Dynaudio Confidence 20
Deliciously Crispy
Sound Quality
94/100
Build Quality
94/100
Value for Money
85/100
The Confidence 20 combines sweet Esotar3 treble, natural tonal colour and a vast, precisely focused soundstage in a standmount that plays with surprising scale. SoundStage Solo admired its lifelike timbre and deep, agile bass, while What Hi-Fi? praised its exceptional resolution, composure and refined driver integration. It is a sophisticated, full-range-feeling monitor for serious systems.
Pros
Exceptionally detailed, smooth and sweet treble, with seamless integration into an articulate midrange.
Expansive three-dimensional soundstage with strong image focus and placement.
Deep, clean and powerful bass for a standmount, retaining composure at high levels.
Beautifully engineered cabinet, inert Compex baffle and dedicated stand/port system.
Cons
Refined upper-midrange and treble transients can sound restrained, reducing rhythmic drive and excitement for some listeners.
Needs capable, high-power electronics to reveal its full dynamic potential, particularly in larger rooms or at high volumes.
Bass is remarkable for the size but does not replace a subwoofer for the lowest, visceral octave.
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What Reviewers Are Saying
SOUND QUALITY PERFORMANCE 94/100
Reviews portray the Confidence 20 as an exceptionally resolved, balanced and refined standmount with unusually large-scale presentation. Its main character is controlled rather than overtly excitable: it combines deep, powerful bass for the format with seamless tonal integration, superb imaging and a smooth, highly detailed top end.
Bass
93/100
For a large two-way standmount, reviewers consistently found the bass unusually deep, rich, clean and powerful. SoundStage Australia praised its uncommon low-frequency extension, dexterity and transient attack, while What Hi-Fi? heard a solidity rare among standmounters; Zero Fidelity adds that it remains composed at high levels in a large room, though it cannot replace a subwoofer for the lowest, visceral octave.
Mid
95/100
The midrange is repeatedly praised for its natural body, clarity and tonal sophistication. SoundStage Australia called its tonal capabilities among the best it had heard, particularly with acoustic instruments and voices, while What Hi-Fi? highlighted full-bodied, agile vocals and exceptionally coherent driver integration.
Treble
96/100
The Esotar3 tweeter attracts unanimous, enthusiastic praise for combining resolution with sweetness and ease. Reviewers describe percussion and cymbals as richly textured and true to tone, with Zero Fidelity especially admiring its ability to convey energy and detail without aggressive brightness or fatigue.
Soundstage Imaging
95/100
The Confidence 20 produces a notably expansive, layered and sharply focused soundstage. SoundStage Australia heard a massive three-dimensional panorama with excellent image placement, while Audiophilepure and Zero Fidelity also found wide staging, convincing depth and stable focus even beyond the central listening seat.
Dynamics
91/100
These speakers can play loudly without strain and handle large-scale crescendos with considerable authority. There is a trade-off in their refined voicing: What Hi-Fi? found upper-mid and treble transients slightly restrained, softening rhythmic urgency, while other reviewers note that dynamic expression benefits from powerful amplification.
Assessments of Build Quality, Usability, and Overall Propositions.
Build Quality
94/100
The Confidence 20 is widely presented as a very substantial, carefully engineered product, with a sculpted, well-damped Compex baffle, resonance-conscious driver mounting and a sophisticated down-firing port arrangement. What Hi-Fi? specifically praises the build and finish, while SoundStage Australia highlights the attractive cabinet work and excellent WBT binding posts.
Value for Money
85/100
At roughly US$12,000 or AU$17,999 including the dedicated stands, the Confidence 20 is a firmly premium purchase. Reviewers are strongly enthusiastic about its performance, but provide little direct comparison with similarly priced rivals or explicit assessment of whether it represents outstanding value at this level.
Reviews & Sources
Professional reviews and sources for this product's Watt'n Potatoes analysis.
Online Reviews & Mentions
YouTube Reviews
Forum Mentions
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Specifications
- Status
- Current
- Segment
- Home
- Series
- Confidence
- Type
- Bookshelf
- Sensitivity (dB @ 2.83V/1m)
- 87
- IEC Long Term Power Handling (W)
- 250
- Rated Impedance (Ohm)
- 6
- Minimum Impedance (Ohm)
- 5 ohm @ 155 Hz
- Lower Cutoff (Hz @ +/- 3 dB)
- 42
- Upper Cutoff (kHz @ +/- 3 dB)
- 22
- Box Principle
- Bass reflex down-firing port
- Crossover
- 2-way
- Crossover Frequency (Hz)
- 2325 Hz
- Crossover Topology
- 2nd order
- Tweeter
- 28 mm Esotar 3
- Midrange/Woofer
- 18 cm MSP
- Weight kg
- 27
- Weight lbs
- 59.5
- Width mm
- 233
- Height mm
- 520
- Depth mm
- 414
- Width inches
- 9 1/8
- Height inches
- 20 4/8
- Depth inches
- 16 2/8
- Width mm incl. feet/grill/stand
- 368
- Height mm incl. feet/grill/stand
- 1140
- Depth mm incl. feet/grill/stand
- 457
- Width inches incl. feet/grill/stand
- 14 ¾
- Height inches incl. feet/grill/stand
- 44 9/10
- Depth inches incl. feet/grill/stand
- 18
- Grille
- Black
- Baffle
- Compex\nDDC 2
Manufacturer's Description — Dynaudio
We don’t think a speaker’s size should dictate how good it sounds… so we don’t let it
Confidence 20
We don’t think a speaker’s size should dictate how good it sounds… so we don’t let it.
The compact Confidence 20 takes the performance, the passion and the power of the range’s larger speakers, and puts it on a stand.
We’ve spent years looking at how we could improve on the previous range of Confidence speakers. And, after almost countless hours in design labs, our state-of-the-art Jupiter measuring facility, modeling and simulation suites – and, of course, listening rooms – we’ve done it.
Cutting-edge development
Like the rest of the range, the Confidence 20 features the 28mm Esotar3 soft-dome tweeter, plus an improved 18cm NeoTec MSP woofer and an innovative down-firing bass port.
Its drivers feature cutting-edge developments in airflow technology (including a much larger rear chamber and optimised venting in the tweeter, plus the resonance-stabilising Hexis inner dome); simulation-derived diaphragm thickness; super-powerful neodymium magnets; and the Compex front baffle.
The 28mm Esotar3 soft-dome tweeter takes over 40 years of Dynaudio expertise, plus plenty of learnings from the award-winning Esotar Forty unit – and rolls it all into the finest tweeter we’ve ever created. A powerful neodymium magnet system, innovations in airflow routing, the resonance-busting Hexis inner dome… it all combines to increase detail, clarity and sensitivity.
The 18cm NeoTec MSP woofer also has neodymium under the hood, and uses glass-fibre in its voice-coil former for optimum stiffness. The voice-coil itself is aluminium, which lets us use the ideal weight (or lightness, depending on your point of view) for powerful and controlled bass as well as refined midrange. And the entire woofer motor has been designed to harness airflow using an innovative venting system that’s been machined directly into the magnet. (Something you can learn more about in our six-part podcast series on the Confidence).
We’re guessing you want to know how it sounds… and the answer is, simply, “like your favourite artist”. Nothing more, nothing less.
Verified Dealers
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Authorized dealers for Dynaudio Confidence 20
- In Living Stereo — in-store — New York City, New York, United States (website)
- Resolution A/V — in-store — New York City, New York, United States (website)
- Accent On Music — in-store — Mount Kisco, New York, United States (website)
- Acclaim Sound and Light — online and in-store — North Bay, Ontario, Canada (website)
- Acoustica — online and in-store — Chester, England, United Kingdom (website)
- Addicted to Audio — online and in-store — Epping, Victoria, Australia (website)
- AES — in-store — Mitte, Hessen, Germany (website)
- Ahead Stereo — in-store — Los Angeles, California, United States (website)
- Alpha High End — online and in-store — Brasschaat, Vlaams Gewest, Belgium (website)
- AMPL’HIFI — online and in-store — Nîmes, Occitanie, France (website)
and 174 more verified dealers