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"Dahlquist for Dummies"

Finally got around to hooking them up. Both woofers are pretty flabby and one is really bad. I hope both drivers are still good. Man, i wonder how much a shop would charge to rebuild the XO'ers and "mirror image" one? I'm almost getting to the point where i wanna muck around with them. Upgrading my Cornie II's tonight was a piece of cake. I have a buddy who can solder. Buy him a few beers, i'm sure he'd let me borrow his kit. I think i've got an electrical tester laying in a toolbox somewhere.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...:scratch2:
 
libertycaps said:
Finally got around to hooking them up. Both woofers are pretty flabby and one is really bad. I hope both drivers are still good. Man, i wonder how much a shop would charge to rebuild the XO'ers and "mirror image" one? I'm almost getting to the point where i wanna muck around with them. Upgrading my Cornie II's tonight was a piece of cake. I have a buddy who can solder. Buy him a few beers, i'm sure he'd let me borrow his kit. I think i've got an electrical tester laying in a toolbox somewhere.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...:scratch2:
Click to expand...

It is easy to have the DQ-10 woofers re-foamed. They are the same as the woofers in the larger Advent. I had mine done several years ago. The local shop did a great job and it wasn't expensive. I mirror-imaged mine myself, and upgraded the caps by assembling a rather big stack of non-electrolytic capacitors. I also replaced the thin solid wire with stranded wire, mostly #14. I bypassed the tweeter pot.

I drive them with various amps (one at a time) including the Sumo Andromeda (when I want the power); Electron kinetics Eagle 2A (125WPC); or the Audio Research Dual-76 (when I feel like listening to tubes, which is a lot of the time). I also have an Adcom GFA555, but it sounds too dark in my system (a matter of taste), so I use it to drive the subwoofer. A good beefy amp for that purpose. The electronic crossover is my own design, using an 18 dB/octave active circuit for the subwoofer, and a 6dB/octave passive network for the amp driving the Dq-10's.

With music not requiring much power, I have been known to hook up my Marantz 8b to the Dahlquists.

I've kept the Dq-10's since buying them in the mid-70's. Before them I had KLH 12's, which didn't really do the trick for me. Before those I used Bozak speakers. I still miss those at times.

Enjoy the DQ-10's. If your experience is anything like mine, they will stay in your system a long time.
 
Thanks for the good info.

Got a line on a local pair of Large Advent woofers just today. Hopefully, they'll work cuz the woofers need replacing badly. Thinking i'll mirror image one myself and maybe have the XO'ers rebuilt at some point, but they seem to do the business for now. Positive i'll be keeping the DQ 10's in rotation for awhile. Glad i pulled the trigger for them.
 
You know, another idea would be to replace the woofers with a good pair of 8" ones. The original woofer has its resonance somewhere in the 60 to 65 Hz range. They are already 3 dB down by 50 or 55 Hz or so.The cabinet volume is a bit small to allow the woofer to extend down much lower. A smaller woofer would be able to reach deeper. Though it wouldn't move as much air, it might be in good balance with the rest of the speaker. A lot of good speakers these days use woofers of 8" and even 6" diameter.

What speaker to use? Something with a good butyl rubber surround that won't fall apart. Maybe something by Peerless or Audax? A little tweaking would be in order to balance it with the midrange. You would need to make a reducing adapter for the existing hole, which is too large for a 8".
 
libertycaps said:
Thanks for the good info.

Got a line on a local pair of Large Advent woofers just today. Hopefully, they'll work cuz the woofers need replacing badly. Thinking i'll mirror image one myself and maybe have the XO'ers rebuilt at some point, but they seem to do the business for now. Positive i'll be keeping the DQ 10's in rotation for awhile. Glad i pulled the trigger for them.
Click to expand...

Why not just refoam the woofers that are in them? The grills are a pain to get off but I'm guessing that is the problem?
 
I'm going in today to pull a woofer out to compare with a local CL seller's large Advent woofers. These things do look like a pain in the ass to disassemble. Wish me luck!
 
C'mon. Half a dozen screws and i'm in. Maybe all these things need is a re-foam as the foam on the woofs is completely MIA. Dead soldiers?!
 
jamac charges something like 29 dollars a refoam. I just had mny woofer foams redone as both foams were completely missing., It makes one hell of a difference when the foam is actually there :)
 
Nooo, don't replace the woofers just refoam them. There are kits for $15 for a pair. If you really want to replace them the advents are online as well for around $100. IMO the originals are absolutely fine once you refoam them.

For caps you can get a whole set of Axion ones for around $55. They are low end but sound fine. You can just clip old capacitors to keep the legs and solder new ones to those making things a lot less work.

It's a fair amount of work but not difficult.
 
Awesome - thanks for the discussion guys! I saw some Maggie SMGs in the DC Craigslist today, thought I might gt them for rears to do a surround with my MG-IIBs, but when I wrote I found he also had a pair of DQ-10s with the MX-1 crossover and DQ-1W sub ... and I found lots of folks are real fans of them, so I went to Annapolis for a listen ...
Sure enough, even without a good CD player or source to test them with, they sounded very cool, so I snapped them up.

I'll have to make room to get the whole thing setup, but I just got them home so I did the basic 2 panel set up for now. Bass is good even without the sub, but the caps look ancient!

Feeding them with a Carver receiver for now - something like 150w/ch into 4 ohms - seems well suited with them!
 

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I replaced my Maggies with my DQ-10s. It's like Maggies all over the room instead of just one sweet spot.

Enjoy


Eric
 
You should take off the covers and see the condition of the foam around the woofers. Chances are they need replaced before you put them into service. Caps ARE at the end of life and replacement will only improve the sound. Nice 3D all around - both sharp and mellow... sound stage will be MUCH better (and I know it's good now).

If you need a cap list for replacement let us know.

Foams can be had in the $25 range on ebay etc. If you don't do any of this on your own, someone here can help you.

Cheers,

Bob
 
bobrown14 said:
You should take off the covers and see the condition of the foam around the woofers. Chances are they need replaced before you put them into service. Caps ARE at the end of life and replacement will only improve the sound. Nice 3D all around - both sharp and mellow... sound stage will be MUCH better (and I know it's good now).

If you need a cap list for replacement let us know.

Foams can be had in the $25 range on ebay etc. If you don't do any of this on your own, someone here can help you.

Cheers,

Bob
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info Bob - like I said, I just got them home and its bedtime soon. Previous owner said he'd had the woofers rebuilt a few years back, but he also told me the DQ-MX1 was some special audiophile thing the guy he bought it from built, so I dunno ... I'll check over the weekend.
I've done refoams on JBL 14s and 15s before, so that shouldn't be hard,
if it needs it ...

I'm more concerned about the mid-bass driver, and one of the tweeter boards has come loose from the bracket, but they aren't mirror imaged yet, and I've heard that's worth doing ... plus I'd like some better speaker cloth - maybe the original tweedy white stuff would be nice.

Again, thanks for all tips - I just played a bunch of thing and even with them just plopped in the room, not an optimum position, stuff like Sinatra - One for my baby; Steey Dan - Cousin Dupree, Van Morrison - The Warm Feeling,
knopfler - The Border Riever - all just sound so great - and I can't hear a need for a sub .. but at some point I'll hook it up and see ...
A little fill at 60Hz can't hurt!
 
Just rebuilt the broken tweeter board - it had broken loose from the mounts - a friend who has DQ-10s said thats common.
As long as I was redoing the one panel I mirored them in the process. I'll recap them in a month or so when I get more time ...
And yes, I used dial calipers to get the time align offsets correct when I mounted the boards to their new positions.

Still don't have the sub in place - playing a live Railroad Earth recording from 2004 and it sounds very nice even at a lower bit rate!
Donald Fagen The Night Fly earlier from CD was also quite nice ... very happy with them!
 

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hjames said:
Just rebuilt the broken tweeter board - it had broken loose from the mounts - a friend who has DQ-10s said thats common.
As long as I was redoing the one panel I mirored them in the process. I'll recap them in a month or so when I get more time ...
And yes, I used dial calipers to get the time align offsets correct when I mounted the boards to their new positions.

Still don't have the sub in place - playing a live Railroad Earth recording from 2004 and it sounds very nice even at a lower bit rate!
Donald Fagen The Night Fly earlier from CD was also quite nice ... very happy with them!
Click to expand...

I feel a little better about my main listening room, heck, all the rooms in our house have that much stuff in them! :) We may a few more plants , like 150 in the main listening room. I'd feel naked without all our stuff. Makes the house a home. Good luck with your DQ-10's, I want some but I've already got 30+ pairs of speakers. john
 
The sub cabinet was dry and pale, with rings and scratches, but I took some 400grit sandpaper and lightly sanded the top and sides ... then finished up with some steel wool and orange oil ... looks amazing now!
My usual speaker cables have banana plugs on the ends, but the MX-1 crossover has pinch clamps and won't accept bananas. So I got a spool of wire last weekend and made up "jumper cables" with through-banana connectors at one end and bare ends at the other end, so I hookup the MX-1 passive crossover & DQ-1W sub in place.

So all this week, instead of my walnut horn custom JBL 3 ways, we've been listening to the Dahlquist system, with the sub. The MX-1 crossover is set at 60Hz, phase at L+R, sub volume at the mid level position.
Our Carver receiver is about 150w/ch into 4 ohms - but there is a big difference on efficiency and volume level from the JBL 3 ways
.
I've tried a bunch of Cds - remastered Live at Leeds and Who is Next, Remastered Boston (1st album), and some other tracks here and there. It seems some hard rock just muddies up in these - but some other music is breathtaking. And the sub adds just enough bottom to make a difference.

Played Consecration, some of the final Bill Evans trios' recordings - very nice!
After work yesterday I played the remastered CD of Jan Garbarek "I Took Up the Runes" - its a great ECM recording with Jan on Sax and Manu Katché drumming ... the drums are crisp and tight - the wailing sax haunting.
A very nice experience!

The Maggies (MG-IIbs) are definately going to be sold ... he he he!
 
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libertycaps said:
Looking fairly seriously at a local pair of vintage DQ 10's. Can i do any better in the 70's Dahlquist line? I know they are power hungry buggers and will be feeding them with a Sansui 990DB.

ATTN: Audio adepts. Please advise this Dahlquist neophyte. :D
Click to expand...
Im powering mine with the Sansui 890. Plenty of power, cross ovrr and sub makes all the difference
 
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