Dunlavy SC-IVa Set up help

9rw: I think that John Dunlavy would agree with my suggestions. The reason that he didn't build the speakers in such a manner probably has more to do with cosmetic appeal ( or lack of it ) and inability to properly package and ship such a product than anything else.

As to your specific short wall installation, 15 foot isn't really all that short of a wall. With that much room, one could very easily get the speakers a good distance apart and still have a couple feet on each side of them.

As to your comments about the speakers not needing "monster amps", that is purely subjective. Having heard these speakers with both "good sized" amps and what most would call an "over-abundance of power", i've always preferred the higher powered installation every time. For that matter, so have the owners of the speakers that i've heard, hence their decision to go that route. Sean
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Somehow, I don't think John Dunlavy cared much about cosmetic appeal. That's one reason Dunlavy is out of business. And the owners manuals for his speakers sure don't suggest anything like what Sean is advocating.

Even in my previous house, with a room that measured something like 14x19, I had the SC-IV/A's on the short wall and the sound was spectacular. The bass extended into the 25 hertz range and the speakers vanished better than anything I'd ever owned (including Merlin VSM-SE, ProAc 3.5, Quad, Acoustat, Totem Mani-2 and several others). Before purchasing the speakers, I talked to Dunlavy's Drew Rigby, and he assured me that my relatively small room would not be a problem. In fact, I got much better bass in that room than I got in my 15x24 room. So Rigby was right.

As for amplifiers, one of Rigby's personal favorites for the SC-IV/A was the Rowland Model 2, which is rated at 75 watts per channel. That's hardly a monster amp.

"Somehow, I don't think John Dunlavy cared much about cosmetic appeal. That's one reason Dunlavy is out of business."

Hate to jump into the fray here, but I know why John's out of business, and it had nothing to do with the cosmetic appeal of his speakers.

If Dunlavy's are not setup properly, they suffer like any speaker. They can yield stupendous bass- or suffer from an anemic low end- all based on their placement.

Danlib1: Please enlighten us.

I know a lot of audiophiles who liked the sound of Dunlavy speakers but hated the fact they were so big. And that's why they wouldn't buy them. And some people thought they looked too plain and wanted something "fancier" for their money.

I also know that there were other reasons for Dunlavy's demise, like maybe Dunlavy wasn't the easiest guy in the world for dealers to work with. And some people thought he should use more expensive and exotic drivers. Regardless, I'm not contending that placement isn't vitally important. I'm just questioning some of Sean's recommendations.

The Dunlavy's take into account room response and driver radiation characteristics. Given that Dunlavy placed the woofer at the bottom, which is loaded by the floor, and other woofer at the top, which doesn't have any loading, the output of the woofers isn't symmetrical even though the cabinet is configured that way. This causes one woofer to produce a lot less output at the bottom end than the other. This problem is compounded when there is a greater distance between the top woofer and the ceiling. Since many rooms have varying ceiling heights, bass response from room to room can vary pretty drastically.

By introducing a "sounding board" into the equation and controlling the amount of loading that the top woofer sees by manipulating the size, shape and placement of the sounding board, one can gain much more consistent low frequency output. This is true regardless of the room size and / or floor to ceiling height. This still won't fix a problem with side wall reflections, which an MTM type array is prone towards.

I'm NOT saying that these speakers won't work in a smaller room on a short wall, what i'm saying is that they are best suited to a larger room on a longer wall. So long as you can get them spaced far enough apart AND far enough off of the side walls, it doesn't matter if they are placed on the shorter of the two walls. Calling the Dunlavy's "long wall speakers" simply means that they need room to breath, both between them and on the outsides. If one has a very large room, the short wall might actually be plenty wide enough to achieve optimum performance. Then again, what is "good enough" for some really isn't "optimum" in terms of producing what the speakers really are capable of. Sean
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