How do Dahlquist DQ10 stack up against current speakers?

I really enjoyed my DQ-10’s, but I changed them a bit fairly quickly. I removed the super tweeters and replaced them with some Decca ribbon tweeters (forget the model name) and it made a HUGE difference in the overall sound. And while I was in there, I replaced any exposed wire with a very high quality silver over copper wire.  I’m not sure if it did much to the sound, but it was a good selling point a few years later.  
I’m guessing that the DQ-10’s would still be a decent speaker for a daily driver, but with the improvements in box, driver, capacitor and circuit design etc, I bet you can now get better for less money.

I have a pair of DQ-10's that I completely restored a few years ago.  Sound fantastic, but they are not my reference speakers.  Although I could live with them forever, if I had to.

They aren't quite as detailed, nor have the bass that some of the newer speakers have, but man do they throw a huge, wide, open soundstage and just are a pleasure to listen to.

IMHO, everyone should at least hear them, if not own a pair sometime in their lives...

I owned DQ10’s for 23 years. I replaced them in 2003 with ATC SCM 35’s in 2003, financially (accounting for inflation) almost an equivalent swap. The ATC’s had superior detail, imaging, sense of depth, and much tighter bass that went about as deep as. The ATC midrange dome was much superior to any of the Dahlquist drivers, and the much simpler crossover 5 way to 3 way speaker) is part of it, especially in maintaining correct phase and thus coherence. Twenty years later I swapped the SCM 35’s for the SCM 40 v. 2’s, with a far superior tweeter that isn’t hard.

 DQ10’s are a five driver loudspeaker. I had to replace drivers several times; I think maintenance of the speakers would be a chore. They were great for their time, but there are really good speakers available in the $5-6K range.

I owned them about 40 years ago. I doubt that you would go wrong giving them a try. They bested many other speakers that I have owned before and after. BTW, make sure that you get the later mirror image model !

  Dahlquist DQ‑10

One should always be wary of pronouncing “firsts,” but, appearing in the early seventies, Jon Dahlquist’s DQ‑10 was to my knowledge the first dynamic speaker to employ multiple drivers in an open-baffle configuration (except the acoustic‑suspension woofer, which was enclosed) staggered for proper time‑alignment and phase coherence, in an attempt to realize the openness and freedom from boxiness that Dahlquist prized in his beloved Quad ESL-57s—with the added advantages of deeper bass and dynamic extension well beyond the Quad. (The physical resemblance to the Quad was both mandated by the design and an intentional homage.) Far from flawless (including conceptually), the DQ-10 was nevertheless a ground-breaking design that preceded dozens of subsequent speakers (perhaps most prominent among them models from KEF, B&W, Spica, Thiel, Vandersteen, and Wilson) continuing up to the present day. Few large, full-range dynamic speakers before or for some time afterward equaled its openness. Paul Seydor