Dynaudio Evoke 30 floorstanding loudspeaker

REVIEW
Ed Selley
Apr 16, 2025

Inflation, perhaps second only to time, makes fools of us all. Regarding hi-fi, the ‘key price points’ are a moveable feast that coalesces for a few years before being superseded as the value of money changes. When I first became interested in audio, the £150 stand-mount bracket was an example of one of these price points; indeed, it could muster double-digit group tests, but it no longer exists. One of the closest current equivalents to the sheer density of that historic segment – until fiscal inevitability intervenes – is the space of around £3,000 and the range of floorstanding speaker models available. The Dynaudio Evoke 30 enters this hotly contended sector of the loudspeaker world.

If you were looking for a ‘type standard’ of the speakers contesting this sector, the Dynaudio Evoke 30 would be a strong candidate. The smaller of two floorstanders in the range and two stand-mounts and a centre speaker join it. The Evoke range incorporates a significant proportion of the critical technologies that make a Dynaudio a Dynaudio. These technologies mean it’s somewhat different from most other models scrapping it out.

Tweeter talk

Take the tweeter. The ‘Cerotar’ 28mm soft dome unit looks normal enough but features significantly different thinking. An evolution of the Esostar tweeter, it possesses a second ‘Hexis’ dome behind the visible one designed to reduce unwanted reflections coming back through the tweeter. Strontium carbonate Ferrite+ ceramic magnets provide the necessary power to drive the assembly to its upper-frequency roll-off of 23kHz at +/- 3dB.

This hands over to a pair of 140mm Esotec+ mid-bass drivers that operate as an overlapping pair in a 2.5-way configuration. One driver works up to the tweeter’s lower frequency roll-off of 2.3kHz, while the other doesn’t begin until 1.2kHz. The Esotec+ is the evolution of design ideas that date back to Dynaudio’s founding. Made of Magnesium Silicate Polymer, which has been used for all Dynaudio mid-bass designs, it makes use of aluminium voice coils that are larger yet lighter than more traditional copper designs, as well as offering a more consistent field for the neodymium magnet that sits inside it.

Dynaudio quotes a lower frequency roll-off of 40Hz (again at the more rigorous +/- 3dB figure), but there’s a degree of understatement in this, which we can return to later. To do this, the drivers are marshalled by a crossover, which is a second-order device that supports single wiring only in the great Dynaudio tradition. The mid-bass drivers are assisted in their work by a significant-sized rear port for which Dynaudio supplies foam bungs if required, although they generally suggest running them without if you can.

Cabinet of delights

The cabinet follows another Dynaudio tradition of adopting a trapezoidal shape when viewed from above, with the two sides of the cabinet tapering to a narrower rear panel. This is useful in terms of reducing unwanted reflections and minimising standing waves but it also serves to reduce the perceived volume of the cabinet as a whole. The cabinet itself is immensely solid in terms of feel and contributes to the 15kg all-up weight of each speaker. Tap your knuckles on any part of the speaker, and you’ll get sore knuckles, unlike anything approaching a hollow noise.

This cabinet sits on a series of outrigger feet and spikes that are shrunken versions of the arrangement seen on the larger models. As a nod to domestic realities, as well as carpet piercing spikes, more floor-friendly domes are supplied too, but having long since ruined my floors reviewing speakers that are not so equipped, I went with the spikes. It is possible to use the spikes to impart a small degree of rearward lean if you wish to experiment, but this isn’t something that Dynaudio categorically recommends doing.

Aesthetically, the Dynaudio alters your perception the more time you spend with them. The review samples arrived in white, which is rarely my preferred colour for anything, and my initial perception of the Evoke 30 is that it is subtle to the point of dullness. Compared to the Focal Aria Evo X No3 (which also has the smaller No2 in the range at almost the same price as the Dynaudio), the Evoke lacks a bit of visual drama. Spend a day or two with the Dynaudio, and your mood towards them changes. For starters, they are almost perfectly proportioned; the measurements of the cabinet itself and the size of the drivers within it all have a harmoniousness that you continue to appreciate the more time you spend with them.

I also suspect some other finishes would increase visual interest, should you wish. In addition to the white, there is a black gloss finish, but the wood veneers are by far the most interesting. Dynaudio has always been adept at choosing veneers that are subtly different from the mainstream (the original birch veneers for the Special Forty, in particular, were inspired). While the walnut finish is reasonably traditional, the ‘Blonde’ wood option is pleasingly different to most other veneers doing the rounds and suits the proportions very well. Grilles are supplied and feature magnetic trim tabs for a welcome lack of perforations and fixings that complements the driver fittings.

On paper demands

In keeping with several Dynaudio models over the years, the Evoke 30 presents on-paper measurements that might look somewhat more demanding than many key rivals. It has a quoted impedance of four ohms, which is standard fare for Dynaudio designs for several years and something that has become more common with rivals, too, but the stated sensitivity of 88dB/w is a fraction lower than what you might expect from a speaker of these dimensions with that impedance. The reality is that Dynaudio seems to be fanatically honest about measurements and rounds down rather than up. The Evoke 30 might not be my first choice for single-ended valve amp owners, but more mainstream options shouldn’t struggle.

Some aspects of the Evoke 30 require you to put in a little work, though. At a basic level, the pair of speakers will produce an acceptable stereo image from the moment they are a reasonable distance apart and pointing in the same direction. However, extracting a truly compelling soundstage with a little depth and presence outside the cabinets took more effort and fettling. After some tests, the best results in the test space were obtained with the two speakers very close to the outer edge of the (admittedly 1.6 metres wide) equipment rack and with a relatively shallow toe-in. Once this had been done, Dynaudio created an unfailingly convincing presentation. However, this required more work than I have had to put in with several other designs that I’ve recently reviewed.

From here, though, the Evoke 30 gives more than it takes. The modesty with printed numbers is also readily apparent with the bass response on offer. Dynaudio is a master at this; I don’t recall testing anything from the company that didn’t deliver a low-end heft that makes rivals feel somewhat anaemic. In the Evoke 30’s case, it doesn’t obliterate the quoted 40Hz figure quite as emphatically as some models I’ve tested. However, it still delivers a remarkable level of low-end shove for a cabinet this svelte.

However, this isn’t some unsubtle bludgeon of a speaker but a device that imparts authority utterly convincingly. The integrated drum and synth line in Sheryl Crow’s What I Can Do For You on Tuesday Night Music Club [A&M] is felt as much as heard but imparted with an agility and cohesion that means that this oddly propulsive track retains its energy and drive even as it plumbs depths that a slim cabinet less than a metre tall has no natural right to be doing.

What is arguably more impressive is that this weight is not wholly dependent on percussive force either. The enormous orchestral swell of Humility on Kamasi Washington’s Harmony of Difference [Young Turks] is as weighty and convincing. The Evoke 30 might be one of the smaller designs available at this price point, but it gives away nothing to burlier competition.

Bass master

Crucially, this mastery of the world below 80Hz is a single attribute of a talented speaker rather than its sole reason for existing. The Evoke 30 remains utterly composed and impressively detailed as you push up into the midrange. There is a point during Jackson Browne’s The Road [Asylum] where there is a pause between the end of part of the recording in a motel room in Baltimore and resuming at a larger scale on stage. Crickets can be heard outside the window at the end of the first sequence. They’re audible on almost every speaker, but here, they’re individual insects rather than a ‘cricket noise.’ It’s a tiny example of Evoke 30’s ongoing desire always to do more than the bare minimum.

This effortless extraction of detail is achieved without there being any accurate perception of embellishment or hump at any part of the midrange; indeed, depending on what speakers preceded the Dynaudio in your system, you might find the sheer even-handedness of what it does to be slightly sterile. In reality, Evoke 30 will find every shred of emotional content in a piece of music; it simply does not need to embellish it further. It will also respond with considerable transparency to your partnering equipment. The partnering amps used during my time with them were the resident Cambridge Audio Edge A and Naim Supernait 3, both of which offer a somewhat different presentation from one another. The Dynaudio reflected these differences while working happily with both.

In many ways, the upper registers mimic this detailed and transparent behaviour, but this simple statement undersells quite how good Dynaudio’s driver is in the Cerotar tweeter. The Evoke 30 combines a genuinely impressive level of energy and detail with resistance to aggression. This makes the Dynaudio Evoke 30 a tremendous partner for less-than-perfectly mastered music collections. It is possible to play a rip of the original 90s CD version of Everything Must Go by The Manic Street Preachers [Epic] at appreciable levels and still derive some satisfaction from the process. You can immediately switch to Craig Armstrong’s immaculately mastered It’s Nearly Tomorrow [BMG] and not feel you are being given a smoothed-off take on proceedings.

All this adds up to an impressively tractable speaker but one that doesn’t feel compromised in the level of engagement it generates while seemingly doing its utmost to keep even decidedly imperfect material sounding good. One

extended session ended up listening to a vinyl copy of Drop by The Shamen [Moksha Recordings], an album from when they were still a psychedelic Scottish pub band rather than their more widely known electronic era. The Dynaudio sliced through the limitations of the pressing and mastering and delivered the quirky but engaging songs in a manner that, while still unquestionably ‘hi-fi’, was also more than that.

What the Dynaudio Evoke 30 is, then, is something that contests this current three grand pinch point in a way that is superficially by the numbers – as noted, almost a type standard – but in reality, is something rather more interesting. It possesses virtues that will win many friends: sensible dimensions, immaculate build, and attractive proportions, even before they play a note, which will endear them to many. It does all this while displaying every sonic virtue that Dynaudio holds dear with no perceivable compromise. When you are at a price point where everyone wants a piece of the action, your offering must indeed be very good. Dynaudio has accomplished this with bells on, and the Evoke 30 should be at the top of any audition list.