DK Design Review

To all,
Thanks to everyone who has made sincere comments--and even the skeptics who wonder about the 'time' this product has taken, to come to market.
To have a product as was originally envisioned by the previous owners of DK Design (now a company which also offers my loudspeaker designs, having had the great fortune to work alongside the magic of John Tucker, my VP of Operations, R&D), in which the speaker had a passive 48 db per octave crossover, (basically a brick wall crossover) would have made for over about the size of a BUICK!! LOL!!

So we were forced to start over, making the crossover passive, not active, with shallower slopes--though 2nd and 3rd order, with crossover points at 400Hz and 2K, oddly the same as on my LSA2's.
This was just kismet, serendipity, perhaps as the response of the drivers, which are quite remarkable, lended themselves to this slope in an almost perfect manner.
The results of our work have surpassed all my expectations sonically--the cabinet is virtually invisible sonically--which makes for a soundstage which seems boundless--not having the typical 'noises' one associates with wooden cabinets.

The public will ultimately decide if these are good to great speakers--so I won't go there for now. But I must say to everyone: I realize that our asking price is very high, but if you knew how much we pay for the parts/cabinets/CNC machining, you would probably think that this is an excersize in audio fantasy. The monies are not as important as the result--we are 'dreamers' at LSA and hope that the small profit we make on these can be made worthwhile by the enjoyment of the owners. If that sounds corny or silly, I apologize--but this is truly a lifelong dream of mine--I freely admit to this being more an exercise in expertise than profitability.

You get to make the decision as always, I can only put it out there for you to love or not.

Best to all who are open minded, and apologies to those who had to wait so long.

Larry R. Staples
LSA Group
Owner

Thanks for doing it right, Larry and John. I had all but concluded that all speakers, regardless of price, were hopelessly flawed compromises. Some with the quickness of music with frequency errors throughout and with limited high and bottom ends, boxy sounding devices with boomy basses, or line arrays with comb filtered sounds that I cannot stand. The Model 10s are none of these.

If only this could be done at a much lower price, you would run other speaker manufacturers out of business.

Where's Audioaril when you need him? From the "best in the world" to discontinued with only one pair made. Maybe he should buy them?

February 1, 2007 - LSA10 (DK F7-XDream) Speaker Project Discontinued

When LSA Group acquired DK Design Group in 2005, one prototype speaker cabinet was designated as DK’s top-end model, proposed to retail for $17,000. The 300 lb. cabinets were machined from aluminum, acoustically inert and radical in styling. LSA developed a sophisticated crossover network and exhaustively tested the unit, resulting in excellent sound performance.

This model, with its contemporary styling, garnered much attention around the industry and we continue to receive inquiries as to the status of the project.

In the meantime, we determined that rising costs of aluminum, machining and transportation of this model would result in an estimated price to the consumer of $80,000 - far in excess of the original target price.

We have decided that discontinuing this project is the best course of action

Snofun3, did you mean to say postponed rather than discontinued? Having heard these prototypes, I really hope so.

Have a LSA Statement amp with John Tucker super mods on the Pre amp section. It really is a great amp beating out my ASR Emitter 1 Exclusive in some areas.

Bought it for 3K shipped to John. Paid 1.6K for mods and shipping to FL. 4.6K and I have a killer amp on my hands. Have all Portal wire and will demo the new Exemplar dac.

The Statement amp sounds like a drug!

Glory, are you using it as an integrated amp or just an amp? Also, do you have the Urushi caps? I had the previous, just Statement version, and this one is a great improvement.

Glory,did you go through Lsa or deal derictly with John Tucker? Thanks

Glory, is the mod you had done above what is a stock LSA Statement model? I own the Statement and think it is an excellent piece. It intrigues me to think that it could be improved upon and I would certainly be interested. Thanks, Cris.

Mine has the new re worked Pre amp section so yes It has the U caps.

Using it as an integrated.

Csmgolf, it is called the LSA Statement Plus. There are many changes relative to the Statement amp, mainly in the preamp area and blocking caps to the amplifier.

Stereodad, John does all the work so you might as well go directly to him. This is what I did.

This new upgrade is an Exemplar Audio modification. If you already have a Statement amp you can contact Exemplar directly for the upgrade.

Golf-dad,

Yes John said not the same amp after the mod/upgrade and go directly to John for the mod. Wait to you hear the loops be makes for the negative posts of the amp. Ding dong!!