Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition

Heights of perfection

Good engineers aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy. Not in an existential way; more that it means they’ve found something they want to improve, and the solution is nagging at them. (Although sometimes, of course, that can definitely skirt the edges of an existential wobble…)

They went through it in 2016 when Contour was revamped into its current look. It happened again in 2020, when the family gained the ‘i’ badge after being perked-up by a raft of trickle-down Confidence tech.

And they went through it once more in the months before the first Contour 20 Black Edition rolled off the production line at our factory in Denmark. During development this time, their unhappiness made them extremely happy, because they got to throw the kitchen sink at it.

Box: clever

Contour already had a brilliant foundation. The cabinet construction is stellar: thick, solid and with a shape that minimises unwanted vibrations and standing waves. And the heavy aluminium baffle (which is actually a lot thicker than it looks) does wonders for increasing stability and eliminating diffraction.

So, how do you improve on the rest? You reach into the bag of tricks Dynaudio Labs has been filling up since 1977 and pluck out the best bits of the best bits.

High spirits

Let’s take it from the top. High frequencies are handled by the Esotar 3 tweeter. It comes directly from our flagship Confidence range – and is, quite simply, the best tweeter we’ve ever produced. (So far.)

The soft-dome diaphragm is finished with our DSR coating. It’s a high-precision method, formulated and mixed by hand and applied by robots, that puts the coating at the exactly right density in exactly the right places, so you hear exactly what you’re supposed to hear. Which is exactly what the artist wants. (And while we aren’t allowed to tell you exactly what the DSR coating is, we can tell you what the acronym stands for: Dynaudio Secret Recipe. So now you know.)

Stabilising influence

Directly behind the diaphragm sits the Hexis. This ingenious little dimpled dome sits behind the main diaphragm. You can just about see it in the right light. You might even say it’s camera-shy. But it does something extraordinary, back there in the dark.

It helps the tweeter breathe. It helps your music breathe.

The Hexis smooths out the tweeter’s frequency response and reduces unwanted resonances, the kind that colour your music, by gently guiding the moving air behind the fabric dome. It channels the flow in exactly the right way in and out of the conduit system in the rear chamber behind the magnet. The movement is minuscule – only fractions of a millimetre – and it happens tens of thousands of times a second.

It means you’ll hear high frequencies with all the emotion you’re meant to. The sharp attack of a well-rosined bow on a cello string as the player digs in. The epic, soaring crescendo of the first violins. The cocksure sizzle of the hi-hats as the drummer counts in.

Do it a favour: shine a torch onto the tweeter and give it a nod of thanks.

Air marshal

In the way-back you’ll find a labyrinth of conduits, shaped vents and more. There’s a large rear chamber to reduce resonance, we’ve improved our damping game and the super-strong neodymium magnet and lightweight aluminium voice-coil complete the all-star team.

Esotar 3 is more sensitive than previous models, which means it can react with a lower input voltage, which means it doesn’t get hot as fast. And that means it can play louder, with amazing clarity, for longer.

It’s one of the cornerstones of modern hi-fi.

A sensitive type

The mid/bass driver is something rather special.

If it were an engine, it would be supercharged, turbocharged, and quite possibly have an auxiliary rocket fitted too. The super-powerful neodymium magnet gives a boost to what’s an already powerful ferrite unit in Contour 20i, and the extended voice-coil winding improves excursion linearity. And because the magnet is smaller, there’s more space for the kind of air movement we want inside the slim cabinet.

Overall, the driver is more sensitive (so there’s less stress on your amplifier) while bass extension is maintained (it’s normally affected by higher sensitivity). Here, it’s the best of both worlds.

Your ears will notice it, too: more attack and better imaging.

The rest of the driver is classic Dynaudio: a one-piece MSP (Magnesium Silicate Polymer) cone, directly anchored to the extended aluminium voice-coil via its moulded balance ribs; a glass-fibre voice-coil former for reducing eddy currents (and improving agility); and optimised ventilation. It’s a formula that’s trusted across the hi-fi world – and even into professional studios.

All of it, of course, tested, tweaked and perfected using a combination of our world-class Jupiter measuring laboratory and world-class outer-, middle- and inner-ears.

Port authority

The new woofer has been designed to work seamlessly with the new bass port.

Yes, from the outside it just looks like a hole in the back of the speaker with a tube going inside. But it isn’t as simple as grabbing some plumbing from the DIY shop down the road. If only…

Contour 20 Black Edition has a new port, bigger than you’ll see on Contour 20i. It’s flared in a specific way at both ends (inside and out), which helps to control air movement for better precision, fewer artefacts, and vastly improved low-bass performance.

And we think it looks rather nice, too. It took a lot of work (both for our mechanical engineers and our product designers) to integrate it perfectly with the cabinet’s graceful curves.

More than the sum of its parts

The crossover has been given the all-star treatment, too. Contour 20i already has an incredible unit – which makes things difficult. How do you upgrade an upgrade?

You go back to the beginning and start again. Contour 20 Black Edition has a brand-new crossover using the smallest amount of components we could manage – and the best versions of those parts. We’ve used Mundorf capacitors and resistors, a gigantic air-coil and top-quality internal cables. It’s a second-order topology for both drivers – so there’s no correction circuitry necessary. If you want purity, here it is…

You’ll hear that simplicity, too. Directivity is tightly controlled, thanks to the smooth power response. And that means a precise, focussed performance – with no detail left unrevealed.

Black magic

Some manufacturers give options for their Black Edition products. That seems weird to us, so we decided to follow the lead of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, Nigel Tufnell. In 1984, he asked: “It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black”.

Cabinet? Black. Woofer basket? Black. Tweeter front plate? Black. Terminal plate? Black. Anodised aluminium baffle? Black. Bass port? Black? Cabinet? Black.

It’s an investment in sound. An investment in your music collection. And – frankly – it’s pretty damn cool.