Dynaudio Discontinues Contour Series

[Batman]

An excerpt I received in an email from Dynaudio yesterday. If you were remotely considering a Contour Series product, you may want to make the consideration a bit more urgent. Current inventory at dealers most likely will not be replaced unless they've already placed orders....

"Effective tomorrow March 31, 2015 Dynaudio will cease production of the original Contour S 5.4, Contour S 3.4, Contour S 1.4, Contour SCX, Contour SC and Contour SR models.

Please take note that this does not affect the recently introduced Contour S 1.4 LE and Contour S 3.4 LE models, as the new Contour LE models remain as the only current Contour models in the Dynaudio Home Systems product range."

 

[lulimet]

Wasn't Dynaudio sold to a Chinese investor?
I knew the Contour line was in its way out. They haven't updated it in years.

 

[jamhead]

Personally I don't think they needed to update. I auditioned many speakers when shopping a few years ago.....the Contours were in a special class.

If anyone's looking....I'd jump at the chance.

 

[Zing]

I knew the Contour line was in its way out. They haven't updated it in years.

Personally I don't think they needed to update.

I get nervous - or maybe suspicious - when speakers (and subs) get updated, and even more so when they get updated too frequently. I'd like to believe the companies are making them incrementally better with each update but the the cynic in me wonders if they're instead just making them incrementally cheaper.

ABC speaker company makes speaker XYZ. It costs $1000/pr to manufacture and they sell for $2000/pr. Over the course of the next year or three, it sells well and gets good reviews but then sales start to decline. Suddenly, version 2.0 is announced, typically with all sorts of hyperbole about what got changed and how it's for the better. But how do we know those changes didn't just simply result in lower manufacturing costs? Maybe the "over-engineered internal bracing" that's "designed to further reduce unwanted cabinet resonances" is really just less bracing? Maybe the "new audiophile-grade crossover" just costs a lot less to make. So now those $2000 speakers only cost $700 to make and the extra profit is to offset the decline in sales.