Dynaudio Bookshelf Speakers Special Forty Ebony Wave High Gloss

The Special Forty is classic Dynaudio: all the craftsmanship, attention to detail and total love of authentic sound you’ve come to expect. It’s the connoisseur’s choice – a simple pair of passive hi-fi speakers. But it isn’t about looking back, misty-eyed, at past glories and leaving it at that. It’s about using those glories as a platform from which to launch our next set of breakthroughs.

Greatest hits… reimagined

The crossover expertly marshals the input signal between the woofer and the tweeter – so each driver gets only the frequencies it’s supposed to, and can perform at its very best. Its specially selected components handle the impedance optimisation and, because both drivers have extended frequency ranges for even better overlap and integration, that performance borders on the mesmerising.

The song remains the same

The Special Forty uses our proprietary MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer) material for its main driver. MSP delivers precisely the right combination of rigidity, damping and stability for the most faithful sound reproduction. And, unlike other cone materials, it doesn’t change over time – so your Special Forty speakers will still be singing just as sweetly come our next anniversary. 

The cone itself uses a painstakingly developed symmetrical excursion for even better midrange performance. Behind it sits the asymmetrical spider – the passive harmonic rectifier. It minimises upper harmonics to further tighten the performance and make it possible not only to pick out individual parts in a piece of music, but even individual instruments in an orchestra. (So now, finally, the Third Violin section can have its day in the sun.) And, like all other MSP cones, it’s a one-piece design (you can tell by the special balance ribs around the central dust-cap). This gives it an incredibly solid connection to the voice-coil, as well as stabilising its form – which is crucial when you decide to turn it up to 11. It all sits in the special AirFlow Basket – the bit that holds the whole driver motor securely in place in the cabinet.

Airflow is king

The Esotar Forty tweeter takes air-movement to another level. It moves the air in typically sweet fashion in front of the DSR (Dynaudio Secret Recipe) precision-coated soft-dome, of course, but there’s a lot of engineering going on behind it as well. Take the pressure conduit. It’s a shaped vent in the back of the hybrid magnet system that allows more space in the rear chamber. That space lets us pack in more damping material and reduces back-pressure, while the shape itself optimises airflow coming backwards from the rear of the dome.

Then there’s the outlet; the aero-coupled pressure-release system. It sits underneath the voice-coil and reduces unwanted pressure build-up that could affect its movement. Stopping those pockets of air from forming reduces resonance – and less resonance equals even greater potential for detail.

Flux optimisation and beam control

The magnet turns electrical energy that flows from your amplifier into the voice-coil, into the physical back-and-forth movement of the driver diaphragm. These movements are very small and very fast (especially in the tweeter), so they need a lot of finesse if you want to hear all that luscious detail and emotion in your music.

Behind the woofer

In the woofer, the finesse is achieved in two ways: by placing the magnet inside the voice-coil, and by playing with magnetic energy itself. Other manufacturers typically put it around the outside edge, leaving the voice-coil hollow. Putting the magnet inside keeps the magnetic energy (or flux) in the optimum position for getting itself wrapped around the voice-coil – where it should be. It reduces internal reflections because there’s less material for sound to bounce off inside the driver.

Features:

• Sensitivity – 86 dB @ 2.83V/1 m;
• IEC Power Handling – 200 Watt;
• Lower Cutoff – 41 Hz @ +/- 3 dB;
• Upper Cutoff – 23 kHz @ +/- 3 dB;
• Crossover – 2-way.