I met John Dunlavy on a few occasions, and did a brief 2 day tour of his factory in Colorado, before he sold the company back when. I also used to sell Dunlavy's, and was impressed with the many things his speaker designs DID RIGHT!
It was a pleasure and an honor both meeting John and representing his otherwise excellent products, and I'm very glad for both of those opportunities. He surely was a nice man, and a very keen designer.
While I didn't necessarily agree with "all" of John's Philosophies on speaker design, as well as his theories, necessarily, on issues relating to audio system performance as a whole (lol- indeed all the audio engineers I've met over the years believe in their way ONLY, when it comes to designs and theories - lol), one thing is for sure, he knew his stuff and provided many an audiophile (including myself) with superb products, and his unique offerings were not duplicated by many, if any.
Actually, from what I did know of John's philosophies on things such as amplifier design technology, interconnect/speaker wire effectiveness and relevance - and, of course, phase correct first order, time aligned array speaker designs - he may not have know much towards audio system tweaking, system matching, and general audiophile preachings, but at least his speakers were otherwise dynamic, coherent, FAST, and focused, and did many things very right. In fact, they made superb HT/music speakers, and could be made to both disappear and also accurately represent the audio signal, when matched properly with good equipment, a good acoustic space, and care.
As I have both owned and admired equipment from such Legends as Nelson Pass, Jim Thiel, Bobby P, Dan DAgostino, Paul Klipsch, and others, I will always have a place in my heart for John, for extending his time and opening his facilities to me, to share with me his day to day busines operation, talk theories on audio design philosophies, engineering, and acoustics, etc, and for just being a great guy! (fascinating seeing all the engineering projects he's been involved with over the past century+, even with the Gov't).
Anyway, just wanted to take a moment to share my appreciation for having met John Dunlavy, and for also being a part of this great hobby we all get to enjoy. Yes, RIP John. We'll see you in Heaven indeed my friend...
