Dynaudio Audience 72SE Floor standing speakers
Starting the production of Audience line many years ago, the Danes had one purpose - to give the customers for less money that legendary quality, which Contour speaker systems were once famous for. What was it? The cases of Audience are the same concise but well-damped rectangular boxes with a traditional bass-reflex design (but the ports are placed forward). Filters are the simple, not introducing phase distortion. And the mid-bass heads are generally similar to those, which were used before - with diffuser made of MSP and increased in diameter aluminum voice coil. The economy was achieved by the simplified finish of the faceplate and the installation of more technological in the production Esotec tweeters.
However, several years later the models in a special performance - with the SE index - began to appear in Audience series. We chose exactly such one for the test, although Dynaudio offers more solid speakers, Audience 82, for almost the same price. What has attracted in SE? That means the use of "fine-configured" components in the filter circuits and improved internal wiring and most importantly - the original mid-woofers. In other words, except for the tweeter and some small things, 72SE is what used to be called Contour 1.8 MkII.
These floor speaker systems sound freely, with a twinkle. Audience distinguishes among the analogs with the same sizes and weight firstly by the dynamics of sound. They are able to transfer without making the mush from sound. However, this circumstance has the reverse side - attenuated microdynamics. If you listen to musical program at the low volume, the playback will seem to be not as expressive as in the older Dynaudio models: basses are articulated formally, vocals don't abound in details, the upper range is poor by air. So, the environment where Audience 72SE greatly finds itself is music, which is usually listened at high volume.
The advantages of the Danes are a high sound resolution and correctly organized scene. The space is apparently cleaned from all excessive things; the construction of musical images is clearly divided and focused. However, Audience 72SE not always conveys the depth with the ideal accuracy, but they can easily show the scale of musical space and the "body" of each imaginary source in it.
Dynaudio engineers could achieve an acceptable musical balance and quite linear, pressure bass in their system that is already a big plus. Only insufficient linear middle slightly spoils the whole picture, especially in the area of bands' jointing. When the "copper", electro guitars with the hardiest "distortion" or vocal falsetto enter the sound, say the least, starts to put pressure on the ears. Is this a minus? I don't think so. For the acoustic music this is rather the advantage - the upper piano harmonics, the color of bows and strings, performed by 72SE, sound nice: sparklingly, openly and clearly.
