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A common issue of many hydraulic machines is given by oscillatory behavior. This is a stringent problem of several load holding machines, such as the case of the hydraulic crane taken as reference in this study. Several methods are traditionally used to dampen these oscillations to reduce hazards and improve productivity. However, these methods are often highly energy dissipative. As pertain to the case of hydraulic cranes, a good dynamic behavior is usually obtained through high energy losses introduced by the counterbalance valves. These valves, which use is often mandatory for load handling applications, are known to introduce oscillatory behavior in the machine actuators. However, these valves can also mitigate the machine dynamics when proper but energy dissipative settings are utilized. This study experimentally evaluates the energy amount saved when more energy efficient valve settings are used. The dynamic response is shown to be greatly affected by these changes.