Dynaudio Evidence Temptation loudspeaker:
Measurements part 2
There is a slight positive plateau evident between 9kHz and 15kHz, which might be thought to add a slight brightness to the perceived balance. However, the Temptation's lateral dispersion plot (fig.5) shows that the speaker is quite directional in this region. In a typical room, the resulting lack of energy in the top two octaves of the reverberant field will work against the on-axis boost, giving a neutral character to the speaker's treble, though the 5-9kHz region might still stand out a bit in small, live rooms.

Fig.5 Dynaudio Temptation, lateral response family at 50", from back to front: responses 90 degrees-5 degrees off-axis, central tweeter-axis response, responses 5 degrees-90 degrees off-axis.

Other than the increased directivity above 9kHz, the Temptation's lateral radiation pattern is wide and even, which will help ensure stable, accurately defined stereo imaging. In the vertical plane (fig.6), the speaker's multiple drive-units and first-order crossover filters give rise to quite complicated behavior. To get the optimal sound quality, you basically need to sit close to the middle of the tweeters with your ears a highish 39" from the floor—as LG discovered in his auditioning.

Fig.6 Dynaudio Temptation, vertical response family at 50", from back to front: differences in response 15 degrees-5 degrees above central tweeter axis, reference response, differences in response 5 degrees-15 degrees below central tweeter axis.

In the time domain, the Dynaudio's step response (fig.7) indicates that the tweeters and woofers are connected with positive acoustic polarity, the midrange units with negative polarity. While the Temptation is not time-coherent, each pair of drive-units' step response smoothly hands over to the next lower in frequency, implying good amplitude-domain integration, as seen in fig.4. The farfield cumulative spectral-decay plot (fig.8) is basically clean, particularly in the treble, but is marred by some delayed energy at 4.3kHz, the frequency of the lower of the two on-axis suckouts. I suspect that this is the result of acoustic interference rather than a resonance as such.

Fig.7 Dynaudio Temptation, step response on axis midway between the two tweeters at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).

Fig.8 Dynaudio Temptation, cumulative spectral-decay plot at 50" (0.15ms risetime).

Overall, this is excellent measured performance that indicates similarly excellent loudspeaker engineering.—John Atkinson