Interesting Dahlquist Speakers

[steve65]

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ele/d/dahlquist-m909-speakers/6534021567.html

Had never before heard of these, I'm a huge fan of the DQ-10's. Someone should go buy these before I piss my wife off again!

No affiliation

 

[swechsler]

That's probably a high price for these, considering a pair of DQ-10s can be had for less.

For posterity:

 

[nolasally]

Id rather have these than dq-10's unless they came with subwoofer and crossover box!

 

[Blue Shadow]

The DQ-10 ended production about the time these started, 1987 by orion, which can be wrong. the 10 was 1200 and the 909 was 1500 at that time. These probably sound excellent.

 

[india42]

I had a pair of these, they were excellent speakers. Vifa drivers, sounded great, I sold them after I acquired a set of DQ-30's. I sold mine for $325 a few years ago, I think they're worth $400.

 

[markshan]

Id rather have these than dq-10's unless they came with subwoofer and crossover box!

At least there is no piezo. They have that going for them. (Sorry, not a big Dahlquist fan.)

 

[swechsler]

Are those woofers doped, or is there something weird going on with the dust caps?

Regarding piezos in the DQ-10s, I've been doing a little research on this, and apparently piezos are pretty good if you cross over to them above about 4khz. The problems with harshness manifest themselves at lower frequencies, when a crossover isn't used.

 

[Blue Shadow]

Are those woofers doped, or is there something weird going on with the dust caps?

Regarding piezos in the DQ-10s, I've been doing a little research on this, and apparently piezos are pretty good if you cross over to them above about 4khz. The problems with harshness manifest themselves at lower frequencies, when a crossover isn't used.

4k up is definitely stretching it a lot. The tweeter responds ±5dB from 4k to over 20k so that is its usable range. Falls off quickly starting at 5k, down some at 4k. Has a peak above 20k. The use of the tweeter as the only tweeter in many cheap sound reinforcement type boxes is the reason it gets a bad rap, it doesn't sound good to many when working a lot of the high frequency range. The fact that Dahlquist limited its response to above 12kHz is why that speaker usually doesn't sound harsh like speakers using the piezo on a wider range. I probably don't want to hear it working much below 10kHz.

Those dust caps look horribly reglued in place. Cause to investigate. Maybe a refoam with shims and bad job of putting the dust caps back in place.

 

[swechsler]

Yeah, I could very well have misremembered that frequency as 4khz. At any rate, here's a much more detailed thread from way in the past.

 

[jberger]

These are lacking the open driver mounting that made the DQ-10 and DQ-20 sound so open; that, plus the dust cap junk, would have me walking away. And I'm a Dahlquist fan!

 

[62sunbeam]

The dust caps are weighted with some sort of rubbery stuff.

While I’ve never had/heard these particular Dahlquists every other type or pair I’ve had and heard were excellent speakers. And I’ve had almost all of them.

I’d love a set of 909s.

Enjoy

Eric

 

[Pio1980]

Iirc, a major problem with the piezo was resonant ringing.