Speakers from last century that you love

[fredoamigo]

Is this inside a Quonset hut?

This is my den ! in this 200-year-old house with really thick walls, but the interior has since changed ... the acoustics are good.

 

[Euphonious]

Even though I've only had them for three years, these Dunlavy SC-IVs quickly became my most-loved 20th Century speakers. As long as I sit real still.

 

[doug s.]

Even though I've only had them for three years, these Dunlavy SC-IVs quickly became my most-loved 20th Century speakers. As long as I sit real still.View attachment 353839

i've read that the larger dunlavy's are "the world's largest headphones"...

doug s.

 

[Prana Ferox]

This is my den ! in this 200-year-old house with really thick walls, but the interior has since changed ... the acoustics are good.

No disrespect meant. Lots of Quonset huts got turned into respectable domiciles on both sides of the Atlantic after the war, and a place I used to work at had one. I thought I recognized that telltale curve. Your 200-year-old house... clearly predates them.

 

[MattHooper]

I haven't heard a pair forever, but I have fond memories of the (Radio Shack) Realistic Minimus 7 bookshelf speakers, something of a classic.

I remember loving their tone and they had a surprisingly powerful punchy sound for their size. It was my bedroom system as a teenager. I ended up augmenting their sound
simply by putting them in corners of my big bookshelf, which acted sort of like corner horns and made them sound huge.

Mine looked like these ones:

 

[fredoamigo]

Even though I've only had them for three years, these Dunlavy SC-IVs quickly became my most-loved 20th Century speakers. As long as I sit real still.View attachment 353839

i've read that the larger dunlavy's are "the world's largest headphones"...

doug s.

For a long time, I was eager to buy a pair of these speakers. Opportunities were few and far between, and it remained an unfulfilled dream, because after listening to their big sister, ( Duntech,) I was convinced I had finally found the absolute Holy Grail of the time. They were certainly among the most advanced loudspeakers of the last century, and they remain undeniably competitive today.

 

[Euphonious]

i've read that the larger dunlavy's are "the world's largest headphones"...

doug s.

Only from the standpoint that, with a sweet spot measured in inches, they can't be shared. At least with headphones one is free to move about.

 

[375HP2482]

I remember lying on the carpet trying to see the 15" bass driver (vertically mounted exits 360 degrees around the base grille) move when my father first installed a pair of these in his listening room in around 1971.

View attachment 353673
(internet pic)

The top is solid marble and they are 7 sided. Empire Royal Grenadier 9000M (mk2 for his, tweeter lens was changed a little). They are still in their factory boxes in my storeroom. I love it how it says "World's finest Loudspeakers" on the cartons. And Made in Garden City New York. As a young boy, I wanted to go to New York because it seemed all the good stuff came from there to an Australian kid. We drove them from Melbourne to Queensland when we moved interstate because he didn't trust the movers (good call) and didn't want the marble or speakers damaged. All the HiFi went in the two cars, Mum and me in one, and Dad and my sister in the other. 1710km.

I remember coveting these as in high school in the Sixties. They were being demonstrated by a local shop at the time, was really impressed with the bass (even though it was mostly playing The Tijuana Brass).

Massive woofer in these.

 

[MEGB1262]

Hi all,

i loved my chassis for my big DIY project with Fostex FW400 bass Fostex H320 + D232 mid and Fostex T705 tweeter

https://www.acr.eu/site/assets/files/1032/acr_lautsprecherkatalog_90er_jahre.pdf

for lack of space i had to sell them - big mistake - especially the T705 are very hard to find nowadays

for the very small room after having sold them i bought a pair of Monitor Audio One speakers, still randomly used for home theatre since a while ago

 

[IOWALFTR]

I still have my Thiel cs1.0 purchased in 1986. They're driven by a Hafler poweramp and NAD integrated i use as a preamp. Old project turntable and Nakamichi 6 disc changer.

My current system, just purchased, Yamaha AS 2200, Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G, Rega Planar 6 with the MM not moving coil, and Marantz cd60, Pic's a week old, just finished moving in,

 

[Canuck57]

I haven't heard a pair forever, but I have fond memories of the (Radio Shack) Realistic Minimus 7 bookshelf speakers, something of a classic.

I remember loving their tone and they had a surprisingly powerful punchy sound for their size. It was my bedroom system as a teenager. I ended up augmenting their sound
simply by putting them in corners of my big bookshelf, which acted sort of like corner horns and made them sound huge.

Mine looked like these ones:

Great little speakers, I managed to pick up 4 pairs at various times from a thrift shop priced from $10 to $20 a pair, I gave them away to friends. My Dad and I bought these back in the day as well. I've got one pair left. I’ve never had the nicer wood ones though.

 

[Brent71]

i've read that the larger dunlavy's are "the world's largest headphones"...

doug s.

They're not that picky with positioning, your head doesn't need to be in a vise. I have mine setup in a nearly equilateral triangle and really don't notice any drastic changes moving my head a few inches, though I do sit in the same listening spot. John Dunlavy recommended even wider spacing and drastic toe-in, which might be the reason for those comments about sounding like big headphones. I started with SC-III, then SC-IV, and finally SC-V; if you position them properly they're absolutely amazing.

 

[Brent71]

For a long time, I was eager to buy a pair of these speakers. Opportunities were few and far between, and it remained an unfulfilled dream, because after listening to their big sister, ( Duntech,) I was convinced I had finally found the absolute Holy Grail of the time. They were certainly among the most advanced loudspeakers of the last century, and they remain undeniably competitive today.

More like little sister; Dunlavy picked up where Duntech left off, and JD said they were superior to his earlier Duntech speakers. JD claimed that the DAL SC-V was the best, and most-accurate, speaker he designed. Straight from the horse's mouth:

Once again, when choosing drivers for use in DAL loudspeakers, I never look at
price or appearance. This is because appearance and price do not correlate with
performance.
Indeed, almost all of the expensive, high-tech looking drivers with hi-tech
cones, etc., exhibit performance (especially impulse, step, ampl/freq., etc., )
that does not approach what we achieve with Vifa or Scan Speak drivers and a
good (but complex) compensated, first-order crossover. (Yes, "compensated"
because even the best drivers do not yield an amplitude vs freq. response
better than about plus/minus 5 dB.) Likewise, what are often referred to as
"paper cones" are not paper but a complex, proprietary blend of "pulp, binders,
carbon fibers, etc.".

And no! The speakers I designed in Australia did not exhibit the level of
accuracy of our present designs because I had neither a decent, large anechoic
chamber or the measurement capabilities available with the MLSSA system,
time-domain spectrometry, and other gear we presently use.

And, considering the vague definition of "accuracy" being used by many of
today's magazine writers, etc., is it any wonder that most audiophiles are
confused? Indeed, it seems that "accuracy" is being treated as if was merely a
matter of "taste, personal opinion, etc.". But is there not a "real" accuracy
that can be "measured" and confirmed by "real-time comparisons with live music
and voices"?

Does not true objective accuracy of reproduction depend upon how accurately the
original complex musical waveforms are reproduced by the entire audio system -
including the loudspeakers? If we ask that high quality amps, DVD players, etc.
be able to accurately reproduce squarewaves, impulses and other complex
waveforms (like a lot of musical waveforms), why not require the same from
loudspeakers? I believe the answer is an obvious "yes", for loudspeakers,
being one component of a "series system" should exhibit the same levels of
accuracy we demand from all other components of our system.

Just because most loudspeakers cannot reproduce squarewaves, impulses, etc.
with even a cursory level of accuracy, is no reason not to ask more designers
to improve their "act".

What drivers are used in Dunlavy speakers?

groups.google.com

 

[fredoamigo]

It doesn't matter which drivers Dunlavy used at the time (VIFA for high frequencies?), in my opinion the design was more important than the choice of drivers and especially the diffraction treatment. I'd be really curious to know what these speakers would sound like today with complete Spinorama data.
I see that you are a happy posseceur.

 

[Brent71]

It doesn't matter which drivers Dunlavy used at the time (VIFA for high frequencies?), in my opinion the design was more important than the choice of drivers and especially the diffraction treatment. I'd be really curious to know what these speakers would sound like today with complete Spinorama data.
I see that you are a happy posseceur.

I'd be curious to see measurements done with the Spinorama, but the size of them, and finding a pair for somebody to loan, makes it pretty difficult. JA at Stereophile did the measurements on the SC-IV, SC-IV/A and SC-VI years ago, and all of them measured extremely flat, with near-perfect impulse and step response. Stereophile never reviewed the SC-V; Audio Magazine did, but they didn't publish the detailed measurements like Stereophile. JD claimed the SC-V was the best, and most accurate speaker he ever built though, so the measurements of the other models should be a good indication of what the SC-V is capable of doing . I haven't seen any other speakers that have been able to match or best those measurements all these years later.

JD mainly used Vifa drivers in the DAL speakers; some exceptions were Morel 10"woofers in the early models of the SC-IV before switching to Vifa, ScanSpeak 10" woofers in the SC-IV/A, Morel 8" mid-bass in early SC-VI before switching to Vifa, and Eminence 15" woofers in all of the SC-VI.

I'm an extremely happy Dunlavy owner. I bought all of my pairs used so I didn't have to spend a lot of money to get incredible performance. What else could I have bought for under $5000 that comes even remotely close to the performance and accuracy of the SC-V? Nothing that I can think of.

 

[olds1959special]

My Vandersteen 2Ci's are from 1989-1991.