Dunlavy for HT speakers

This is a combo system, both 2-channel and HT. Both are important. I actually listen to music louder than movies, but more often both are at moderate volume. Both of your comments are helpful, thanks. I'm wondering how bit a step up the Dunlavys would be for stereo listening over the C/Vs. Are there better options in that same price range that would do well for both applications?

While I appreciate the opinions of the others, I would respectfully disagree that Dunlavy loudspeakers are not suitable for home theater. I own Dunlavy Alethas, an SM-I center channel, 2 SCI/AV surrounds, and a Velodyne sub for LFE content on movies, so you're free to consider me somewhat biased.

I will concede the fact that Dunlavy's do have a narrower sweet spot than speakers that are specifically designed for wider dispersion, such as those meeting the THX requirements for SPL dispersion. And that may very well be a limitation in very small home theaters with multiple seats in spread-out locations.

However, the dynamics of all Dunlavy speakers are extraordinary. To the best of my knowledge, speakers don't know that they are playing the soundtrack from a movie or a recording of an orchestra. With the exception of the artificially generated LFE channel in movie soundtracks, the transient response required to accurately reproduce live music, is as taxing to a loudspeaker as are movie soundtracks. The naysayers should try sticking their head next to a crash cymbal or the horn of a trumpet sometime.

First order crossovers do indeed require drivers to operate over a wider frequency range, than a higher order filter. The 6 db/octave roll-off enables drivers targeted at different frequencies, such as tweeters/mid-range/woofers, to more evenly blend with and maintain absolute phase with one another. This is a design tenant of many manufacturers including John Dunlavy, Richard Vandersteen and others. However, the transient response of a driver is a function of the driver itself, not the crossover. So a driver's transient response at a given frequency is the same regardless of whether or not it's connected to a 6 db/octave first order filter or a 24 db/octave fourth order filter or no filter at all.

Lastly, I would also take issue with the opinion, presented as fact, as to why Dunlavy went out of business. The statement "Dunlavy in fact went out of business because his designs were serious attempts at building extremely good two-channel speakers, i.e., time-coherence, which requires first-order crossovers and sealed-box woofer loading, the latter requiring gigantic, room-unfriendly boxes.", is entirely inaccurate. If we're fortunate enough that John Dunlavy is still with us, one should ask him as to why the company is no longer in business.

To Dave, The SC-IVA is an excellent choice for the main L/R, however I would be a bit hesitant to pair them with an SC-I center channel speaker. As I said, I have the Alethas which use the same drivers as the SC-IVA. Several years ago, I had a conversation with John Dunlavy about the SC-I for the center channel. He recommended, the SM-I rather than the SC-I as the SM-I uses the same tweeter and mid-range drivers as the Alethas, and in your case the SC-IVA. His reasoning for this was that movies often contain sounds that move across the screen. For example, consider the noise from a car traveling left to right across the screen. The sound of the car would appear first in the left speaker, then the center, and then the right. If the voicing of the center was different than the L/R, your would hear a difference in the sound as it moved from one speaker to the other. This is why many home theater architects recommend, and many mixing studios employ, identical speakers all around. It's less critical in the rear surround channels.

I wouldn't skimp on the center channel speaker. I don't know the actual percentages, but the majority of sound in movie soundtracks, including almost all dialog, comes from the center channel.

While I have never listened to the Snell C/V, I believe the SC-IVA would be a significant upgrade. My only caution would be how well the SC-I would "mate" with the SC-IVA.

A driver operating out of its passband due to a shallow slope crossover cannot handle the power that it could if it were crossed over more steeply. I am not aware of any debate about this point, which is salient if the issue is suitability for home theater, where Patriot Games-type soundtracks are generally cherished and power handling thus very, very important.

Large-scale symphonic music can indeed be more taxing than the vast majority of movie sound tracks, and for this reason, speakers featuring first-order crossovers also generally fall down in power handling on extremely taxing music (there are a few exceptions, such as the gigantic DAL SC-V and SC-VI, each of which features seven drivers to share the punishment -- they can go quite loud). For overall musicality, however, I prefer the DAL / Vandersteen / AudioMachina time-coherent speakers, and despite listening to mostly symphonic music, I've never been troubled by first-order design congestion.

Regarding the demise of Dunlavy Audio Labs, Dave 1's point is well taken. I was never on the inside of this company, and being closely held and the fact that Mr. Dunlavy recently passed away, we will never know for certain what happened. That said, my dealer, whom I have known for fifteen years and who carried Dunlavy's Dunlavy Audio Labs brand from the company's inception through to the end, told me that the company perished because his gigantic speakers were simply unacceptable in what is an overwhelmingly home-theater oriented market place, and that the Cantata / Aletha line was DAL's room-friendly accomodation to the home theater market (that came too little too late). Knowing what I do about the business, that all sounds right, but it appears that Dave 1 was on the inside at DAL -- in any event, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell us how you know what you know.

A final comment with some additional details about the demise of the Dunlavy Audio Labs brand. My comments should not be read to imply that "DAL went out of business" while in John Dunlavy's hands, inasmuch as he did sell the DAL business to a neighbor in his industrial park that had no previous experience in hi-fi. The brand quickly disappeared thereafter and at least part of the remaining stock was purchased by Audio-Video Logic. Mr. Dunlavy was also a principal with Australian speaker manufacturer Duntech (for which he designed similar, gigantic sealed-box time-aligned speakers). For the record, I will say that Mr. Dunlavy was delightful the two or three times that I spoke with him, and I loved my SC-III's and every other DAL speaker I ever heard.

In any event, I fully stand by my original comments -- I believe that first-order crossover designs like Dunlavy are less than ideal for home theater.