Dynaudio Acoustics Core 5 Professional 2-Way Reference Studio Monitor (Dark Grey)

Dynaudio Acoustics Core 5 Overview

Designed to mitigate listening fatigue for audio professionals, the dark grey Dynaudio Acoustics Core 5 is a professional 2-way studio monitor well suited for nearfield and midfield applications in high-demand environments.

Core 5 is the most compact model in Dynaudio's range of high-end professional reference monitors. It's a two-way nearfield design that's been created to work in cramped spaces in a stereo configuration, or to provide width and height support in an immersive setup. The twin Class-D Pascal amplifiers provide 280W to the mid/woofer and 280W to the tweeter. Couple that with advanced DSP tech onboard, and you'll get a flat bass response down to 42 Hz at -6 dB, and 46 Hz at ±3 dB. The Core 5 uses a universal power supply and ships with an IEC power cord.

Key Features at a Glance

• Handcrafted
  • Designed, developed, tested, and made in Denmark. All the drivers are handmade at Dynaudio HQ, and each speaker is individually calibrated before it leaves the factory
• Advanced DSP
  • Core's DSP optimizes performance for positioning, sound balance, and bass extension
• Power to spare
  • Each driver has its own dedicated Class-D amplifier: 500W for the woofer and a 280W amp for the tweeter
• Cerotar Pro tweeter
  • Legendary high-frequency driver has a precision soft-dome diaphragm in conjunction with a Hexis resonance-defeating inner dome

Precision Across the Range

• Up top you'll find a 1" Cerotar Pro tweeter. Like all other Core speakers (and all other Dynaudio speakers, for that matter), it uses a precision soft-dome diaphragm in conjunction with a Hexis resonance-defeating inner dome. It'll play up to 30 kHz, so you'll get all the detail you need whilst being a relaxed listen. That's crucial if you're working a long session
• The 5" woofer digs down to 45 Hz. It's made from proprietary MSP (magnesium silicate polymer) material, which precisely provides the right combination of lightness, stiffness and damping to produce the kind of accuracy that'll make your hair stand on end
• Make no mistake: these are revealing speakers. If there's a problem in your mix, they'll let you know about it

Fine-Tuning

• Each speaker has two DSP filters to help you compensate for position and boundary locations. If they're on your desk, there's a switch labeled Desk, which deals with first-reflections from the mixing surface. Got them on stands or brackets further away? Choose Anechoic. And if they're in a purpose-built wall, Soffit is your go-to. Then you can drill-down into Free, Wall, or Corner modes to compensate for reflections. There's also a low-frequency 80 Hz Linkwitz-Riley cutoff for use with a subwoofer.
• You know your room better than anyone, which is why Dynaudio has gone even further to give you Sound Balance options to change Core 5's overall presentation between Bright, Neutral, and Dark. These are much more than the typical shelving filters found in other brands as they use a full-spectrum bandpass filter that tilts depending on the sound you want. In Dark mode, you'll get a 1.5 dB decrease at 20 kHz, and a 1.5 dB increase at 40 Hz. Bright swaps to the inverse of that setting. Doing it this way means phase response is maintained between the drivers, which means timing is kept spot-on and your soundstage remains clear.

Custom Sensitivity

• Precision is everything, whether you're using analog or digital inputs. That's why Dynaudio offers you the option to control the gain staging between the monitor controller and the speakers.
• Using the analog inputs? There's a dedicated switch to give you between 0 dBu and +24 dBu to set the maximum analog input level for the Core 5.
• You can also set the maximum output SPL with the greatest bit-depth. Set this to 96 dB (reference -20 dBFS) for the peak SPL of 116 dB for the maximum level, or optimize the bit-depth for both inputs for lower-level listening, switching to 79 dB (reference -20 dBFS).
• If you're in a digital workflow, set which AES3 stream channel is going to the monitor using the Digital channel switch. The DSP will operate at the input sample-rate (with no sample-rate conversion) and can either lock to the digital audio clock or the word clock for ultimate accuracy.