Any Large Acoustic Suspension Speakers Being Made?


I auditioned some Dunlavy SC-IVAs in the 90s. The sound was unlike anything I've heard before or since.

Was more like a video projector creating living sonic-images in the room.

The Dunlavys are a sealed box system. The front of the speaker is heavily felt damped (mids & tweets).

I'm also wondering about anything unusual about its crossover. I have to find out why these sounded so good!

The system: Audio Research VT-120 amp, ARC LS-2 pre, Theta DAC (pre-pro?), CEC Disk spinner, and Dunlavy wire. The room was about 25 * 25 with curtains on a glass wall and LPs on the rear wall. Power conditioning is unknown.

So I'm thinking it's either the acoustic suspension or a special crossover that made the difference.

Does anyone make large sealed box speakers anymore? 

128x128dweller
Sealed box and acoustic suspension are not identical. All acoustic suspension loudspeakers are sealed, but the opposite is not true.

Sealed enclosures are obviously unvented, but the box is big enough to leave plenty of room for the back wave, and the speaker drivers have normal suspensions, rigid frames, and strong magnets to return the drivers to the neutral position.

Acoustic suspension speakers rely on a specific volume of air to power much of the rebound to center after an excursion or incursion of the driver. Thus the acoustic suspension model doesn't need as powerful a magnet, nor as rigid a cone because the air in the sealed box performs much of that function.

As for sealed box speakers, both Magico and YG use sealed enclosures. I'm sure there are more.

Just re-read the 1998 Stereophile review of the SC-IVAs.

A follow-up review states that they are sealed-box speakers.

Their price, at the time, was $8,000. Now I remember why I didn't buy them.

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/166/#6R8qd51SXovrkAOJ.97

One thing about the Dunlavys (and the Duntechs that preceded them)  that is very important to some people is that they use first order crossover slopes, and also that the drivers were staggered to be time-coherent.  Not that many speaker manufacturers do that these days (Vandersteen, Green Mountain, Thiel).  There was nothing really that special in terms of parts in the crossover (although they did use air core inductors, I think), and some A-gon members have made upgrades to the parts in the crossover with some success.  All in all, it was an extremely well-engineered speaker.
rcprince: If you read the Stereophile review of the SC-IVA, you’ll notice the fanatical attention to detail Mr. Dunlavy used in building his speakers. How about a frequency response of +/- 1.5%? He would hand-trim every crossover to match its companion driver. Mr. Dunlavy said this speaker could pass a square wave better than most tube amplifiers! I would love to hear these speakers driven by BEL 1001 Mk V amps (also built with fanatical precision). Try to find a maker that would go to these extremes today!
PBN Montana KAS-2, WAS-2, and Master Reference.  Similar to the Dunlavy speakers, but look better, built better, use better parts and drivers, and IMHO sound much better.  All this comes at a cost.