Who remembers the Dahlquist DQ-10's?


My first pair of "high-end" speakers.  Power hungry critters but what I would give for an updated pair.  I powered these with a Peavey CS-400 and a Maccomack Deluxe Line drive passive preamp!!  Those were the days!  Young and dumb I suppose?
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I presently own a pair of DQ-10's - mirror imaged, redone woofers, upgraded crossovers, custom stands and new grill cloth. Sound quality comparable to today's multi-kilobuck speakers! I first heard them in 1976 at Audiocom in Old Greenwich, CT. Amplifier in use was a GAS Ampzilla. Preamp was an Apt Holman and signal source was a Denon TT and Denon 103 mc cartridge with a custom-made head amp copy of a Levinson JC-1AC. To this day it remains in my memory as one of the best sounding systems!

roberjerman,

I'm currently driving them with a Parasound 2250 amp, 250W/side. These suckers have always been power hungry and I'm thinking about replacing the amp with a pair of Emotiva XPA-1 600W mono blocks.

When it comes to power hungry speakers, what is needed is an amp with high current capability for those ohm swings.   That Parasound has some good current, at 45 amps peak per channel.  It's at the low end of Parasound's line up, however.  Their A21 does 60 amps per channel, which is pretty good.  I owned this amp, and it really has great detail and control and  always sounds effortless.  It's worth a listen, anyway.

Something Emotiva doesn't do is publish the current output of their amps, they really should get with it.  Slew rate, current and output at 2 ohms are all important specs that Emotiva ignores for the XPA-1.  Oh wait, they state that the XPA-1 has a minimum 4 ohm load requirement.  For a mono block, that's embarrassing.  I'd stay away.  It also only goes down to 10 Hz, all of Parasound's Halo amps go down to 5 Hz within rated frequency response.  
mr_g,                                                                         If you lived nearby me in Florida I would lend you some of my vintage amps to try out with your DQ-10's. I have several that might work well: Acoustat TNT, Perreaux 1250B, SpectroAcoustics 500, Bedini 150/150, Sumo Andromeda, BEL 1001, GAS Son of Ampzilla. All of these have sufficient power to drive DQ-10's. It's just a matter of what sonic flavor you'd prefer! I myself recommend matching vintage components with similar vintage gear. Present day new gear is not attractive to me! 
DQ10s.  The first speakers I ever heard that disappeared while playing and the standard I have set for audio speakers ever since.  That was in the mid 70s at Myer Emco in the DC area. I have lusted after them but have never been able to afford the level of amplification they deserve.