Dynaudio Professional’s DBM50 is a powered monitor speaker specifically engineered to sit on desktops—my review pair are positioned on either side of my Samsung 22-inch monitor for a total width of about 38-inches on my workstation’s desktop. They are a rear-ported design, feature a 7.1-inch woofer and 1.1-inch soft dome tweeter, two 50-watt internal power amps (separate amp for tweeter and woofer) and the cabinet is angled upward about 19-degrees to focus the stereo mix image at the listener. I found that using speaker isolation pads was not required with these because the cabinet’s vibrations don’t seem to couple to my desktop’s surface as other monitors will without decoupling.
Handcrafted in Denmark including the drivers, the DBM50’s back panel have a three-band active filter set plus a high-pass filter to compensate for using a subwoofer. But I found these two monitors to have more than ample bass for mixing—if your music demands it or you are mixing in 5.1 or 7.1 surround and require a sub, you can select between 60Hz or 80Hz cut-off frequencies. I also like the switchable Power Save feature that, after 20 minutes of no audio input, go to standby and awaken in about 2 seconds automatically—more electronic products should have a power saving mode.
The DBM50s sell for $499 MSRP each, weigh 15.9 lbs., have a frequency range of 46Hz - 21kHz and are capable of 117dB SPL. There is an optional ($99) remote volume controller that plugs into a mini-jack on the speaker’s back panel. I am loving these and hate to have to send them back. Check out http://dynaudioprofessional.com/bm-series/monitors/dbm50.
