New Dynaudio ESOTAR 2 (squared) are out! If you're looking for the ultimate in car audio/high end audio reproduction, these are it.

Prices will send sticker shock to all but the hard core.

1600 / pair of esotar 2 tweeters. 1000 / pair of 6.5 inch esotar 2 midwoofers. 1500 for the 12 inch esotar 2 woofer.

You can check out the latest Car Audio and Electronics magazine for a picture of them. Dyn sent me the pdf files but they're too big to be enclosed.

And yes, they're absolutely incredible sounding. For the hard core only. Pretenders need not apply.

 

A resized pic of the speakers.

 

Very nice! If my car wasnt a lease, id be looking into replacing my stock speakers.

 

They better sound good for all that money!

 

im a MOREL and CD Technologies fan myself ! and theyre prcied very well and sound excellent.

 

Morel actually licenses the technologies from Dynaudio. The hexacoil, 3 inch diameter coil and a little bit of the MSP formula.

Any company that goes through the trouble of giving me the T/S parameters, full specs and dispersion characteristics rates much higher than ones who don't. Dyn always provides these to people who ask. Unlike some of the other "reference" companies.

 

I'd rather have Focal Be Utopia all around my cars....

 

wow....those look awesome. I hope they sound as good as they look.

I personally don't see myself getting rid of my K2P 3-way setup anytime soon.

Utopia Be's are very nice, I just wouldn't spend the money on them. I worked for a large Focal dealer too and I went with the K2P's. I almost bought a set of active Be's and ran them off my two 300/2's, I'm much happier that I went with the K2P's.

 

Never was a fan of hard dome tweeters. Aluminum, titanium, berylium, etc. There is no company that I know of, automotive wise, that will even come close to taking out the ringing effects of a hard dome tweeter. You can dampen the rear chamber all you want, but the metal itself will still have ringing. You can try to add dampening material on the dome itself (internal), but this will add mass and reduce the transient response.

Dyn and Morel did it right. They dampen at the dome - literally at the source. Soft domes, if constructed correctly, with the right coating, are incredible. Yes, there are lousy implementations of soft domes out there too, but the best ones have been the esotar series.

 

wow 4 grand for that set of speakers but I guess it's not that bad compared to their home speakers. I have a set of dyn speakers for my home theater Audience 122s front and center and they sound pretty amazing, wish I could get 52s for the souround but who cares about the rear.

 

Rainbow Reference vs....

I have a set of Rainbow Profi's collecting dust.. if my car wasn't a lease.

 

The "RR" speakers have lots of patchwork in their crossovers. Who in their right mind would use iron core inductors?!?! Hysteresis distortion rears it's ugly head - and it's quite audible. Yet we still have some "so called experts" rating these speakers very highly, even though they don't have any real measurements, t/s parameters or data. Very subjective. And Rainbow won't release anything on them other than a vague spec.

If you're in the chicagoland area, and if anyone has a pair of Rainbow Reference speakers, it would be interesting to do a head to head listening test as well as a hard core lab measurement. There is a office of Dynaudio located in the chicago area.

I've contacted the company that makes the "RR" requesting specs, etc, but they always never seem to respond.

Anyone out there with some REAL lab data on the "RR" speakers? As of now, without any of the data, they're ULTRA HYPE speakers. Plain and simple.

 

Thanks Percy, very good information.

 

Awesome post Percy!!!

 

I've had a lab data on the rainbow reference a few years ago. I'll try to dig it up.

A friend of a friend had a set of these speakers. They were simply amazing to hear. But was it worth the price tag? HELL NO. You're paying for exclusivity and a pair of gloves It's not a logical buy, just like buying nonsense mods for a car.