Don’t be fooled by the traditional look of the Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition. Yes, it belongs to the Contour series and shares some similarities in appearance with the Contour 20/Contour 20i. But that’s like seeing a rally car designed for racing and thinking it looks like your Volkswagen Polo—this isn’t the Dynaudio of your father’s era.

Externally, aside from the all-black exterior, the Contour 20 Black Edition features an Esotar3 soft dome tweeter and a new 180mm MSP woofer, which are not present in the standard Contour 20i. However, at first glance, you might not notice these differences. Using these new drivers required a redesigned crossover network. Similarly, at first glance, you might also assume the cabinets are exactly the same.

A Good Platform
To be fair, the Contour 20i itself is a solid platform with potential for further development. It features an 18mm thick medium-density fiberboard (MDF) teardrop-shaped enclosure with double 18mm front baffles, covered by a seemingly thick aluminum front baffle. Following the established engineering principle of “don’t fix what’s not broken,” the main modification to the enclosure is the bass duct. The rear-mounted duct is significantly larger and extends deeper into the speaker. Using a rally car/Polo analogy, this is like a large-diameter exhaust pipe—necessary for unleashing extra horsepower in a heavily tuned race car, but its benefit is questionable when installed on a modified hot hatch.

In other words, simply enlarging the duct while keeping the original driver on the Contour 20i would, at best, be ineffective, and more likely, detrimental to performance. This larger duct doesn’t produce “more” bass, but rather, when used in conjunction with the new mid-bass driver, produces “better” bass.

Comparing the original model and the Black Edition’s mid-bass driver, you might initially be surprised to find that the magnets on the Contour 20i’s driver are larger. However, while the older model used ferrite magnets, the new driver unit uses neodymium magnets. The goal was to redesign the driver unit, but the ferrite magnets became so large that they distorted the airflow behind them. Although neodymium magnets are more expensive and therefore more commonly found in tweeters with smaller magnet sizes, they offer a much stronger magnetic flux than ferrite.

Dynaudio invests a significant portion of its R&D budget in developing clever variations on the “driver unit,” so the woofer in the Black Edition is perhaps not surprising. However, its performance is truly impressive.

The Esotar3 is equally surprising, but in a different way. It’s the tweeter used in Dynaudio’s flagship model, which is featured in one of their most affordable loudspeakers. Externally, it may look exactly the same as the Esotar2 used in the Contour 20i (mainly because the Esotar3 is derived from the Esotar2). However, it features an improved airflow design to provide more precise (and more expensive to manufacture) high-frequency performance. Meanwhile, its crossover is simpler than the Contour 20i’s, but it’s still a second-order crossover. That’s a lot of information; it’s a second-order crossover that requires no phase correction and uses three Mundorf resistors on the tweeter for fine-tuning. Dynaudio achieved second-order crossover functionality by using two spaced first-order crossovers, making the impossible possible.

Listening Speaks for Itself

This is evident in the listening experience. The classic Dynaudio austere sound remains intact. It’s still a speaker with excellent linearity and dispersion. That broadcast tradition (walk into most modern studios and stare at a pair of Dynaudios instead of LS3/5A) is crucial. This speaker is exceptionally detailed and has no unpleasant bumps or dips in its frequency response or impedance curve. All of this means that when paired with a good amplifier and set up correctly, it will deliver all the accuracy and fidelity that makes the Contour 20 a durable speaker.

So far, this is just the Black Edition clearing its throat. This speaker delivers a speed and musical directness that surprises the listener. There’s an English proverb: “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” This means, “Don’t try to eliminate the bad and accidentally ruin the good.” This is a key consideration in the design of the Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition. It retains all the strengths of the original Contour 20i while introducing something new, precise, and delightful.

A Musical Frenzy
It’s a bit difficult to convey the performance of the Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition in context, because the existing Contour 20i is not a poorly sounding speaker. On the contrary, in the face of the Black Edition, the original model seems transiently slowed and rhythmically blurred for just a few seconds. This isn’t limited to anything with a strict rhythm; it can play Eric Dolphy and Monteverdi’s madrigals continuously, as if it were a musicologist in a frenzy.

The speaker’s dynamic range and low-frequency response seem to exceed the company’s recommended 50Hz lower limit. In fact, more accurately, it hits that lower limit, but with such power and precision that it’s unmatched by other speakers in the Black Edition’s class. Typically, at this size and performance level, you either have deep bass or fast bass. The Black Edition convincingly delivers both.

However, it’s not all about the bass. It’s paired with one of the best (if not “best,” it’s certainly one of the best”) tweeters in the industry, and the effect is remarkable. The music is clean and crisp, with excellent high-frequency extension, reaching the “bat-ear” region (extreme high frequencies), where the level of detail and effortless listening experience it creates, without a trace of “peaks,” is astonishing.

It’s easy to say that a great tweeter is looking for a woofer, or a fantastic woofer is looking for a tweeter, or even a great pair of drivers is looking for a good crossover and cabinet. But that’s not the case. Instead, all of these come together here in a remarkable way.

The Black Edition delivers good sound across low, mid, high, and “The Who Live At Leeds” volume levels. However, due to its 86dB sensitivity and stable 4-ohm load, it requires some amplifier power to truly unleash its potential. But dude, it’s worth connecting it to a powerful amplifier!

The only downside to this speaker is that it should be used with dedicated stands. Other stands will work, but the speaker and stands are designed for a tight fit. If you already have a pair of stands, consider selling them.

The clue is in the name

One more thing to note; the clue is in the name. The Black Edition doesn’t come in mahogany, white, or the abstract geometric finishes of 1990s Memphis; it’s only black.

Don’t be the kind of person who asks, “Do you have a piano zebrano version?” Embrace the “blackest” essence inherent in its deep, inky, jet-black nature. In other words, if you find black speakers too flashy, you might want to skip this one. I suspect the Contour 20 Black Edition is just the prelude to the next wave of Dynaudio products, so you probably won’t have to wait long.

The Dynaudio Contour 20 Black Edition is unnecessarily good. While it benefits from Dynaudio’s full credentials and is a well-made speaker that performs better than its price. However, it feels like something has changed, and for the better. Recently, Dynaudio has revisited its classic product, signaling a new direction for the company. This isn’t a revival, but something destined to become a classic.

Technical Specifications

Type: Two-way bass-reflex bookshelf speaker

Drivers: 1 x 28mm Hexis Esotar 3 tweeter, 1 x 18cm neodymium magnet MSP mid/bass driver

Crossover: Second-order crossover, crossover frequency 3.6kHz

Frequency Response: 50Hz-23kHz ±3dB

Sensitivity: 86dB

Impedance: 4Ω

Dimensions: 21.5 x 44 x 40 cm (W x H x D, excluding stands)

Weight: 14.6 kg