Dunlavy SC-IV vs Duntech Princess

Not surprising that John would say his current modes were the best.  ;^)

I owned a pair of Duntech Princess for 19 years, by far the longest for any speakers I've owned.  In addition I had three good friends who owned the same model but each of us had different rooms and configurations.  So I had a pretty good feeling for their performance.

Over that time I heard various DAL models, including the SC IV/IVa which was the closest sibling model, at a local dealer and a number of times in the DAL room at the Las Vega CES where John himself set them up.

In my opinion the DAL models were very good, but lacked some of the refinement of the Duntechs.  There was just a better sense of musical realism in the Duntechs.

I believe there are at least two reasons for this.  John was concerned with costs and used less expensive drivers in the DAL models.  He also reduced construction costs by having straight front edges on the cabinet sides, rather than cut back to match the stepped back baffles for the drivers.  Yes he continued to use heavy felt surrounds but I think the dispersion and sense of openness was greater with the Duntech cabinets.

John could have used any drivers and components he wanted. He had companies pestering him and sending him drivers all the time; and he could pick anything he wanted. He was a practical man, no need to use an exotic $400 tweeter when he got excellent results with a $40 tweeter. 

Due to his 1st-order designs the drivers he used had to perform well over a wide frequency range. If you read his whitepaper Cones, Planars & Domes - A white paper on the performance attributes of various loudspeaker designs you'll have a better understanding of why he picked conventional cone drivers instead of those made with exotic materials: the exotic cones store energy.. Also be sure to read the Stereophile interview John Dunlavy: By The Numbers. 

I don't see how the Duntechs could have been more refined considering he didn't have the large anechoic chambers at Duntech, or the advanced measuring equipment that he had later on at DAL. 

Hi grumpybb,

Fun moniker by the way.

Since I'm the only one who replied, you comments must be directed to me.  Notice I said "less expensive drivers" and did not suggest any exotic example comparison.  My Duntechs had Dynaudio and Scanspeak drivers.  So far as I know the SC IV/SC IVa had less expensive units.

I was fortunate to chat with John a couple of times at different CES.  He was a great designer who I truly admired.  But as you say, he was a practical man, so the bottom line was a concern.  I think he believed his design knowledge could overcome some component performance limitations.  

While still an owner of Duntech in Australia (at least a partner), John returned to the  US and set up production in Utah for a new model, the Black Knight.  That was apparently to offer a more competitively priced model by avoiding shipping heavy speakers such a long distance.  However the performance apparently was not on the same level as the other Duntech models and sales were disappointing, so it was discontinued.

At that point John again relocated, this time to Colorado Springs and started his new company, Dunlavy Audio Labs.  I believe at that point he separated from Duntech Audio.  My impression was his new line offered very good speakers and DAL became successful.

I had one more example of John's cost awareness.  When I spoke with him he was developing a self-powered model, using modules from Adcom.  They were certainly a respected company, but not at the level of DAL's higher priced models.  While he demoed prototypes of that model I'm not aware if was ever finalized for production.

For all this I understand there were/are many happy owners of DAL speakers.  I mean no disrespect to them.  I'm merely stating my personal impression, having heard both brands.