Review: Dynaudio Contour Legacy

I’m old enough to remember the first version of the Contour 1.8. And the second one, for that matter. A speaker model that in many ways marked a turning point for Dynaudio. Before that, many perceived the earlier Dynaudio speakers as a bit on the cool and reclusive side, but with good resolution and transparency.

In other words, not the perfect all-round speakers, and certainly not something that suited the parties and Saturday night entertainment of the time, with punchbowls and the week’s latest CD releases in the player.

But the Contour 1.8 was a compact floorstanding speaker that, combined with the right amplifier, was able to deliver more than adequate sound pressure, tight bass and a big soundstage – without compromising on resolution or transparency. The speaker became relatively popular and was among the models in Dynaudio’s new Contour series that really put the Danish manufacturer on the map.

Apart from the insane Consequence from 1984, where all the units were turned upside down and mounted in separate cabinets – at an insane price, of course. But it definitely helped shine a spotlight on Dynaudio as a speaker manufacturer.

In 1994, the Contour 1.8 mark II was released, seemingly similar to its predecessor but with upgraded dual magnet drivers, including the highly successful Esotec tweeter.

The speakers, just over 90 cm tall, were easier to fit in the living room than they were to drive. A sensitivity of a rather low 86 dB and a system impedance of 4 Ohms only reinforced the impression that Dynaudio speakers require powerful and high performance amplifiers.

This is true of many other speakers, not just Dynaudio, and our tests of their speakers often show that they work best with amplifiers with enough torque to drive the speakers with optimal precision. This also applies to Dynaudio’s latest model, the Dynaudio Contour Legacy.

This special edition model is made in just 1000 numbered pairs, priced at 12,000 euros. Although similar to its predecessors, it is a brand new and, it must be said, exclusive model in the Contour series. Connoisseurs will remember the Heritage Special model, a compact two-way model, handmade in Denmark in a limited series. Those who remember even further back will recall both the Special 25 and Special Forty, which marked Dynaudio’s 25th and 40th anniversaries respectively.

If we know Dynaudio, they’ve already started thinking about what to present for the 50th anniversary in 2027.

Contour Legacy

But back to Contour Legacy. The 1000 lucky customers who get to enjoy these speakers, handmade in Skanderborg, Denmark, are in for quite an experience.

The Legacy is based on the 1.8 model, so we’re talking about a 2.5-way speaker in a compact, floorstanding bass reflex cabinet.

But that’s where the similarities end. In the Legacy model, Dynaudio engineers have plucked their finest drivers from off the top shelf. The 18 cm woofers are taken from the Dynaudio Evidence Platinum and matched to the Contour Legacy’s cabinets. The woofers overlap in frequency. One unit reaches down to 42 Hz and from there up to around 400 Hz; roughly from there up to 3,400 Hz, the other woofer runs solo.

The woofers are built with Dynaudio’s magnesium silicate polymer cone – MSP. A lightweight and rigid diaphragm, moulded in one piece, suspended from a 75 mm ventilated voice coil driven by a hybrid magnet system. This system consists of both a neodymium and a ferrite magnet, which according to Dynaudio provides better concentration of the magnetic field, improved linearity and dynamics, and better control over the cone movements.

The tweeter is Dynaudio’s legendary Esotar 3, but with a faceplate taken from the T330, which we know from the Confidence series. The tweeter uses the classic 28 mm dome diaphragm, and behind it sits Hexis, an inner diffuser whose job is to smooth out the frequency response of the tweeter.

The tweeter is driven by a neodymium magnet and behind the diaphragm itself there is an open chamber coated with a damping material that reduces resonances behind the diaphragm. All this is combined with a customised crossover, van den Hul cables, large air core coils, Mundorf Evo oil-filled capacitors for the tweeter, Mundorf Supreme resistors and Duelund Cast capacitors for the woofers.

The tuning was carried out at Dynaudio in-house with their Jupiter measurement system.

Handcrafted cabinet

The advanced technology of the Contour Legacy is packed into a compact walnut veneer cabinet that has an 8.6 kg cast iron plate at the bottom. This brings the weight well over 30kg per speaker. While the base plate keeps the speaker stable and dampens resonances better than a thin MDF plate would, it is also designed to fit the dimensions of the cabinet perfectly. The weight alone means that you don’t need feet/spikes to stabilise the speaker.

The Contour Legacy is just under a metre high and only 20 cm wide. In practice, this means it’s nice and easy to fit them, but keep in mind that the two rounded ports on the back need some space so you don’t get too much amplification in the bass. Foam pads are included to put in the bass ports if you need to place the speakers closer to the back wall.

Higher sensitivity

Dynaudio says that they have worked hard to increase the sensitivity, and 90 dB sensitivity is higher than we are used to from Dynaudio. The advantage is that the amplifier can concentrate more on delivering music than wasting a lot of energy that turns into heat in the speakers.

The downside, if you can call it that, is that the speaker doesn’t go quite as deep as they could have if the sensitivity was lower. Personally, I prefer the sensitivity to be as high as possible and the speakers to go as deep as possible, but more importantly, the speaker actually has control over the bass response, which is easier to achieve with high sensitivity than with low sensitivity.

In practice, this means you can get by with a good 50W amplifier, but as we all know, a 300-watt amplifier will not necessarily be worse.

Listening

I didn’t get to hear the speakers when they were first unveiled at the high-end show in Munich in May, so I honestly wasn’t quite prepared for what to expect when I unpacked them from their flight cases and set them up in the test room.

Would they sound like a modern version of a 1.8 or like a Dynaudio Confidence wrapped in a classic Contour cabinet? Neither, as it turned out.

The first thing that struck me was how open the soundstage was. Here was something almost unfamiliar that I wouldn’t immediately associate with a Contour or Confidence speaker from Dynaudio.

A modern Confidence speaker also sounds open – you bet! – but it has a very rich soundstage with good bass extension and is very listenable, even at high volumes. The Contour Legacy is tuned differently in this respect and is experienced as more analytical without sounding clinical.

The speakers present razor-sharp focus, super-tight bass and an airy, detailed treble reproduction that I experience as noticeably open, free and better defined than in a typical Contour speaker.

A modern Confidence speaker also sounds open – you bet! – but it has a very rich soundstage with good bass extension and is very listenable, even at high volumes. The Contour Legacy is tuned differently in this respect and is experienced as more analytical without sounding clinical.

The speakers present razor-sharp focus, super-tight bass and an airy, detailed treble reproduction that I experience as noticeably open, free and better defined than in a typical Contour speaker.

The live version of The Weeknd’s Dancing In The Flames transports you to a big concert, which obviously doesn’t sound as perfect and polished as a studio recording. But the speakers’ honest reproduction of any music you send through them means you actually hear more errors in the recording than on most speakers. It’s part of the character of the speakers, whether you like it or not.

This honesty was also evident on Die With A Smile by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. Here you quickly realise how slim the soundstage of the recording actually is. If you’ve listened to the track with noise-cancelling earbuds or on a decent pair of speakers in the lower price range, you’ll be surprised at how much more information the Dynaudio speakers deliver and how easy it is to hear not only all the nuances of the recording, but also how significantly different many music recordings actually are.

The bass will feel fuller and punchier in a pair of Dynaudio Contour 60s, but the Contour Legacy delivers the drums on Sade’s Turn My Back On You with an impressive amount of energy, especially considering the size of the speakers.

There’s more energy and dynamic contrast in the soundstage here than in a pair of Bowers & Wilkins 804 D4, which is a significantly more expensive high-end floorstanding speaker. The Contour Legacy is also more open and better focused than the 804 D4.

The Contour Legacy is a bit like a pair of KEF Reference 3 Meta. They have similar bass characteristics and both deliver dynamic contrast and play music with a conviction that can make you feel almost religious. The soundstage of the KEF speakers is bigger, but the Contour Legacy gives an even greater insight into the music.

Conclusion

The biggest drawback of the Contour Legacy is that the 1000 pairs are sold out. You can’t get your hands on them. This also means that not many people will get the chance to hear the speakers. That’s a shame for anyone who loves music. Because you don’t often come across a fresh and engaging speaker like this. Considering their size, the speakers deliver a large and three-dimensional soundstage with a rare insight into the music that gives you a huge amount of detail. The speakers will reveal every flaw in a recording, for better or worse. The benefit is that you won’t miss a thing. The Contour Legacy is an unrivalled successful speaker, where the compromises are so few and the execution so successful that we look forward to the sequel. Dynaudio’s 50th anniversary can’t come soon enough, in our opinion.