Design Ideologies
Dynaudio’s ongoing research and development projects, which spawned the company’s latest professional studio monitors and the advanced premium factory sound systems for the automotive industry; have bleed over into the development of the Esotec range. Employing the latest materials and technologies from the Esotec+ driver generation developed for the recent Dynaudio Focus home systems, the Esotec automotive speakers feature the latest and greatest technology and materials.
To accommodate customised multi-driver installations, all Esotec car loudspeaker drivers are available individually as separate components. The knowledge and experience gained under the constraints in developing the Dynaudio factory premium sound systems has tremendously benefited the evolution of the company’s aftermarket sound systems, especially regarding tuning the crossovers and optimizing the drivers’ parameters for the demands of a typical in-car installation.
The primary objective in the development of the Esotec range was to combine the qualitative performance attributes and off-axis response of the company’s home audio loudspeakers, and the excellent near field response and refinement of the company’s dedicated studio monitor products; into a range of products that would be ideally suited to deliver optimised audiophile grade sound in the vehicle by addressing the obstacles particularly pertaining to the acoustics of car.
Design Features
The Esotec System 242 component set combines one pair of MD-102 soft dome tweeters, one pair of MW 162 woofers and a pair of X 262 crossover networks in an incredibly refined and ultimately powerful two-way component system. All mounting hardware and grilles are included.
The Esotec mobile loudspeakers are perfectly complemented by the various dedicated crossover offerings. The Esotec component systems crossovers are truly competition grade, using the highest quality components throughout. Custom produced, hand-selected, top quality polypropylene capacitors and custom wound, high-grade air-core inductors are utilised, as are impedance correction networks and tweeter protection circuits and independent tweeter adjustment levels for added system set-up flexibility.
Mated to the advanced technology Esotec car series loudspeakers, the net result is a system that delivers authentic Dynaudio sound quality with a neutral tonal balance, incredible imaging and sound-staging capabilities, unsurpassed dynamics and complete transparency.
The MD 102 Tweeter
The new Esotec MD 102 tweeter is a soft-dome design as characteristic of Dynaudio. The fine soft dome features a special coating to facilitate an extended high frequency response free of distortion. The compact, shallow depth MD 102 tweeter features a 28 mm diameter surface area that is approximately 60% greater than that of conventional car audio tweeters. The optimized dome geometry provides greatly improved dispersion characteristics, enabling the MD 102 tweeter to offer exceptional performance even when mounted off of the listening axis. The dome coating serves to eliminate any high frequency break-ups, while providing improved damping. To eliminate high frequency distortions caused by reflections from inside the structure, the MD 102 tweeter rear chamber is also sealed and acoustically damped to eliminate high frequency distortion, which could be caused by back-wave reflections, while ferrofluid cooling adds damping and additional
power handling.
The extremely smooth and incredibly detailed high frequency reproduction characteristic of the Dynaudio sound is ensured by the all-new Esotec softdome
tweeter, which features the latest Dynaudio technological innovations. For the most authentic high-frequency reproduction – powerful Neodymium – one of the most efficient but also most expensive magnetic materials for loudspeaker construction is used in the tweeter magnet systems.
The soft-dome tweeter design topology allows unrestricted dynamics and a linear frequency response with extremely low distortion. The MD 102 features an aluminum voice coil, another Dynaudio hallmark, which has been updated and improved via an increased coil height with additional windings to allow an increased range of linear excursion within the magnetic field. Furthermore, as a result of the low moving mass of the new voice coil, a higher maximum output level and increased dynamics are achieved, while the frequency range has been expanded, thus allowing a better integration with the upper midrange frequencies to deliver a more natural sound with an open and detailed, and incredibly transparent reproduction of the high frequencies.
The MW 162 GT Midrange
The new Esotec MW 162 GT is a smaller version of the MW 162 midrange driver, also a 6.5″ diameter design with a 75 mm voice coil, housed in a slightly more compact yet rigid stamped steel basket to better allow it to fit into a wider range of drop-in factory automobile loudspeaker locations.
This is especially helpful in minimizing labor by eliminating otherwise necessary vehicle modifications during installations where space is limited. The Esotec mobile loudspeaker woofers all use glued and thermally bonded styrene butadiene rubber surrounds, which ensure excellent control and reliability, while providing added durability against the elements.
For more dynamic power delivery in the bass region, the Esotec midrange drivers employ Dynaudio’s traditional double magnet motor system while featuring new, upgraded high-density ultra-compressed ferrite magnets. The new magnet systems provide an extremely controlled and incredibly precise movement of the voice coil. The result is improved dynamics and greater fidelity to the original music signal. Dramatic musical passages are thus reproduced accurately and without compromise.
And with increased cone excursion, even the most powerful transients are delivered without compression.
The X 252 Crossover
The new Esotec X 252 crossover is a competition grade, audiophile quality passive two-way crossover designed to accommodate four of the new Esotec woofers, the MW 152, MW 162, MW 162 GT and MW 172 models in combination with the Esotec MD 102 tweeter.
The X 252 Crossover is also included in three packaged Esotec two-way component systems, and features a three-position tweeter level control to better adjust the high frequency performance to listener position or preference. With the vast experience gained in developing the advanced Dynaudio premium factory sound systems offered to the automotive industry, fine tuning the new Esotec crossovers brought forth a substantial improvement in sound quality. The Esotec X 252 is a first order crossover with impedance correction for the woofer to create an even easier load for any amplifier and a second order filter with an integrated self-resetting protection circuit for the tweeter. The Esotec crossovers all feature gold plated screw terminals, polypropylene capacitors, thick printed circuit boards with pure copper traces, and are housed in impact resistant plastic enclosures. Each is optimized for a particular configuration and is designed to enable the individual Esotec loudspeaker models to perform at their optimum capabilities while addressing a wide range of systems and applications, and are optimized for perfect phase response and time coherency in any vehicle.
Fhrx Studios’ Review –
This product has been comprehensively reviewed by Fhrx Studios. Please click here to read the full article. Being an engineering based company is conducive to us regularly testing, auditioning, comparing and reviewing components aplenty every month. We undertake these for various manufacturers, magazines, e-zines, websites, forums, social media platforms and more.