World's most accurate loudspeaker

SlowcarIX

Early B.

What da hell is it?

Texas42

My guess is this is a Dunlavy Audio Labs SC-5

SlowcarIX

Duntech Sovereign

http://www.duntech.com.au/english/products/classic-series/sovereign.html

audiobliss

Early B. wrote: »

What da hell is it?

And why are those guys trying to steal it?

Texas42

Duntech Sovereign=Dunlavy SC-5, pretty much the same speaker (and same designer, John Dunlavy) although the Sovereign is a bit older. I've auditioned both and they are incredible speakers if you have the room.

Texas42

http://www.audio-logic.com/html/dunlavyspecs.html

SlowcarIX

Texas42 wrote: »

Duntech Sovereign=Dunlavy SC-5, pretty much the same speaker (and same designer, John Dunlavy) although the Sovereign is a bit older. I've auditioned both and they are incredible speakers if you have the room.

are they musical?

Texas42

Maybe the most 'lifelike' speakers I've ever heard. Immense soundstage and depth. First heard the Sovereigns around 1988 and was absolutely stunned.

SlowcarIX

audiobliss wrote: »

And why are those guys trying to steal it?

lol

they are having a good workout

audiobliss

SlowcarIX wrote: »

they are having a good workout

I'd imagine so! Hope they didn't get a hernia! :eek:

pearsall001

Wait till they bring the sub in!!! Now we're cooking!

Texas42

They are 330 lbs....each one!

Face

They're still ugly.

Yashu

Give Genelec a call, maybe you might change your mind. No consumer boutique speaker is going to be better at reproducing the original music than the monitors used for recording the music. I just don't buy it. I certainly believe they are good speakers, but I am 100% sure they were not used for the studio work done on the music you are going to listen to. You want to hear exactly what was meant to be heard, get a studio setup. Anything else is just... It's like the pace car at a race... it's a consumer, street legal car, but it isn't actually *in* the race.

Now, objectivity aside, perhaps there is a school of thought that some of these boutique speakers are *better* than monitors, and they reveal more, and perhaps that is true, but then you are diving deeper into the sound than the studio techs, so what is down there, you never know. Sometimes you might bring up a treasure, sometimes you might be diving right into murky waters, where things that do not add something positive to the music tend to be revealed. It's a personal choice, almost a gamble, to know that with each record, you may be hearing things that were not intended, without control over it either. The studio tech thought it sounded great, and you play it on your ultra system and hear something weird on the left channel, deep into the mix, something that the tech missed, something that brings fatigue to your ears, or just frustration.

SlowcarIX

the venerable Yamaha NS10M - used by many recording studios for near field monitoring. flat response 60Hz to 20KHz

George Grand

I'd run out and buy those as fast as I'd run out to buy all the "venerable" studio monitors from JBL.

See that YASHU? One sentence.

tonyb

Yashu wrote: »

Give Genelec a call, maybe you might change your mind. No consumer boutique speaker is going to be better at reproducing the original music than the monitors used for recording the music. I just don't buy it. I certainly believe they are good speakers, but I am 100% sure they were not used for the studio work done on the music you are going to listen to. You want to hear exactly what was meant to be heard, get a studio setup. Anything else is just... It's like the pace car at a race... it's a consumer, street legal car, but it isn't actually *in* the race.

Now, objectivity aside, perhaps there is a school of thought that some of these boutique speakers are *better* than monitors, and they reveal more, and perhaps that is true, but then you are diving deeper into the sound than the studio techs, so what is down there, you never know. Sometimes you might bring up a treasure, sometimes you might be diving right into murky waters, where things that do not add something positive to the music tend to be revealed. It's a personal choice, almost a gamble, to know that with each record, you may be hearing things that were not intended, without control over it either. The studio tech thought it sounded great, and you play it on your ultra system and hear something weird on the left channel, deep into the mix, something that the tech missed, something that brings fatigue to your ears, or just frustration.

You give " studio tech's " way too much credit.After all,is it not with studio recordings these days that most of us have a problem with? " diving for treasure"..."murky waters"..? Is this not what the studio is suppose to differentiate? Instead of this mass marketed congested crap you get on the majority of todays recordings? Why does high end gear piss you off so much?
Is it not when money is no object,innovation can happen?Though I can agree all live music doesn't sound good when sitting in the seats,but there has to be something said for reproducing the strings on a violin,the throaty Sax,or a kick drum that hits you in the chest,in your own living room.To me,that is where the studio tech's,of late,have missed the mark.

mhardy6647

The NS-10s are notoriously unflat but were a precisely known quantity to engineers.
Indeed, they are nasty sounding speakers. The "tissue paper mod" is legendary.
http://studioforums.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3756015614/m/5106009124/inc/1
http://studioforums.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/739109386/m/6981071981

EDIT: Perhaps, on reflection, the earlier post (#17) on the NS-10 was irony...

SlowcarIX

http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/Documents/ProAudio/ns10ms.pdf

mhardy6647

That's the 10m, with XO modified to alleviate the need for tissue. Still a well calibrated but bad sounding speaker. Note the 5dB rise smack dab in the MR.

For fun, you can compare Matthew Polk's claimed FR for the original versions of the Model 7 and 10, ca. 1976.

aisha

Nothing posted about the Duntech Sovereign 2001's for a while but I read the entry by Yashu and had to register and reply. Sorry for the length and I hope this doesn’t come across as dribble.

My passion for music and essentially sound reproduction found me working for a company called Duntech in Adelaide, South Australia, AUSTRALIA, back in 1986. Yes, I used to assemble these amazing speakers at the factory in little old Adelaide when John Dunlavy ran things down here.

Firstly these are just one of many of the awesome pieces of engineering to come out of the human mind; secondly they are exceptionally neutral as are many high end components. Yes many carry some sort of characteristic that means that people prefer one unit to another, under blind testing for example, but they were designed to be as neutral as possible.

I have heard these in the sound room that was designed to house them at the factory and they were powered by a Rowland Research Mono-block and pre-amp combo with one of those, now very dated Philips CD-100? players, as a source.

Their ability to reproduce a recording was astounding. I sat just outside the sound room and listened to many a demonstration, as I hand assembled the massive cross-overs, and the sound was very convincing. I always have and always will compare it to sitting outside the doors of a concert hall, jazz club and in fact pretty much any venue where I have heard live music. I know there is better out there now but honestly these units should be respected.

As for the "no speaker is going to do better...." comment, well I don't want to get personal, as audio reproduction is a very subjective world, as each persons perception of the sound can be different, but please, this is music reproduction and not music production.

If you want to hear what the engineering produced, as the Engineer wanted it intrinsically heard, then go to the studio put on his ears and fill your skull with his brain put yourself into the issues that filled his life professionally, personally etc at the time and listen your little heart out.

Music is created and maybe, at the time, recorded. The more pure and neutral that recording and the more pure and neutral the reproduction, which includes the room it is reproduced in, then more likely you will experience the performance as it was intended.

Enjoy your music with what you have and for what it is. If you don’t like your system then change it so you do, if you don’t like the music then put something else on. One day you will want to put that disk you took off your turntable or out of your optical drive, back on and listen to it again.

This has nothing to do with studios or engineering it is all you. The gear just makes it more enjoyable if you are open to the enjoyment.

Keep thinking…

Happy listening.

mightymouse

Amazing speakers.

Dunlavy is out of business. Is Duntech still around? Can you still purchase these speakers brand new?

George Grand

You guys still have Krix Bros. speakers down there? I got a demo in Darwin/1991, of a small pair of Krix Bros. that were a two-way with 2 x 4" woofs and dome tweet in the woofer over/under the tweeter configuration. It was a fairly large showroom, and they were being driven by MA Electronics pre/power (200wpc) combo, also made in Australia I believe.

One of the dumb things I have done audio-wise in my career, was not to buy those speakers at $400 pair back then. You cannot believe how much incredible sound came out of those tiny boxes. I actually looked behind the preamo to see if there was a line going out to another amp or subwoofer back there. Nope. Absolutely astonishing. When I got back to the base, the next day I realized the dining hall was completely outfitted with Krix Bros.

aisha

Mightymouse - Yes there is a web page and they apparently still exist http://www.duntech.com.au/. I think you can order them from that page? I am not sure how much they cost though? They used to be AUS $18,000 a pair back then in 1986 so I expect they would cost a little more than that these days.

Main problem here was that these speakers didn't fit into most people's homes they were simply too big to install properly and people with the money and the space would often build a room for them. Money well spent I say :-)

What you can still buy is the B&W 800 series speakers and at the time, 1986, these were the speakers that John Dunlavy spoke as a competitor in the market. He didn't care about the massive Polks and the Infinity Reference monoliths that they were, he only worried about the B&W's. These days there are so many options in that area of the market he would be tearing his hair out. To quite frank his manufacturing processes at the time would cost him a fortune today to maintain also. It was a very manual process at the time and I personally hand built the first piano black pair of Sovereigns which was an honour to a 16 year audio nut. Yes I wore cotton gloves and worked with caution to build this stunning looking pair of speakers which were off to some other country and some lucky owner.

George Grand -
The Krix Speakers are still around and yes I have been a frequent visitor to their factory since the mid 80's as well. Hey, when you love speakers and you have these guys at your doorstep then why not. :-)

As a side Adelaide (pop 1.5 mill) houses Krix, Sonique and Vaf who all design and manufacture loudspeakers?

As for the Brix, well yes that model you speak of was a D’Appolito array using some 4 inch mid bass drivers and managed to get a useable 50Hz out of them , quite impressive for the time. I have to say I am very found of the D'Appolito configuration, it was central to the design of many of the Duntech speakers for example the PCL3, PCL5, PCL1000 & PCL2001 and along with the time alignment (designed for a 4 metre listening position on the 1000's and 2001's) provided an amazing sound stage.

As for finding them tucked away in corners, hallways and rooms in buildings, well yes I think this is common place. The company is doing very well with its International sales in that regard as they also do many movie theatres.

In this day and age I wonder about how long they will be around. They manufacture a very good product out of a factory here is Adelaide and have grown from such small beginnings (like many successfull companies) to be something quite impressive for a local company. However, with off-shore manufacturing out there they must be finding it hard to compete with the likes of JBL for example, who they often win contracts over for large cinema complexes. Further to this, people here, as I expect is similar to the US, are installing projectors and sound systems into dedicated rooms in their homes!

Three years ago most people didn't know what a home theatre was and perhaps 7 years ago people didn't know what a sub-woofer was. Now people always want a sub and if they are building a home ask the sales person if the design includes or can include a home theatre. This is surely the demise of the cinema complex and this is a large portion of the Krix market I think?

Anyway I am rambling about stuff that isn't directly related to the original post so I shall stop. I can't help myself, it is something I am very passionate about and I guess it sits close to my heart :-)

Enjoy

SlowcarIX

i saw the towards 2000 documentary (i was in singapore then) many years ago when a...iirc put a music professor infront of a musician and a pair of Sovereign - he could not tell them apart

Dennis Gardner

SlowcarIX wrote: »

i saw the towards 2000 documentary (i was in singapore then) many years ago when a...iirc put a music professor infront of a musician and a pair of Sovereign - he could not tell them apart

Who was the 330 lb.. 7 ft tall musician?;)

mightymouse

Thanks Aisha for the info.

At one time I was looking to purchase a pair of Dunlavy's. But by the time I had the funds, Dunlavy went out of business. It's good to hear that Duntech is still in business. It is rare to hear from someone who has actually built these speakers. Thanks man!


You brought up the B&W 800 series. Now the top of the line B&W series is the 800D series with the diamond tweeters. In your opinion, how would the current B&W 800D stack up against this Duntech?

aisha wrote: »

Mightymouse - Yes there is a web page and they apparently still exist http://www.duntech.com.au/. I think you can order them from that page? I am not sure how much they cost though? They used to be AUS $18,000 a pair back then in 1986 so I expect they would cost a little more than that these days.

What you can still buy is the B&W 800 series speakers and at the time, 1986, these were the speakers that John Dunlavy spoke as a competitor in the market. He didn't care about the massive Polks and the Infinity Reference monoliths that they were, he only worried about the B&W's. These days there are so many options in that area of the market he would be tearing his hair out. To quite frank his manufacturing processes at the time would cost him a fortune today to maintain also. It was a very manual process at the time and I personally hand built the first piano black pair of Sovereigns which was an honour to a 16 year audio nut. Yes I wore cotton gloves and worked with caution to build this stunning looking pair of speakers which were off to some other country and some lucky owner.

jdhdiggs

Sorry for the late reply but I wanted to comment on Yashu's statement:

My brother owns and runs his own professional recording studio (as well as being a professional musician) and the "finishing" speakers that they use is a POS ghetto blaster and that's what they try to get it to sound good on since that's the quality of speaker system most people listen to it on. So if you want to hear what they hear when doing final mixing, go spend $50 at Wally world. This is why most recordings suck, their made for bad car audio and cheap home stereo and that's how it's mixed....

They do have other professional studio monitors and, based on his comparison to my maggies, he thinks their monitors don't reproduce anything close to the lifelike sound I get from my system. Just relaying thoughts from someone who is a pro in the business.

tonyb

I think you'll find the speakers,or other related gear varies alot between recording studio's. Some do mix it to be played on crappy auto or home systems like JD has said,and thats a shame.Others use top notch gear with the intent of mixing for the best possible sound regardless.Seems to me,a crappy recording will sound even more so on a good system,but a good recording will still sound decent on a bad one.

tonyb

mightymouse wrote: »

Amazing speakers.

Dunlavy is out of business. Is Duntech still around? Can you still purchase these speakers brand new?

I think there is a set on audiogon now for 5 g's.