Tower Speaker Reviews

Setup
Dynaudio speakers are known to be a little demanding in terms of amplifier quality, so I was pleased to note that the Excite speakers were designed to sound terrific with more moderately priced electronics. Thus, A/V receivers like my Onkyo TX-SR805 should sound great, but that's not to say you won't get even better sound with separates. I certainly did with my Sunfire Theater Grand III surround processor and B&K AV6125 power amplifier. They goosed up the gravitas of the sound, so it was more, er, exciting.

The X32 towers are certainly big enough to be run as "large" speakers, so that's how I initially set up my receiver's bass management. The X22 center and X12 surround speakers were run "small," crossed over at 80Hz. The sound was more than decent, but there was something just a bit off, so I also experimented with running the towers "small," crossed over at 60Hz. That added more low-end slam to the sound, especially when listening in stereo.

Even so, I still wasn't totally satisfied, so at the urging of Dynaudio's director of sales Mike Manousselis, I tried running all five speakers "large," which effectively relieved my Sunfire processor of its bass management duties. Indeed, the Excite speakers were more open and natural sounding, and therefore the Sub 250 was only responsible for dishing out LFE (.1) bass.

The Sub 250 is a little thing, but don't for a second mistake it for one of those ultra-compact, high-powered brutes that are so popular nowadays. You know the type, those ubiquitous cubes decked out with passive radiators on their side baffles. The best of them are more powerful and delve deeper into the lowest octave (20-40Hz) than the Sub 250 can.

That said, the Dynaudio sub definitely benefited from corner placement in my home theater, which brought out the best of its deepest bass. The Sub 250 also scores big with pitch definition. It's way faster, clearer, and cleaner than any super cube I've tested. And those attributes make for a more synergistic match with Dynaudio speakers. Hey, the Danes are nothing if not logical.

Speaking of bass, each speaker comes with a foam plug that can be inserted into its rear port to attenuate the low end. Chances are the plugs won't be needed in most situations, but if the speakers are placed near a wall or in a cabinet, the plugs might come in handy. I ran the X32 sans plugs, 30 inches away from the wall, and the floor spikes ever so slightly firmed up the speakers' bass response.