Recording - November 2016 - 45

midrange. They excel at vocal clarity; I've
noticed that voice sounds extremely natural
and organic on these monitors, which has
helped to dial in vocal parts and commercial VO work.
The high end is very bright and airy, but
doesn't sound too thin or harsh. That being
said, while playing with the tuning parameters on the back panel, I didn't feel compelled to leave them on Bright for any length
of time. Even on the Neutral setting, these
monitors have plenty of top end. Placing
them on the Dark setting still sounds far from
what I would classify as 'dark', but it helped
to bring a touch of warmth to the table. I left
these monitors set to Dark for most of the
time I had working with them.
I found the low-frequency response to
have a slight lack of energy on the LYD 7.
I'd be curious to hear them next to the LYD
8, as those are driven by an 80W amp for
the LF driver (compared to the 50W amp
for the LYD 7's LF driver). While the lows do
sound very tight and punchy, it's just a little
more work to zero in and focus on them,
especially when the rest of the spectrum is
so transparent and detailed. It may be a
good idea to use these with a subwoofer.
The sweet spot is rather generous, and
the stereo imaging is superb. While they are
overall very unflattering, I also find them to
sound inspiring at the same time. Brilliantly
mixed records translate beautifully to the LYD
7. Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" is a
great example of this. Everything sounds full
of space and depth; the arrangement and
mix of the different guitar parts can be perfectly distinguished, and they're well represented from left to right.
High precision, low SPL
As I mentioned earlier, Dynaudio talks
about the LYD series' ability to remain accurate and consistent at all listening levels, particularly low levels. Rather than just giving
my subjective two cents on this matter, I
wanted to put this to the test.
I started with an Earthworks QTC1 omnidirectional measurement microphone going
into a Grace Design m101 preamp. I set up
the microphone in the sweet spot and
recorded pink noise at a range of different
SPL: 75 dB, 65 dB, 55 dB, and 45 dB.
Next, I level-matched the clips in Pro Tools
and ran them through a frequency analyzer,
paying close attention to the distribution of
energy from recording to recording.
No subjectivity here-you can see on the
spectrum analyzer that the response is
impressively consistent throughout the range
of listening levels. The LYD 7s hold their own
in this matter, retaining their accuracy and
detail, even at surprisingly low SPL.
Final thoughts
Dynaudio's LYD series is the real deal.
The LYD 7 is incredibly revealing, with a
very detailed midrange and wide-open
highs. The internal DSP has proven its merit

and flexibility, providing different tuning
parameters that help compensate for a myriad of environments and listening spaces.
They are a great complement to many
nearfield systems, with the ability to point
out flaws until the mix is dialed just right.
One of the biggest takeaways for me
was the seamless translation from the LYD 7
to other speaker systems, pro and consumer
alike. Once the mix sounds right on the LYD
7, it will likely sound right everywhere else,
too. The bottom line is, I felt my mixes
improved after using the LYD 7... these monitors challenge you to work harder, but the
end result speaks for itself.
Price: $669 each
More from: Dynaudio, www.dynaudio.com
Alex Hawley (alex@recordingmag.com)
is a session guitarist and recording engineer
currently working at Coupe Studio in
Boulder, CO.

45 dB

55 dB

65 dB

75 dB
RECORDING NOVEMBER 2016

http://www.dynaudio.com http://mojaveaudio.com

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