incomparably better as the contour 60. The contour 3.3 are just more lively, with perfect sound stage, trumpets and cymbals are sounding exactly as trumpets and cymbals should, bass is even more controlled and voices are airy and natural. The contour 60 are still a mediocre speaker compared to the contour 3.3. With the 3.3 it is easy to get lost in the recording, the speakers just disappears immediately. Not the same i can say about the contour 60 which sounds exactly like a wooden box emitting sound. In would never buy them again, in fact I'm looking to sell them out. I tried bot speakers with linn, krell and mcintosh amplification. I think that this is the reason why dynaudio released the new I contour series, probably i was not the only one complaining. I do not believe however they will sound much different. I think the people in charge of the new contour series have today a very different taste for sound. Otherwise i cannot explain myself a product like the contour 60 replacing a product like the contour 3.3.

July 19, 2020 - 9:29am

steve59

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Joined: Jan 2 2015 - 6:46am

boom

I've heard what Dynaudio can do with dual 7" woofers in a box half the sizeof the C60 so I'm not really surprised they didn't integrate with your room. You might try to get a home audition of the C30and see if it's a better match fo yo room.

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