Dynaudio Core 59 - talk me out of it... 5,4,3,2,1...

I got the Core 59 monitors in. The boxes were in pretty bad shape but fortunately the speakers are fine. Yes, they are quite big for my studio but surprisingly, they don't seem too big. I just finished a mix last night that is heading off to mastering. I did it on the LYD48's. 

As you can see from the Arc Studio corrections, the speaker behave completely differently. The dip between 80-100hz is due to front wall reflection, even though I have 14" of treatment. From all my study, that will never change. The Core 59 has a front port and the LYD 48 has a rear port. I found that made a huge difference in the way the low end sound. I have a lot more test to do and it may take a few weeks to get used to them, but I plan on keeping them. 

QUESTION: The Input Sensitivity and SPL Level switches interact and I'm not entirely sure I got it right. From my reading, they ssay to set the SPL Level to whatever your normal loudest level will be. They use that to calibrate the DSP, so that's important. I set it to 96dB. I set the Input Sensitivity to +4, as my interface (Lynx Aurora (n)) is +4. The levels seem pretty close to what I'm used to now. Anyone with more experience have a different preference?

I will write more after I get a couple days into these. One thing that surprised me is the lowend. It doesn't feel as big as the LYD48 but my table and floor do vibrate a bit with the Core59. Maybe some isolation will help but I think it just naturally has deeper bass and the front port changes everything.

obviously these are much larger than my BM6a II, but I recently got some acoustic isolators and it helps.  I got the Auralex Pro Pod Lite for one pair, and Rab Audio ProJax 40 for another.  They seem to work about the same and depending on the weight of your monitors you may need something different, but  the biggest difference I noticed is that the vibrations from the speaker do not transfer into where the speakers are located (for me on some desk side racks) .  I would definitely recommend trying some. 

One of these days I'll have to get REW out again.  I used to have some "ringing" (shown in some waterfall graphs) and I wonder if these will have helped.  

Danny,
I blame you for my loss of money... Just sayin'
😀

Thanks for the help. I reworked my stands and filled them with a mix of pavers sand and pea gravel. Quite dense and heavy. Waiting on a couple coats of paint to dry and I can finally get back to working on music.

I'm already thinking that. They sound amazing. You were right that they are kind of like the LYD48, only more of everything. Clearer and bigger. I have a number of test songs but Seals song Loves Devine is great to check vocal center. Woman in Chains by TFF is also great for checking tightness of the low end. I did more sweep tests tonight. They are so close to the top of my work desk/table that I thought if I set it to Desk mode that it might lower the 250 boost. Well, it does do that, but it also messes with 100hz as well and I didn't like that. Instead of a single dip at 80 in anachoic, the desk mode basically notched out 80-250 by a lot. More than 6 dB. So, I set it back to anachoic. It sounds best there.

One last question. On the input sensitivity switch, what do you have yours set for? For me, I get the best usable range from my Dangerous Monitor ST with the input at +4 and the SPL at 96. I'm not entirely sure that's the right way to have it but if I go to +18 input, it is too quiet unless I jack the SPL all the way up to 112,

These are stunning.

OK, I figured out the proper input and spl settings for my setup. I updated the Lynx NControl and it has a 20dBU setting. I set the speakers for 24dBU and it was a touch too quiet with my monitor controler almost maxed, so I set the speakers to 18dBU and the SPL to 100. very good now and no worry about distortion at higher levels. The Arc Studio is also in a good range, so I'm all set.

great. but i would also test the desk. from what it looks like, it could reflect some. i would make a measuring with the desk removed.

I use a various suite of songs for testing, fleetwood’s big love is my main as the attack from the acoustics either translates through or doesn’t on some monitors. Also I’ve never heard a medium it sounds bad on.

Tiesto as an example of modern house slamming bass to see how full range, headphone or PA translates. Then a bit if metal I’m familiar with, these really love to poke holes in all of my favourite metal tracks as they’re generally not all that well produced. Then some orchestral tracks and yada, yada songs from most genres.

A couple of things I noticed when comparing a recent demo to a production track years back. Due to the crazy phantom centre thing going on I pushed the vox out past the point of comfortable. Also nothing will sound amazing on them because translatable and perfect is an oxymoron.

You can’t have completely accurate monitoring without it feeding back all the damage we do to get these to translate to lesser mediums. On reflection adding in that extra lmf and backing off the compression, saturation and limiting made the monitors tell me this is what it sounds like as a relatively undamaged production and I can take it because I’m a super low distortion kick ass monitor but what about everything else? We need to compromise shadow.

This is why I couldn’t care less about the HW vs. Plug debate, on certain non compromised playback systems a perfect mix on the Dyn’s will translate no issues. It’s amazing how good certain hybrid chains sound, decent HW in terms of audio quality is way above what’s ever going to reach end production. Even if some plugs are as good or better.

This was one of my rationalisations for not upgrading past the core’s, mixing might be the art of smoke and mirrors but it’s mainly about damaging the audio tastefully. It’s sorta depressing enough with the dyn’s I don’t need an even more accurate system telling me how truly borked productions are. This doesn’t just apply to modern songs as well, so many 70’s and 80’s productions were crushed and warped they just didn’t have look ahead dead stop brick walls.

Excellent service from Thomann DE.

I might not be in the US but I’m not worried at all. They’re over engineered and specc’d. Dyn isn’t a small company, their support is stellar, I asked and they will have parts for a long time should you ever need them. I don’t understand how you could blow a tweeter with these unless you were set on doing so.

I’ll get 10 - 15 years out of them no issues, by then Dyn will have released something new and I’ll end up buying them anyway. 😂

Also I had the Lyd’s six years and they never missed a beat.

I'm not worried about repairs on the Dynaudio stuff. I've had Air 6, LYD48 and now Core 59. I did have a problem with the Air 6 many years ago. It was a bad cap in the switching supply. A friend is a true geek and he deengineered the supply and fixed it. At that time, I would have had to ship it away for two months. It's good to have smart friends.
In many ways the Core 59 is similar to the LYD48. They have similar sonics. The core 59 is just clearer and tighter and it never feels like the low end is going to blow out at high levels.

My room is the only weak point. But, I have a ton of treatment. I don't really think I can make any substantial improvement at this point. I have 13 GIK 2" panels and 20 other panels ranging from 3" to 12". The room actually sounds very nice with the wood floor and cloud. Not too dead but no odd reflections or flutter. Just being in a smallish (20'x20' partially cut in half) room is going to have some room modes. No way around it. Room correction software is my best friend currently. No guessing. No "learning" the room. When it sounds right, I don't have to wonder if it is OK. Anyway... I have mixes I need to finish now on the Core 59. Check the classifieds if anyone is looking for LYD48s. I'd love to keep them but I'm at the point where I need to sell what doesn't get used every day.

tried the old ARC years ago and it changed the sound to much. was like listening to some different speakers. i had focal alpha‘s back than. thats my main worry: i still want to listen to MY speakers, have dyn lyd48 now. i have a dip at 90-100 Hz, apart from that i am used to how they sound in my room and mixes translate well. still curious if the new ARC could improve some 5-10% without giving me the feeling listening to new speaker i would try.
can one demo the software only? i have a behringer ECM8000.