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Review: Dunlavy Audio Labs SC-IVa

Category: Speakers

When I decided seven years ago to upgrade my audio system, I started by finding a speaker I loved. I searched for almost a year listening to every speaker available in the Minneapolis area. I found Magnepan and MartinLogan to be stunning but too dry and fatiguing for my taste. The midrange was not as deep and rich as I was looking for. Wilson had great sound but beyond the budget I was hoping to stay in. B&W sounded thick and boomy to me and Meridian was electronic and artificial. Thiel, Audio Physics and Dunlavy became the finalists. Being a late ‘60s early ‘70s guy, I came from Marantz and MaIntosh electronics and JBL and Altec Lansing speakers. The size and depth of the sound of Dunlavy along with the exceptional midrange were the final factors in my choosing Dunlavy IV as the speaker I wanted. The problem was I could only afford the Dunlavy III, exceptional midrange but not the ultimate bottom end of the IV.
It was about two years after buying the III's that I had the opportunity to upgrade to the IV's. It turned out that over those two years Dunlavy had improved the IV's and had a new model, IVa. They amazed me to find the IVa was even richer and deeper than the old IV model. The Dunlavy IVa speaker consists of two 10" woofers, two 5" mids and one 1" composite textile dome tweeter. Frequency response is 25Hz to 20 kHz, and Sensitivity is 91 dB with an Impedance of 5 ohms. Size is 72" high, 15" deep and 12" wide with a weigh of 190 lbs. each. $8495/pr
I believe Dunlavy speakers have no rivals within their price category. John Dunlavy is obsessed with designing the most accurate reproductions of sound. To meet this stringent standard Dunlavy has built one of the worlds best-equipped laboratories in order to test his designs. This has lead to some very harsh discussions between John Atkinson of Stereophile and John Dunlavy. It seems that JA does not like being out engineered by one of the great loudspeaker designers and the result was punishing JD by putting the once Stereophile "product of the year" Class A component into their B class after Dunlavy improved the speaker to JA's recommendation. Despite the politics of Stereophile Magazine, this speaker will hold its own with speakers two and three times its cost.
The highs are clear, grain less and extremely extended. JA spoke of them appearing a bit forward but I have never felt that was the case with this speaker, and can hardly believe a comment like that when compared with some of Stereophiles favorites MartinLogan and Meridian. Comments like these only strengthen my lack of trust for this Magazine. The midrange on all Dunlavy speakers is amazingly magical. I have not tried any other speaker that is as pure and life like with the female voice than Dunlavy. They display all the color and texture of the midrange with a crispness and transparency. Bass has long been the contention point of the IV series. The fact that they rate them at 25Hz meaning that it cuts off one organ pedal is hardly an issue for me. On the double bass, even the lowest note is crisply defined with no bloating or smear. The famous subway as heard on Water Lilly Acoustics "Natures Realm" with the Philadelphia Orchestra is deep under my floor forward and to the right. On Cowboy Junkies "Trinity Sessions" the foot pounding on the stage is as if he were in my livingroom pounding on my floor. I have no lack for bass from my speakers, in fact any more might be too much. Sound stage is wide and very deep. Excellent transient speeds, superb impact yet with an effortless smoothness. I truly believe these are the best speakers I can afford and is very much at home in my system. They have never left me lacking or longing for something better. That says a lot for a guy who is always looking for more, but never from my speakers. These are simply great speakers, and their service is exceptional as I found out with my III's, I twice had drivers replaced although it turned out the speakers had nothing to do with the problems I was having.


Associated gear
Sony SCD-1 SACD player
Placette active pre-amp
Plinius SA-102 amps
Nordost Valhalla speaker cable
Nordost Valhalla and NBS Statement interconnects
NBS Statement power cords
Hydra power conditioner

Similar products
Thiel CS7 series
Audio Physic Virgo
Wilson Watt/puppy
128x128jadem6
77 responses Add your response
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
Thenthing about dunlavy's is eventually you notice your favoring certain recordings more than others and then it hits you...they are severely flawed by a mediocre crossover and cheap diffraction padding which limits their dispersion. I had the SC V's for 4 years...when other speakers came in, I realized just how flawed they were...squawky and grainy without subtlety!!
jack43
10 posts
 
I have a pair of Dunlavy Cantatas that I bought after a visit to the factory and a meeting with John (They sadly went out of business shortly afterward). Of the many interesting things he said, one stood out in my mind. All of his speakers (that he was building at that point) sound the same except for base. The midrange and tweeter response is identical.

I have a friend who has been in the high end audio business for many years, both as a dealer and a manufacturer--at one time he was the #1 dealer for Audio Research in the US. He has heard virtually everything and when he heard my Cantatas (same as the Aletha, only square column), he was completely blown away and set out on a frenzied search to find a pair (he failed). He said without a doubt these were the most natural, dynamic speakers he'd ever heard.

Anyway, what a pity they are no more, but if you locate a pair, buy them. You won't get mine in the near future as I am an addict.
lisavalentin-12d7
1 posts
 
Anybody got any thoughts about the impedence of the Dunlavy SC1IVas?? I just bought a MacIntosh amp with transformer taps, and I'm wondering which output taps to use, 8 ohms, 4, 2, ?
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
John Dunlavy please come back! I had to purchase instead a pair of Thiel CS6s and would probably have purchased a new pair of IVs if you were still in business.
hockey
32 posts
 
I found the Dunlavy's (powered by the high dollar Theta Monoblocks) to be the most directional speaker I've ever heard - moving one foot in any direction revealed a totally different presentation. If positioned in the "sweet" spot and using a terrific recording they are impressive - otherwise not for me. With less than perfect recordings such as Van Halen's first album will have you leaping for the remote in about 30 seconds - harsh to the point of pain. Admittedly it's a far cry from a great recording but it sounds great through my BAT VK6200 and Thiel CS7.2s.

I audition with both great and crappy recordings as most music will fall between these two - unfortunately there are some really bad recordings of wonderful music. Good speakers sound great with great recordings and pretty bad with bad sources, while great speakers sound amazing with great recordings yet still pretty good with the crappy stuff.
radman
7 posts
 
I have had the Dunlavy SC-IV in my listening room after VonSchweikert VR4 originals (after they went out of business I traded to the Dunlavy's). They were a little lean sounding in my room(19 x 17.5). My wife objected to the size and then I went to Proac 3.8's which sounded very musical, but did not give the illusion of live performers in my room so I sold them. I next auditioned the Aletha, Meadowlark Heron i, the SC-IVa, B&W N802, Vanderstein 3A signatures and the Genesis 500. The Aletha sounded more natural than the SC-IVa, particularly at low volumes and a talk w/Dunlavy convinced me that the downfiring 10" woofer was actually easier to integrate into a normal untreated room than the SC-IVa probably due to possible interactions caused by the woofer/floor and woofer/ceiling distances resulting in some bass frequency cancellations. The Meadowlarks weren't bad,but sometimes sounded odd at the transition from bass to midrange. My second favorite in the comparison was the Genesis. Paradoxically, to what I thought, they were very coherent despite a complex driver array. I was also uneasy about the company's financial status and replacement drivers. Whereas the Dunlavy may not use exotic drivers, they are readily available. I have recently heard the Silverline LaFolias in my room and they have a very nice presentation. I do not think they are as neutral sounding as the Dunlavy's, but they have some other strengths. To summarize, once you hear a time aligned coherent loudspeaker, all others sound like speakers and do not complete the illusion of performers in your room (for intimate studio recording) or transporting you to the space in which the recording was made (if large scale orchestral work). Furthermore, once you hear non resonant acoustic suspension without a port tuned to a specific frequency, it is hard not to hear the tuning of a port in such a design. The trade off usually is lower efficiency of acoustic suspension designs which I don't know how Dunlavy overcame (his design is reported 91 dB efficient).
My system: Millenium Signature tubed preamp (no longer made but previously imported by Fanfare International)
Electrocompaniet EMC 1 with 24/192 upgrade
Plinius SA250 MK IV
Plinius Jarrah phono stage
VPI Scout w/ JMW 9 arm and Clearaudio Sigma cartridge
Siltech FTM 4 SG G3 and FTM 4 Gold or Acoustic Zen Silver Reference Mk II or Nordost Valhalla intercon.
Purist Audio Collosus Biwire speaker wire
Top Gun, Top Gun special, and Top Gun HCFi cords into a Top Gun Super Power Block.
Dedicated 15 amp source, and 20 amp amplifier circuits with either Wattagate or PS audio Powerport receptacles
No added room treatments allowed (wife), but in a "normal" room with a wood cabinet wall system on one side and 2 large windows with pulled back curtains flanking a fireplace on the other side, none is currently required.
snook2's avatar
snook2
616 posts
 
Drubin, I now have the Piega 10's. I hesitated to mention them so as not to take away from this thread
gregm
3,395 posts
 
Interesting & well-documented post J-D (may I add, "as usual"?).
You have obviously licked the dual matter of a) driving the IV, b) and setting them up,
thereby relieved them of a slight "boxiness" I had heard some time ago.
I felt this "boxiness" was out of character with the speaker per se. It seemed to be located in the lower mids while the upper mids were engaging & the bass very clear -- though not extended: as it turned out, we didn't have enough amp power to drive the speakers full-range & the 5-Ohm nominal wasn't helping. When we switched to an YBA Passion stereo, we no longer had boxiness -- but we had phasing!
So, we came to the logical conclusion that placement (good for the previous amp) was wrong. It took us the best part of an hr, in a LONG room (~25x15) to get them to play a a full orchestra.
When we placed them to satisfaction (or so we thought) we felt we weren't getting the most out of them -- phasing problems (or so we thought).
So, we tried different cables (speaker). The only "other" cables at hand were short valhallas. After some weight-lifting (the YBA is heavy & not mover friendly), we managed to connect the valhallas. Bingo! (Then, we had to re-position the speakers, another weight-lifting excercise)

Your Plinius must have fallen in love with the Dunlavy's!
jadem6's avatar
jadem6 OP
1,074 posts
 
Snook2 is right, they do take a big effort to get placement right. Once the proper location is found they are great. I set them up on the long wall, and they really need at least 18 feet of long wall as a minimum. I think 28x23 or so would be perfect, but my 18x15 works great.
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drubin
3,267 posts
 
Tell us what they are, snook!
snook2's avatar
snook2
616 posts
 
The first time I heard the The dunlavy IV it was the best speaker I had heard. That was about 6 years ago. When I received the speakers I found they were extremely difficult to sound right in my room. I changed to the IVa then the V's thinking I could get the bass right. When that didn't work I went to tube amps and nothing helped although the sound was good it was missing the musicality that I heard in a heavily damped room. I guess they sound good in that anechoic chamber that Dunlavy has a the factory but thats impossible in most houses. Since then I've found speakers that are very room friendly, smaller, and much better sounding from top to bottom at half the price
bulldogger
262 posts
 
Thanks Jadem6! That is truly a great review. Everyone isn't always able to convey why they like a speaker. You did a great job of doing that.
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drubin
3,267 posts
 
So it is, thanks. Still a lot bigger than my ProAc 2.5's though.
jadem6's avatar
jadem6 OP
1,074 posts
 
The SC-IIIa is a great looking speaker. Is the sound the same as the Cantata?
khaki8
206 posts
 
The SC111-A is the Cantata in a different box.
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drubin
3,267 posts
 
Great review, JD. Thank you.

Am I correct that the Cantata has been discontinued? It is nowhere to be found on the Dunlavy website. I'm afraid the IV is just too big physically for me.
khaki8
206 posts
 
Jadem,
The mod was done because I really liked the sonic signature of the speakers. I wanted to improve on what was there. The mod created a speaker with the identical sonic signature as before but with dramatic improvements evenly up and down the audio spectrum. I'm a believer that better parts can improve an already good design. These are the most satisfying speakers and least fatiguing speakers I've heard up to $15,000
blackie-36c2
1 posts
 
There are a lot of things the Dunlavys do well, but there is always room for improvement in anything, my own designs included. I changed nothing basic about the design, which BTW Mr. Khaki LOVES, i simply went for smoothness, richness, improved resolution. he spent about $500/speaker, which is about where the point of diminishing returns was reached. for another grand i coulda made 'em 2% better, muahh ha ha ha!

-blackie
jadem6's avatar
jadem6 OP
1,074 posts
 
Thank-you blackie, it helps to hear your thoughts. Can you maybe expound on the tonal changes your trying to achieve? I have often wondered how these mods would change the sound, to my ears the Dunlavy sound is extremely natural and right in the middle of too bassy and too treably. What changes can I expect if I modified them. Also, do you simply need the cross-overs sent to you and what are the costs? I love it when the guy who does the work writes in!
blackie-23d0
1 posts
 
Just wanted to add a comment re: the mod I did for Mr. Khaki on the Dunlavy's. I have a very high regard for Mr. Dunlavy's expertise as a designer and listener. His choices of parts reflect his opinions re: the sound/parts connection, not to mention cost considerations. My choice of parts is a reflection of my own tastes, and was arrived at by considerable experimentation with my own 1st order loudspeaker designs, and i also factor in cost effectiveness. We are two designers with the same goal, and perhaps somewhat different tastes.

There are a million RIGHT ways to do everything.

-blackie

khaki8
206 posts
 
The sound was so dramatically better. The first thing was the music was much more forward. There was more treble more bass and smoother sound. Sorry about my lack of description earlier but I hear things as a whole not the individual parts. The whole was great after the mod.
jadem6's avatar
jadem6 OP
1,074 posts
 
Khaki8, Maybe it would be helpful to have you describe the changes your hearing rather than simply stating it's 100% better. I'm not sure I can understand percentages from one sound to the next.
khaki8
206 posts
 
All this stuff about Dunlavy saying the parts are great is BS. I know what I heard in my speakers- they were at least twice as good. Every designer says it's the design of the circuit that's more important than the parts. The reality is that the better parts put the speaker into a different price level. I would imagine for every $100 spent on parts the retail price goes up $400. Many of these designers don't even bother learning about the higher end parts because they know they can't afford them. Better parts make better music!
jadem6's avatar
jadem6 OP
1,074 posts
 
I just got off the phone with John Dunlavy. Of course being the designer of the Dunlavy speakers he strongly defends his selection of parts used in the crossover. This should not come as any surprise, but let me tell you how he defended his selections.
He did acknowledge that he could have used more expensive parts, but he said he selected his parts on their performance and not on cost. The capacitors he uses are polypropylene and have the best measured values of any capacitor on the market, there are simply not more accurate capacitors available. The Inductors he uses are not an iron core because they simply do not perform as well, they tend to saturate at very low levels, thus they are less constant in their values. The air core inductors used again are the most accurate and constant he has measured. His goal is not the "most expensive parts, it is using the parts that produces the best fidelity."
As I stated earlier, his goal has always been to create the most accurate speaker possible. He not only uses his ears to test the speaker's performance but judiciously measures every speaker to within +/- 1 dB with a full set of measurements made in his world renowned anechoic chamber. "Every speaker" built is thoroughly measured for all aspects of performance and only then are released to the client. "No other speaker in the world is put through such stringent testing" all in the name of accuracy.
John reminded me that the IVa is used in all the major recording studios around the world. This is the speaker that most music today is sounded to, so altering its accuracy with other components will add distortion or otherwise lessen the realism of this speaker. John had commented that he sometimes thinks "people would rather hear distortion or otherwise inaccurate sound rather than the truth."
Again I think that remembering the goal of Dunlavy speakers is important, to produce "accurate speakers." I was reminded of a story John has told me before where he sets up a pair of IVa speakers in his large anechoic chamber along with real instruments. The piano is the story he tells where they play a grand piano or a digital recording at 24 bit was played through the speakers. The people they bring in were to detect which is playing cannot identify any difference between the two.
If you do choose to modify your speakers you are choosing to modify the accuracy of these speakers, which may be to your personal taste but it is not the goal of Dunlavy speakers. Dunlavy wants to "reproduce music as exact as possible." If the measurements and the listening tests are to be believed then the IVa has succeeded, and any alteration will only lessen those measurements.
It is an interesting topic, I guess those who do choose to alter their speakers are trying to solve another problem in their system. I would recommend people look at what other weaknesses might exist in their stereo before looking at the speakers as the issue.
As a side note I spent sometime discussing JA and Stereophile. This is a whole other post some day!
jadem6's avatar
jadem6 OP
1,074 posts
 
Khaki8, thank-you for bringing this topic to my review. There has been alot written about the quality of parts used in the Dunlavy cross overs. I would love to see a summary of trials people have done that could attach to this review. I also wonder if anyone has talked to John Dunlavy about the issue of parts quality and the idea of upgrading to higher quality.
Actually I think I may try to call John to get his feedback.
khaki8
206 posts
 
I have the Cantata's the smaller brother to the 4A. I had them modified with high end caps by Blackie Pagano at tubesville.com What I got was a 100% improvement. He said the parts used were really cheap-he did not change any circuits just parts. I got the same sonic signature but the improvement was off the charts. I wonder what the IVa would sound like with some good parts?
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