Who remembers the Dahlquist DQ-10's?

I remember the DQ-10's fondly.   I believe what made their sound so much better was that they were time aligned. 

Phil- great post. Thank you for that, and for the memories they evoke. You knew Marc F, no doubt? I spoke to Tasso a couple years ago- he wasn't well. A great contributor to one of the great eras of the industry. 
bill hart

I first heard them in the mid-70s in Des Moines, IA. I owned Infinity 2000A hybrid electrostats at the time and the shop invited me to bring them over after they closed so we could compare. I thought both speakers acquitted themselves well that evening, but I was very impressed with the Dahlquists. Shortly thereafter my roommate bought a pair of 2000As and we ran them stacked driven by a Marantz solid state amplifier, which had a lot of power, but which I finally realized sounded horrendous on top. A move to the SF Bay Area in the early 80s found me speakerless and after messing with a Polk Audio sub-sat system for a while, I found a used pair of DQ-10s which I plopped down onto black-painted cinder blocks as they had no stands. I enjoyed them for a number of years and I later sold them to a friend. They ended up in our startup company office around 1996 and at some point they disappeared in favor of an in-ceiling setup. Clearly, I have never forgotten them and I would love to hear an updated pair...

Whart,

I did meet Marc at Opus One, but we spent very little time f2f since I was in Indiana and only seldom in Pittsburgh. I had more time with Doug Smith, in part because he drove his Lotus Elan (not so old then) up to Indiana from time to time, usually bringing a some Glenlivet with him to share with me, Denny, Rich and Jon (Barletta) in the Indiana store. It's likely Marc wouldn't remember me at all, except possibly for hearing I sold a hell of a lot of gear!

All in all, I was amazed to find out Tasso is still kicking, given his intensity, blood pressure, excitability and elevated heartbeat! The pain management therapy realm he's been involved in is the kind of logical extension you'd expect for his post-hifi days. Tasso was never happier than when he was simultaneously sharing, helping, proselytizing and convincing someone of a PoV he held dear.

Tasso taught his mind to interpret sound and mine convincing fidelity from any scrap of aural evidence available to him, and then judge the relative merits of the soundchain that produced it. At a time when people were thinking about individual components, Tasso sold synergies and systems, everything being imperfect to start with. It led to Opus One having the most unusually pure selection of convincing sound for the era, of any store I'd experienced in that era. I learned acute discernment in audio quickly working for him and with people around him who he had trained to listen. Opus One employees developed a fast, reliable "ear."

Phil

I sure remember them. I worked at Stereo Mart on Anaheim Blvd 1975-6. The store was a satellite of Audio Associates of Pasadena, started in the ’40s and claimed to be the oldest high fidelity store in Southern California. We had most of the big players of the time (e.g., Marantz, Revox, JBL, Ohm, Tandberg, Sequerra, Infinity, Altec-Lansing, ESS, B&O, Accuphase, Kenwood, Dual, Technics DD TTs, Philips, Nakamichi, etc.) and that included Dahlquist. We were always on the mfrs’ demo stopping points, and that included Saul Marantz stopping by for a half-day event demonstrating his (and Jon Dahlquist’s) new Dahlquist 10 speakers.

I had been an audio enthusiast for five years by then but the combination of the Marantz 1600 preamp (from their USA-made Pro line) and Dahlquist’s phased array speakers introduced me to the sound of 3D imaging, where you could hear not just a left-to-right sweep, but also front-to-back. We loved the Dahlquists; they sounded so much more real and threw that 3D soundstage that pulled you right into the music.

Rather than keeping the DQ-10s on the floor with their little feet, we were placing them on the Bose pedestals to increase the clarity and imaging. Around that same time Dahlquist came out with much better and cosmetically matching stands, which we switched to.

I was able to talk at some length with Mr. Marantz, who was a great guy to hang with. He mentioned that they were working on another base or stand for the DQ-10s which would house subwoofers, turning them into 6-way speakers. Dahlquist did come out with the DQ-1, a sub for the DQ-10s, but it was box-shaped and not an integrated base for the DQ-10. I never heard the DQ-10s with it because I moved onto another store before they came out.

I asked Mr. Marantz if he had any musical background that inspired him to do high end audio. He said he played classical guitar and mentioned that several of the other high-fi pioneers were musicians as well, mentioning that Avery Fisher was a violinist and Joe Grado an opera tenor.

We usually used a Beogram linear tracking turntable in our "high end" room, but when we got ahold of a Fidelity Research LOMC, we mounted it on a new Marantz 6300 DD turntable with Supex steup-up transformer. This was our source for playing the music for the demo and Saul was quite impressed with the sound of the rig. We used either Accuphase separates or the Marantz Pro 1600 preamp and one of their power amps to drive the DQ-10s.

Later the store picked up B&G electronics and the evening crew found that when you put a pair of their amps in mono mode making 500 wpc, "the Dahlquists really opened up!"

I have a guitar-playing buddy whose home system sources from a turntable playing a pair of DQ-20s powered by a Phase Linear 700. It's a good-sounding rig and doesn't sound particularly dated. My impression is that the DQ-20 is smoother and more refined than the DQ-10, as would be expected.