Hi, my name is Steve and I'm here today to talk about Dynaudio's Evoke series
of speakers. This is a new line for them for 2019, and it replaces the Excite
series which finished up just this past year and was around for about five years.
It was a very popular, successful line. The Evoke series has this model, the
Evoke 20, which is their larger bookshelf, there's also a smaller bookshelf model
called the Evoke 10, and there are two floor-standing models called the Evoke
30 and Evoke 50. I actually spent a lot of time with the Evoke 20, took the,m home
had them home for a few weeks, and so this is the model that I'm going to be
focusing on today, but a lot of the sound qualities extend throughout the entire
family. So I've been a fan of Dynaudio for over 30 years, the company itself has
been around for about 40 years, and initially they were known for building
absolutely top-notch drivers, woofers and tweeters. Then fast-forward many decades,
and last year when Crutchfield picked up Dynaudio I got to try out the Excites
and I bought a set for myself because I just loved them. And what Dynaudio
speakers in general are known for is terrific soundstaging, and that's
something that, you know, it's primarily a concern of audiophiles I guess, who you
know, really pay attention when they're listening and really appreciate a
speaker's ability to create a three-dimensional soundstage where the
the instruments and voices, you know, seem to be laid out in front of you in kind
of a three-dimensional way. Usually that the sound stage will extend beyond the
speakers, you know, to the right and left of their positions, and also you'll get a
real sense of depth and height to the soundstage. It makes for a very immersive
listening experience. So when I first set the Evoke 20s up in my listening room, I
was initially kind of surprised because they didn't seem to have what I consider
the Dynaudio house sound, which is, you know, the huge soundstage and also just
an impression of tremendous speed. Dynaudio speakers are really fast, so
things like percussion and small low-level details really come through a lot
and really helped a bit to flesh out that soundstage. Initially, like I said,
the the soundstage seemed smaller on the 20s, but the more I listened to them, the
more I was hearing kind of further into the soundstage, so there's a tremendous
sense of purity and transparency, really you know, there's a sense that you can
hear into the soundstage. You know, a lot of times the the names that speaker
companies come up for their speakers, you know, seem like they've been
thrown out by like, you know, somebody in marketing, or maybe they've, you know,
tested them with focus groups, but for Dynaudio I think the names actually
really fit, because the Excite line, they really are exciting speakers. I mean, they
let you hear a lot of the energy and music really well, and what I found with
the Evoke...and and the word evoke means to kind of, to call to mind, and it's a
little bit more of a subtle impression. I think that really describes what the
Evokes do. I mean, they they don't necessarily give you the same kind of
technical or presentation that the Excites do, but again the more I listened
the more I found that it was presenting a very focused soundstage. So as you can
see, there are some design differences between the Excite and the Evoke lines.
Dynaudio is known for a couple of things, and one of them is their soft-dome
tweeter which they've been developing for about 40 years, and it's a silk
textile dome with a series of special coatings on it. I think it's one of the
best tweeters out there, and for the Evoke series they've improved it even
more. They've borrowed some technology from some of their higher-end lines. One
of those things is called the Hexis, and that is a kind of a dome-shaped chamber
that's behind the tweeter and it helps to optimize the airflow behind the
tweeter, and it actually smooths out the dispersion, and the dispersion
characteristics are one reason the Dynaudio tweeters and their
speakers are so good at soundstaging and imaging. And as far as the woofer
goes, the Evoke 20 uses a larger woofer. It uses a seven-inch woofer, whereas the
Dynaudio Excite 18 like I have, it's more like a six and five-eighths woofer, and
you can kind of see that the way the woofer is attached to
the cabinet on the Excite, you know, all the screws are visible, but on the Evoke
they wanted to go for a much cleaner look, and so for both the tweeter and the
woofer all the screws are concealed. The Evoke 20 has a significantly bigger
cabinet, it's probably about 50% larger as far as internal volume, and between
that and the larger woofer the the bass response is definitely stronger on the
Evoke 20, and I especially noticed it not so much in the deep bass, because for
both of these speakers I was using them with a powered subwoofer, but it's more
in what I would call like the lower mid-bass there was just a nice sense of
punch with the 20 that I didn't quite have with the Excite. And one thing that
I discovered after I've been listening to the speakers for a couple of weeks,
Dynaudio includes with a lot of their speakers a port plug. The speakers
are ported out of the box, again that's the way I listened to them for a few weeks, but
once I put the port plug in I found that the sound improved noticeably, especially
when you're using bookshelf speakers with a powered subwoofer. If you use a
port plug it seems to act as almost an acoustic filter and it makes the the
transition between the bookshelf speaker and the subwoofer a little smoother. So
my impressions of the Dynaudio Evoke 20s really changed over the period that I
had them at home, from the first couple of weeks where I was listening to them
with the port plug out versus the last few weeks when I had the plug in, and
Dynaudio in their owner's manual, you know, says that it takes these speakers
you know, several weeks to fully break in and and part of the whole break-in
process...I mean there are physical changes happening to the
drivers as they break in, but the other part of that is happening, you know,
between your ears. It's you getting used to the way the speaker presents music,
and that that takes some time, and that's one reason that Crutchfield is one of
the few retailers to offer a 60-day return policy, so you really can set them
up, you know, in your room and see how they're going to sound in your room. So
if you have any questions about the Dynaudio Evoke series or
any of their speakers that we sell, just call, chat, or email.