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Who remembers the Dahlquist DQ-10's?

My first pair of "high-end" speakers.  Power hungry critters but what I would give for an updated pair.  I powered these with a Peavey CS-400 and a Maccomack Deluxe Line drive passive preamp!!  Those were the days!  Young and dumb I suppose?
128x128kenny928
mr_g
3 posts
 

In the '70's I attended an audio show at a hotel across from Madison Square Garden in NYC, several floors of audio manufacturers showing off their latest and greatest equipment. At the time, I was shopping for a new pair of speakers and had done exhaustive research. I had narrowed down the field to a pair of Polks (I believe it was the 10's).  As I wandered from room to room, I kept noticing these speakers I had never seen before, it seemed many of the manufacturers had chosen these speakers to demo their equipment with. A few weeks later I went to my local high end audio store to demo the Polks. After less than a minute, I told the salesman to turn them off, I was crushed! The speakers I was so sure would be heaven sounded terrible...all that time wasted, I was so disappointed and started to leave when I spotted these speakers, the ones I had seen at the show (I had forgotten all about them). I thought to myself, if these speakers were being used by all those manufacturers maybe I should give them a listen...I was back in heaven. They were a lot more money than the Polks but the sound! After several more trips to the store to audition these speakers with my turntable and albums I was completely familiar with, I was sold. I still have my DQ-10s today, they are a mirrored pair, sequential serial #'s. I've had the woofers re-foamed by Regnar, the tweeters have been replaced and the crossovers upgraded with the newer caps and resistors. Originally they were powered by a Phase Linear 500 amp, today the are powered by a Parasound amp, Emotiva sub and Paradigm rear speakers. I'm thinking about upgrading to some mono blocks. After all these years, I am still amazed at the sound coming from these speakers, I will never sell them!

roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
I presently own a pair of DQ-10's - mirror imaged, redone woofers, upgraded crossovers, custom stands and new grill cloth. Sound quality comparable to today's multi-kilobuck speakers! I first heard them in 1976 at Audiocom in Old Greenwich, CT. Amplifier in use was a GAS Ampzilla. Preamp was an Apt Holman and signal source was a Denon TT and Denon 103 mc cartridge with a custom-made head amp copy of a Levinson JC-1AC. To this day it remains in my memory as one of the best sounding systems!
mr_g
3 posts
 

roberjerman,

I'm currently driving them with a Parasound 2250 amp, 250W/side. These suckers have always been power hungry and I'm thinking about replacing the amp with a pair of Emotiva XPA-1 600W mono blocks.

213runnin
914 posts
 
When it comes to power hungry speakers, what is needed is an amp with high current capability for those ohm swings.   That Parasound has some good current, at 45 amps peak per channel.  It's at the low end of Parasound's line up, however.  Their A21 does 60 amps per channel, which is pretty good.  I owned this amp, and it really has great detail and control and  always sounds effortless.  It's worth a listen, anyway.

Something Emotiva doesn't do is publish the current output of their amps, they really should get with it.  Slew rate, current and output at 2 ohms are all important specs that Emotiva ignores for the XPA-1.  Oh wait, they state that the XPA-1 has a minimum 4 ohm load requirement.  For a mono block, that's embarrassing.  I'd stay away.  It also only goes down to 10 Hz, all of Parasound's Halo amps go down to 5 Hz within rated frequency response.  
roberjerman
4,319 posts
 
mr_g,                                                                         If you lived nearby me in Florida I would lend you some of my vintage amps to try out with your DQ-10's. I have several that might work well: Acoustat TNT, Perreaux 1250B, SpectroAcoustics 500, Bedini 150/150, Sumo Andromeda, BEL 1001, GAS Son of Ampzilla. All of these have sufficient power to drive DQ-10's. It's just a matter of what sonic flavor you'd prefer! I myself recommend matching vintage components with similar vintage gear. Present day new gear is not attractive to me! 
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