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The speaker appreciates basic setup care and relatively short break-in. Out of the box bass and upper mids don't meet in the dark. A few hours later things already get far more interesting. Hence the usual reco to wire up the speakers out of phase, put 'em face to face and run them solid for a night. The next day already rewards with a transformation. The 4405 shouldn't park directly up against the wall. At least 30-40cm breathing room from the front and side walls is called for. In my digs steep toe-in to look straight at me worked best.
One final tip? After extended non-use—I took a break for about 4 weeks—you'll need to wake these up again before they show up in full. But that's quite common. Half an hour of signal will kick things into high gear again. And once setup and warm-up are handled, all understatement is quickly forgotten. As soon as the music starts to flow, the Dílis is anything but a wall flower. This starts in the bass. The paralleled 5ers dished out more than I'd entrusted to such narrow columns.
I'm currently hot on Nelly Furtado. On"Big Hoops" from The Spirit Indestructible the lady does protest very loudly. Granted, it's perhaps not the epidemy of the art form but it's nicely ironic and fun particularly cranked up to rile the neighbors. And pissing off neighbors works well with these. Yet the speaker ultimately lives up to its lovin' name by way of countering unhealthy loudness orgies. Solid room levels are easily attained but much above the box hit its limits and starts to distort. SPL junkies know that nothing beats cubic inches like more cubic inches. And a total of four 5ers is simply not the end of that drag strip's rainbow.
Below party levels things were real fun. I switched to another flame, songstress Paula Morelenbaum. With "O samba e o tango" from Telecoteco, the Brazilian dame concocts a spicy mix of samba and tango beats, acoustic and electronic sounds. This comes off with high contrast and intense dynamics. This showed how the Highlanders extend low enough but give up control in their lowest register. The guttural sucker punches this cut contains in the bass showed less than their usual violence.
On differentiation my resident Geithain ME 150 work horses had more as well – big deal at five times the price and at least one third more cone surface. Regardless, the Dílis remained convincing. She went easily as low and if I didn't know just how gnarly bass could crack over the far dearer boxes, I'd have nothing to criticize. The French Scots (or is that Scottish Frenchies?) really made no mistakes on this count. They simply operated within the normal limits of price and construction to hold at bay any meaningful nits.
The remaining registers not only followed suit but starting with the upper bass gained nicely in definition and control. From the power region to the treble the speaker showed energy and even-handedness. Particularly dynamic fare grooved to suggest that the small mid/woofers had a solid advantage on speed.
