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Dunlavy Minimum Phase Mods

Hi Everyone,

Came across an interesting virtual system here on Audiogon. The author claims (and I believe him) to have developed minimum phase crossovers.

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/6692

It is very very rare to get to do an A/B comparison with the same speakers using minimum phase AND traditional crossover design. For instance, I can listen to a Vandersteen or Thiel, and compare them to a B&W, but that's not the same.

I'm curious if anyone has had a chance to hear them and opine as to how important this is to the final experience.

Best,

E
erik_squires
pryso
1,986 posts
 
erik, I reply not as an engineer but as someone who owned Duntech speakers for 19 years, auditioned several Duntech and DAL models, and had the pleasure of personal conversations with John on two occasions.

John Dunlavy was one of our most respected speaker designers.  He believed strongly in the benefits of time/phase coherent speaker designs and so all his models were based upon that.  To achieve that time/phase coherency with his multi-driver speakers required a rather complex crossover.

My advice would be to leave the stock crossover as is, or else find some other brand if you aren't satisfied with the Dunlavy and do your experimenting with that.  I believe you will only mess up your Dunlavy and likely ruin them for resale.
unsound
7,366 posts
 

^While I agree, there is added interest in that the mod was done by an ex DAL employee.

 In one of my last conversations with John Dunlavy he said he was excited by the potential of going forward with digital active cross-overs and individual Class D driver amplification. He did say that the he still waiting for better chips to work with and that the initial offerings would necessitate high development cost that would have to be passed on to the consumer. On the plus side; once that development occurred that it would eventually and progressively cut down on the labor costs. Remember each speaker that Dunlavy made at that time was made with complex cabinets, selected and sorted parts, and each and every speaker hand tuned to model specs. He expected to be able to eventually offer better products at much lower prices.

erik_squires OP
16,898 posts
 
Unsound,

That's a really interesting perspective. As a DIY speaker designer, I never bothered to match drivers, and had to trust the manufacturer's provided high quality, and very consistent parts. I cannot afford to buy 100 midranges to sort.

The idea of not just using DSP for crossover and speaker design, but actually digitally compensating for minute individual differences in driver response is pretty forward thinking.

Now I have a new project. :)

Best,

E
unsound
7,366 posts
 
Before I mislead you, he didn't say that exactly. Though he might(?!) have been implying it. Remember John Dunlavy was much about wave form and ergo time fidelity. In an article in Stereophile he confided that step response was his go to measurement, (I'm paraphrasing here) when the step response is good everything else will fall in place. So, hmmm?, I really don't know.
unsound
7,366 posts
 
....It was rumored that many in the business found his regular numerous returns of out of acceptable spec parts annoying.
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