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My player had Liars’ newest in its drawer and depending on mood, I either find Sisterworld extremely nerve-wrecking or fascinatingly weird. Easy listening it isn’t on the best of days. The e-bass opening on "No Barrier Fun" wasn’t merely very wiry and acute, each note also ended more grippily than over my Thiel. This ability to differentiate the Dynaudio applied across the audible range, i.e. also the bass. There was never any danger of one-note bass. That said, the same money could certainly buy more fulsome fatter boxes.
Even so, I viewed what was delivered as neutral. Ditto for the upper ranges. The treble connected seamlessly to the midband  to feel neither politely rounded off nor spectacularly brilliant. It simply shot straight from the hip. This implied good incisive behavior whereby sibilants had natural spice, not extra cayenne or diplomatic dilution. If the mastering engineer got off on committing for posterity busting spittle bubbles on Tori Amos’ lips, from a certain volume level on up I’d find myself inside her mouth questioning the recording maestro’s good manners.


Sonics Part II – The Reporter: In the upper registers too the Special Twenty-Five acts as front-line news anchor to report the facts without any makeover. The resolution of this tweeter is significant but harshness, grain or artificial metal colorations are thankfully absent. With all its obvious love of detail, this box is coherent without seams unlike certain hybrids which might mate a planar tweeter to a dynamic mid/woofer. Despite proper level balancing, this can cause asymmetries in impulse response and dispersion.
Regarding the vocal band and confessing to writerly repetitiveness by now, here too the Danes show no preference. Once again they proceed with neutrality. I actually caught myself with a "somewhat light" comment for the vocals of Françoiz Breut’s debut album while Howy Gelb’s voice on ‘SNo Angel Like You received a "clearly sonorous" to think, what the heck? That both were true initially stumped me.


How exactly a microphone feed sounded when it was recorded we never know of course. Reviewer assurances of ‘neutral’ can never be taken literally. Even so, when after a long line of very different albums a pair of speakers renders them more different and unique than another pair, chances are high that this reflects on greater honesty. That’s true also for the Dynaudio Special Twenty-Five. She passes data rather than interprets them.


The particular charm of such a monitor involves elimination of diffuse 'somewhere' clouds and all subliminal questions of 'where exactly'. Everything is transparently clear, unequivocal and obvious. Questions and doubts vanish. This can be relaxing. In my book, such a monitor also doesn’t sound stern but enriched, i.e. richer in mid tones, nuances and timbre inflections. To reach for flowers, think colourfully mixed bouquet, not a thematically monochrome assemblage. Enough purple prose, the point is made. Whoever insists on coloration here or there will simply be unfit for a neutral studio monitor.


The Special Twenty-Five is a very impulsive performer as well. This requires no drum & percussion test track mayhem to ascertain. Finely nuanced piano, acoustic guitar and woodwinds whose attacks don’t scale gradually but kick in instantly will demonstrate it perfectly. Plucks, picks and blats all are immediate and even hard when necessary. The presentation as such is very energetic and with the right recording reaches an unplugged vibe of electrified air. Nothing is ever delayed, rather a tad too brisk at times.