'D' for Denmark. Hamlet's country may just enjoy the highest density of hifi manufacturers in the world. Like Dynaudio and Scan-Speak—and formerly Dansk brands Peerless and Viva now part of Taiwan's Tymphany Group—Stilling's AudioTechnology design and produce loudspeaker drive units. This brand is unusually responsive to OEM customization requests. It enables speaker designers to alter performance parameters to their exact specs. This family business is run by Ejvind and Per Skaaning. Ejvind had previously founded Scan-Speak and Dynaudio to be Danish hifi royalty. AudioTechnology drivers are found in speakers by Goldmund, Peak-Consult, Verity—and in my RiPol subwoofer as twin 15-inchers; as a twin 10-inch upgrade option in today's M1 subwoofer; and as the M1 monitor's custom mid/woofer. When it comes to transducer envy, Daudio have us most royally covered. Why might customizing a mid/woofer intended for dipole use be salient? Its return stroke doesn't see compressed air trapped inside a box act as a spring. Now stiffening a driver's suspension components of surround and spider becomes sensible compensation. It also minimizes the amount of damping our amplifier must exert. To once more personalize context, I run my Qualio IQ in the below main system fronted by a 100Hz/4th-order high pass. That's to avail myself of the semi-cardioid dispersion advantages of the Swiss RiPol sub. It covers bandwidth which includes 35/70Hz room modes. It's how a directional subwoofer plus two ultra-compact active PSI Audio bass traps in the front corners become very effective room tuning. I even plug the IQ's port. Do you now see my full picture? I'm essentially knee-capping—castrating?—my floorstanding 3-ways. They might as well be far smaller monitors. I look at beefy bass bins which I don't use. The M1 monitors would strip back visuals to actual needs then hot-rod the IQ's smaller dipole Mundorf AMT with the Germans' crown jewel. Doing it all in white as my all-time favourite speaker colour would be the albino cherry on top. As a lightweight compact, the M1 would also easily hoof it upstairs to play its two systems where I respectfully decline to heave the IQ.

One of those upper systems combines ModalAkustik's MusikBoxx monitors in white with a matching 15" sealed Zu Monitor sub whilst a Pál Nagy active analogue crossover splits the signal into 70Hz hi/lo-pass paths. Replacing the sealed German stand-mounts with their smaller Mundorf mohawk with the Dutch invaders and their taller skull spike was clearly in the cards.

Before you think this the end of my Mundorf AMT dipole dalliances…

… there's still my office system…

… and this upstairs variant:

Predicting that Daudio would fit right in was dead-certain insider trading. What my saying 'yes' in so many ways was still hazy on? Our Dutchies' building block. Was it hi-tech synthetic stone like Corian, HiMacs or Krion? Daudio's site just then played shtum about it. Ditto on the sub's electronics, its connectivity, adjustments and output power. My 'yes' didn't need those details. Prospective punters might. So I asked Hans. Whilst at it, what else should potential buyers know? Given the M1's division of labour, does the monitor present a tube-happy Ω curve? In Daudio's view, what is the M1's generally successful front-wall distance window? Is there any digital latency in the sub to advise physical forward placement compensation for proper time alignment? After all, successful sub-for-music installs want more consideration than just parking a subwoofer in a front corner for maximum room gain plus maximum time delay.

Relative to letting all 'nasty bits' hang out—a common sentiment by dipole detractors about dynamic open baffles' exposed baskets, magnets and wiring—Daudio play it as clean as white starched table linen. Complete black-out treatment of the driver meets single short straight wire lead just as any box speaker must flaunt by way of attached speaker cables. The rest of it conceals inside the upright. Not even a puritan High Priestress should object. This segues back at my earlier model-year riff. Over 35 years, musicians Hans and partner Jeroen have clearly sweated all small details which separate an interesting idea from 'D' for domestic docility not defiance. That leads to another bit of obviousness. The modular M1 3-way concept won't work without sub. An open-backed 7.8" driver can't make real bass. Here it doesn't have to. That keeps it quick and resolved enough to meet a blazingly fast very dynamic tweeter without issues. For more reason why this dipole concept stops at 120Hz then goes sealed-box active, here's another designer currently working on a full-range dynamic dipole: "I already tested Dayton's 18" woofers. They require active drive of at least 1KW which delayed me for a long time because I want my project to be passive. Physics are heartless. Without baffle, a nude high-stroke 15" woofer duplicating a free-standing AMT starts its 6dB roll-off at already ~600Hz. That means it's down ~25dB/30Hz. I'd need eight per side just to compensate. Series-connected drivers never work well so now quad amping and high excursions enter the picture or there's no real bass. There is real bass to be had from Dayton's 18-inchers but only with 1'200-watt active ICEpower drive on each; two woofers per side; and only for reasonable not very high SPL. I tried it all. There's either a huge utility bill and complex design; or some kind of folded baffle." Knowing the same Physics, Daudio's designers opted for a hybrid approach—just like my Qualio but still with their own wrinkle.