Dynaudio Heritage Special Bookshelf Speakers Announced

Dynaudio's limited-edition Heritage Special speakers are totally hand-built by a team apparently fueled by flødebolle (which seems an excellent idea) from beginning to end in Denmark and is the result of more than 2,000 hours of devoted R&D.

Furthermore, the Heritage Special started life a secret project. We're told that Daniel Emonts and Otto Jørgensen, the masterminds behind the project, could often be seen in the Dynaudio Labs kitchen whispering about things such as “American Walnut”, “Mundorf” and “Martin over in the Danmarksvej factory”. They'd quickly go quiet whenever they'd spot someone from Marketing, they confided to us.

Heritage by name, Heritage by nature

Look closely, and you'll notice little design cues from classics, including Crafft (1989) and Special Twenty-Five (2002). Additionally, there's a tip of the hat to the first Contour (1986) with even the backplate offering a knowing wink to Sapphire (2008).

Heritage Special is limited to just 2,500 pairs with American Walnut veneered 19mm MDF cabinets that are internally braced for rigidity and coated with heavy bitumen to minimise unwanted resonances. 

Classic Looks, Modern Know-how

The 2-way, rear ported loudspeaker looks to be fitted with the iconic Esotar T330D, where, in fact, it is actually a 28mm Esotar 3 tweeter that's borrowed the plate from highly regarded old-guard. The Esotar 3 is bang up-to-date tech featuring a powerful neodymium magnet, larger rear chamber and resonance-defeating Hexis inner dome, and is also found in the Confidence series. 

Taking on mid/bass duties is the 18cm 18W75 XL Heritage Special MSP Woofer that shares its exponential cone design with the £56,000 Evidence Platinum series. However, the Heritage Special gets a raft of improvements. Firstly the voice coil is a classic internal-magnet design with aluminium windings, but now on a glass-fibre former. The magnet system is a hybrid design with both neodymium and ferrite magnets for even greater flux control and, finally, a Nomex spider as seen on Confidence and Contour i.

The crossover is a bespoke first-order topology using components by Mundorf. Essential parts have been custom-built to Dynaudio's designs and standards, and Mundorf's legendary Evo Oil capacitors are used in the critical signal path. Also, there's local impedance-correction on-board for each tweeter and woofer, as well as time-alignment technology, ensuring the silkiest of handover between drivers at 2200 Hz.

This all adds up to a quoted sensitivity of 85dB (2.83V/1m) and 42Hz–23kHz (± 3 dB) frequency response.

Connecting everything inside is 12 AWG internal wiring by Van den Hul while, on the brushed aluminium backplate, are top-of-the-range WBT 710 Cu mC NextGen terminals.

Otto Jørgensen, Director of Product Management, told StereoNET:

Our first listening session with the first playing pair of Heritage Specials was meant to last 20 minutes. It ended more than two hours later. I think that says everything you need to know about these speakers. We absolutely love them.

Naturally, being a limited edition, each pair of speakers is individually numbered. However, Dynaudio is keeping number 0001 for themselves.

The Dynaudio Heritage Special costs £5,500/ €6000 per pair and is available at selected Dynaudio dealers from today. Owners who register their speakers with Dynaudio will also get a 10-year warranty.

Visit Dynaudio for more information