Dahlquist speaker models, question/experience and today

I cannot help you with any comparison but your mention of Dahlquist speakers brings back memories. In college, a small military school, my roommate had a pair Dahlquist DQ-9s with an NAD amp, Nakamichi tape deck and Bang and Olufson turntable. This was a pretty big deal for a dorm room system. It was my first real experience with hi-fi and the DQ-9s were awesome in out little cell-like room. I suspect they would have sounded much better in a less confined space.

We used to obsess over high end cassette tapes and all the settings on the Nakamichi for recording from vinyl


I saw my old roommate last year and asked him about the speakers and he no longer owned them.

N80 great story - that’s starting out wayyyyyyy high :-) is he still an audiophile?

i rebuilt / upgraded many pair of DQ-10 over the years

I bought a nicely restored and upgraded pair of DQ-10's with custom-stands from a nearby seller. $375! A major bargain! And still competitive with today's four figure speakers! 

I'm not sure if he is still an audiophile or not. I don't see him much and life had been hard on him and I did not ask last time we met.
I'm assuming Dahlquist is not longer in business?

N90 sorry to hear that

no they faded away after Jon , I think they had some decent sounding gear but never replicated or chose to extend the DQ-10 magic...

The magic lived on.  I still have a pair of DQ 20s which have better drivers than the 10 and are still magical.  Regnar provides rebuilds for the woofers and midrange and last I checked scanspeak still has the tweeters in production 30 plus years later.  the 20i and 30s are also nice speakers as are the 9s and the 10s put them on the map but I believe the 20s were there finest hour.  All can be had for a song and can be repaired or upgraded via Regnar if you have minimal skills with a soldering iron.

...eddie, thanks for the info/suggestions.  

I have owned a very large number of speakers over the years...and stacked Advents, Dahlquist DQ-10 and Magnepan 20 are the ones I remember most. 
I would mention Karly, Jaleen and Susanne...but the speakers were cheaper and more reliable. 

The real sleeper of the Dahlquist line is the dq8 the 8 inch two way it is a lot of speakers for the money in a small to medium sized room and you can get them for not much money but be sure to bring a good high current solid state amp to the party.

The sleeper dahlquist is the dq8 it is an amazing speaker for the money for a small to medium sized room with a solid state amplifier tubes do not light it up so do not even try.

Speakermaster is right - the DQ8 was a real sleeper.  I liked the DQ12 a lot too.   Didn't have much use for the DQ20.