Best way to drive Contour 1.1's?

Well, Ive taken a bit of a leap of faith and ordered some Dynaudio Contour 1.1's (secondhand) at a very reasonable price on a the evidence of a short listen to some audience 42's and all that i have heard about the contour range.

My question is, what is the best way to drive them with my current amps. Here lies the route of the problem, the Dyns are not biwireable and i am currently bi-amping with an Alpha 10 integreted and Power. I bought the dyns with the idea that they will be ideal for my current small listening room, but not as bass shy and limiting in headroom as my ProAc Tablette's.

So, should i ditch the power amp alltogether, or run the intergrated as a pre? Im almost certain that the amps are not designed to be bridged, which is a shame. Or what about alternatives such as using just one for each speaker but not bridged, sounds a bit silly really. was it here that i read you can wire two amps to one speaker to give the effect of a mono block, or sorftof. I mean by speaker wire from for example both the left channel of the power and intergrated at the same time to the left speaker??? Is this safe/sensible?

Maybe im foolish, but im pretty sure the Contors offer everything else i want, and can realistically expect at the price. I still have the MJA sub, but i might ditch that too if the contours are close to ample enough.

So what are my options, and which will most likely give the best results?

Angus

 

I'd use the integrated as a pre, and the power as.. well, as a power.

If you like the result, maybe a long term option could be to sell the integrated and buy a dedicated pre?

Chris

 

Ditto - I think you'll like the result

Michael.

 

well, i got the contours the other day. A lovely late model pair in cherry finish. Unfortunately the seller had packaged them rather uncarefully which resulted in a pushed in tweeter. I was not very happy because obviously i was not expecting that. Im pretty sure it didnt affect the sound though. Nevrtheless he gave me a full refund, and he was very friendly and helpful.

I listened to the Contours for the best part of a day and compared them to my Tablettes. First impressions where of what i expected, teriffic punchy and deep bass for a cabinet of this size, or any size come to think of it. They remain composed when you turn the wick up.

However, I found that my Tablettes slaugtered them in several areas. The imaging was not as good on the dynaudios, and the same can be said of the detail retrieval. I fouund myself missing some of the little things that you notic in many recordings, and found it hard to understand certain words that were sung for instance. i found that the contours had a slightly congested and imprecise midrange, and didnt seem to be able to engage me and lock onto rythms. They definitely sounded more two dimensional and perhaps should i say "boxy"

Vocals seemed to be slightly recessed and unclear in comparison, and overly harsh at times.

However, I played a wide range of music, and when playing something such as DR DRE Chronicle 2001, the dyn's were superb, loveing punching it out, but with harsh treble when cranked despite the bass being totally composed.
But I found that whether playing mingus or Zeppelin that the ProAc's were far more enjoyable.

So am i just not "used" to the contours, i thought they were supposed to be revealing? I found the opposite if anything.

I think there are more differences between the countor 1.1 and the 1.3 than i thought.

Maybe this highlights just how good the Tablettes are. they did have the advantage of being bi- amped over the dyns obviously, but since dynaudio dont believe in it......

So, the dyns have gone back, im im happy. Although i want to get something that betters the qualities of the tablettes whilst adding a bit more weight and headroom.

Cheers

Angus

 

I was in a similar situation to yourself. Gone to local hifi shop and they were demoing some DNM amps using cdx2 and proac tablettes, sounded terrific bags of detail and wonderfull soudstage system cost in the region of £11000 so too much for my wallet.

When it came time for me to upgrade my tannoy r3's (due to damage) i thought about having a listen to some proacs (studio 125's) well talk about a dissapointment couldn't really notice much difference than my r3's anyway listened to various makes including Ruarks, Gr20's but nothing really gave me detail and soundstage i was after,and the bass seemed boomy and slow, then i heard the PMCfb1's which i hadn't considered as they didn't look as good as the others?, well what a revalation proac tablett speed detail and sounstage with really deep clean and tunefull bass, i was hooked from the first few bars. Have since been told that most people who try trasmission line spkrs rarely go back to ported or even infinate baffle.

Try and audition these and see if thats what you are after, the only problem seems to be that they are difficult to buy s/h as most people who buy them seem to hang onto them, have made HUGE differenct to sound of my kit and cds that were once unlistenable now have my foot tapping along.

If any of you are in the glasgow area and would like to hear these spkrs then pm me and we'll arrange something.

Happy hunting

 

Thats probably because ProAcs are damn fine speakers. Contrary to what you may read on these fourms, Dynaudios are not the be all and end all of hifi!

Unfortunately, that starts to get very expensive. Keep enjoying the ProAcs and if you must upgrade, upgrade your front end instead!

 

Might consider the giving the TB2's a listen.

Never thought dyns were the be all and end all, bu fellt i had to try some, as they appeared to have what i was looking for. Some Response 1SC's then robbo???? They must go bit louder and lower, with more detail etc etc

Theres the new tablette reference 8 too, wonder if thats much cop, ive seen them secondhand, and possibly the studio 100

 

Stay away from the Studio 100s, I tried a pair and sold them fast. I found their bass performance very loose and ill defined. They had a bit of the sweet Proac musicality but not enough to compensate for the poor port tuning.

If you are after a transmission line design, JM Lab produced a pair of excellent floorstanders, The Daline 3.1 and 6.1, which are discontinued now but are worth seeking out. I owned a pair of the 3.1s and they were excellent in their Imaging and detail retrieval with amazing bass performance from the transmission line loading and the dual voice coil driver. They were amazing value for money considering the amount of work that must have gone into the cabinets with the folded line and all, never mind the excellent Focal drivers employed. Wish I'd kept that pair...

 

speakers are to my mind the most individual of all pieces of kit, the most characterful, the hardest to reccomend therefore.

Robbo's Proac 1SCs are great - but are they what you would like?
only one way to find out of course!..

NB
Dont know what your source is, but perhaps robbo is right and a better front end might reap bigger rewards? Worth a dem ?


time for some shopping!!

 

I think for the meantime I perhaps ought to just enjoy the system, and buy more music! There's no hurry afterall!

Ive just upgraded my front end, I have an Arcam alpha 8 and have had a superdac for about a month. Very pleased, was a real night and day difference, better in almost every area, making the standard 8 seem very sleepy!. Might try and upgrade the dac by building a powersupply and maybe more.

Couldnt agree more, if i look at more speakers i will preferably get a home demo on them. The one SC's seem like a good idea if they are simliar to the tablettes perhaps, but do everything better. Im really happy to be honest, the tablettes are nearly 10 years old and are still very impressive. I did hear some Ae1's which i rather liked once.

Anyway, Im happy, for a while at least!

 

The stock Alpha 8 cdp is very tame. Nothing wrong with it though, it's actually quite good, but tame. As a transport, it has some decent PR&T qualities. My 8 with WM's superdac when it first came was good, and the DAC20 was much more interesting to listen to driven by it than the 8 was on it's own.

The Superdac was a good match for it, better than the DAC 20 if anything once it had had phono plugs put on it.

Cheers

 

If you are interested in ProAc / Dynaudio then you should also check out PMC and Harbeth speakers.
That said, Dyns should sound pretty damn good out of the box.
What kind of stands are you using and where in the room are they?
From my own experience stands and the stand/speaker interface can have a huge bearing on the sound, and different speakers like different kinds of stands...

 

The pushed in tweeter will affect the sound.

You can rescue one of these with very careful use of a cylinder vaccuum. Never touch the actual unit with it and at the right distance the tweeter just pops back. I watched Fox do this with a pair of Isobariks that seemed to have everything pushed in. Obviously the previous owner hadn't liked them and had taken to booting them about.

I'm told that those Briks are now sounding great.

 

Most 1" tweeters are a fairly simple construction and typically could have 3 screws holding the magnet at the back, to the front plate, which has the voice coil/dome attached. If it can dismantle into 2 lumps - 'the magnet' and 'everything else' then you can see the back of the dome and push it back with a clean finger. The tricky bit is persuading the magnet to re-align with the frontplate screw holes as some piece of metal usually pulls it to one side. I have dismantled 3 diff tweeters like these, and none were particularly delicate or tolerance critical, as long as you are careful and clean.

 

I pulled out the ''pushed in'' woofer I had in my last speaker, by pushing two pins through the cone, and pulling it back out with the pins!!!

It worked perfectly, but wouldnt ever reccomend it to anyone else.. especially not on a tweeter.

Youre very lucky he gave you a refund on them too.
Many people woundnt IMO


Chris

 

Glad to hear it timpy, I agree, im certainly very satidfied with the combination indeed. Listening now with the superdac is so much more exciting and engaging than the stock 8.

Pmc are probably worth considering joel, but ive heard they can lean toworads harsh treble. Im using cheapo Atacam Nexus 6 stands without top spikes in a small room that it is pehaps three metres wide and six or so deep with one irregular extended corner. Do different stands really make much of a difference, maybe i should get better stands. The nexus 6 only set me back £60. Partington dreadnoughts or similiar then?


As for the tweeter, it was not as described so i was not happy but the buyer was very understanding and apologetic (he wanted to aviod negative feedback on ebay) and offered a full refund and payed the postage costs. Just as well to be honest, because i wasnt getting on that well with them anyway.

 

That's not my (admittedly limited) experience with PMC, but we all listen for different things. I prefer my harbs in any case :MILD:

Stands can make quite a difference, but it also depends on what kind of speaker you use. Th Partingtons will probably work very well. Since you don't use spikes, do you use Bluetak?
I have a pair of old, nay ancient, Tablettes, which work fine as nearfield monitors (@ about 40~50cms) but are quite "lost" in the living room. If you are looking for a "bigger" sound, you need bigger speakers IME (and in your room, I would be very careful with anything that has a rear port...). The Tablettes, are good speakers, although they tend to make everything sound a bit "nice"- to my ears at least.

 

I've just traded my 1 year old pair of Dynaudio 1.3SE's for an 11 year old pair of Naim SBL's ..... no competition!!!! The SBL's are superior in everything musical except imaging. Plus I get $,2000 cash back to spend on buying Naim electranics.

Go for a used pair of SBL's.

 

Angus,

If you do ultimately want a bigger sound with higher loudness capability, ultimately the tablettes are going to be limited in this respect. If you like the ProAc sound, then go for some bigger ones (maybe some bigger s/h tablette 2000s which are the same size as the 1SCs) or some 1SCs of course. I am not sure about the bass of floorstanding ProAcs, it can be too full sounding for my tastes. Decent stands are a must here.

Otherwise try Harbeths as Joel suggested. I am tempted to have a go with these myself sometime. They have always sounded good whenever I have heard them.

 

Yes, I do use bluetack.

UGH! I heard some of those £5K naim speakers once, the SL2, I thought they were horrid. And they were suppose to be a major advance in naim speaker design, still, whatever floats your boat. Besides, The SBL's are massive!

I hadn't actually realised that the 1sc's were bigger, they may be the long term solution. Harbeth do sound very interestig, im presuming that you mean the monitor range that has some links back to the BBC LS whatever. Sealed boxes could be very usefull in a small room like mine perhaps.

I have decided to wait unitil the summer when i will be working hard and so will have more money which will allow me to start seriously considering all of the alternatives.