Munich 2019

When Dynaudio’s Mike Manousselis told me that the new Dynaudio Confidence 30 ($20,000/pair) has a new Esotar3 tweeter, I thought of John Atkinson, who praised this company’s tweeters in a review some years back. The new tweeter includes a Hexis inner dome to help dissipate back wave energy and, as with all the other new drivers in the speaker, uses new “ultra-powerful” neodymium magnets.

Also new: a “horizon surround” on the Confidence 30’s midrange and downward-firing ports. “The baffle is completely inert,” Manousselis said; it’s composed of a “Compex” composite that is quieter than aluminum and precisely shaped to function as part of Dynaudio’s “Dynaudio Directivity Control” technology, which controls vertical dispersion. The speaker’s “DDC lens” enables the company to achieve sound from a single tweeter that previously required two.

The Confidence range consists of four models: the stand-mount Confidence 20 ($12,000/pair with stands) and the floorstanding Confidence 30, 50 ($27,000), and 60 ($40,000/pair). All units are shipping now.

In a system that also included Simaudio’s Moon 780DV2 DAC ($15,000), 740P preamp ($9,000), and 760A monoblocks ($16,000/pair) along with Atlas cabling, the top was just beautiful on Diana Krall’s version of “Temptation.” I don’t want to give our new Technical Editor a heart attack, but I really enjoyed Krall’s performance. Dynamics were equally outstanding on Anatoly Konstantinovich Liadov’s Baba Yaga, with Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra, from the Crystal Cable compiliation Arabesque.