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.
