Who is still rockin' a turntable?

IIRC, AR is another lapsed copyright or outright sold and acquired by new dubious (possibly Chinese) owners.

Shame as they had a good rep.

No, I think AR is now owned by Voxx, so still American.

Great thread, it brings back all kinds of memories. I got into audio in the late 70's and never looked back. I had a LOT of nice equipment come and go, here is what I have at the moment. Other than the Harman Kardon receiver and CD player, I think the newest stuff is from the mid-80's. That's a Panasonic direct drive turntable with a slightly worse-for-wear dust cover. The smaller speakers are B&W DM 22's used for casual listening, radio, and the news station. I loved them since first hearing them in the 80's and looked for them forever before finding an excellent pair on eBay. The big box in the corner is an 18" JBL subwoofer, homebuilt from plans published in Audio magazine a very long time ago. It weighs more than I do by a healthy margin! It's tuned to be dead flat to 26 Hz. It's powered by a Dynaco 416 that I built and strapped in mono. The crossover is a Dahlquist adjustable. The big main speakers for serious listening are two sets of Dahlquist DQ-10's, mirror imaged and stacked in homemade stands. They are run by a nice Denon amp my brother gave me when he downsized his home system. Oh, and then there's the 3000 or so albums sitting underneath all this stuff.









And to sign off, I will rat myself out. My girlfriend suggested a while ago I have a "problem" with speakers. I replied that I certainly did not. She responds that yes you do, they are everywhere. To prove my point, I counted all the speakers inside the house, it was only 21 units. And that doesn't count the 17 more speakers I have in the shop. Of that total 38 speakers, only 13 are hooked up and running. The rest are "extras". OK, maybe I do have a thing for speakers...

The speakers are cool, but my experience tells me that the woofer at the top is not really going to make audible bass.
I have always found that a woofer, whether it's a standalone sub or part of a full range speaker in a cabinet, has to be on the floor or the ceiling.
I have first hand experience with a pair of Cerwin Vega D-9 speakers that were on stands in 2 corners of a raised ceiling (20 ft?) room. The problem was the stands were half way up the wall. Each had a 15" woofer, but their placement killed the bass.
You may have a different experience, but I believe the bass output would dramatically improve if the woofers were both at the bottom.
That looks like 2 pair of DQ-10s, like you said, but if possible, try both woofer sections at the bottom, and leave the mids and tweeters where they are.

Putting a sub in line with the floor, or in the corner, or up against the ceiling will indeed usually give an apparent bass boost. But that isn't necessarily the best sound. While standing waves can amplify certain frequencies more, it can also muddy the sound. Tight, clean bass often does come from where halfafish has placed his woofers.

To each his own. I was involved in the business for about 20 years, had an appreciation for music from an early age since my grandfather was a professional musician, and my dad has always been "into" audio gear. I had 2 published theater rooms, so I am bringing experience to the conversation, but ultimately, it's whatever the end user wants or likes.

biomedtechguy said:

The speakers are cool, but my experience tells me that the woofer at the top is not really going to make audible bass.

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Photon440 said:

Putting a sub in line with the floor, or in the corner, or up against the ceiling will indeed usually give an apparent bass boost.

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I agree on both points. The 10" woofers on all four DQ's are crossed out at 70 Hz. The bottom end is handled by an 18" JBL in a 13 Cu Ft box, here is a better photo. The DQ's have marginal low end no matter what you do. The JBL (bottom fired) fixes that problem nicely.

I have my front 3 speakers (rated to 32Hz) crossed over at 40Hz, and the rest at 60Hz. All well within the range of my BOTH fast, and deep (12Hz) Definitive Technology Trinity Supercube sub.
Anyone posting here should be able to appreciate this: I have achieved audio nirvana, for movies and music, and I never "want" for, although I have played with HD audio formats via computer downloads from high end music vendors. I can play them back on the OPPO disc player decoder. That OPPO is one of the best additions to my system, for a multitude of reasons, and it is yet another piece I had to buy used (although in excellent condition) to get an outstanding item and to move forward in a number of important ways.

biomedtechguy, you're one of the very few that I've come across so far that would appreciate an OPPO.

Photon440 said:

biomedtechguy, you're one of the very few that I've come across so far that would appreciate an OPPO.

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Thanks. I got the BDP-105D "Darbee" edition, which from my understanding the Darbee adds additional video picture quality upgrades and adjustments. The dual 32 bit Sabre DACs are some of the best for audio. I have Burr-Brown 32 bit floating decimal point DACs in my Sony ES STR-DA 777ES surround sound receiver(s) (I have one for backup) circa 1999. The receiver is in my living room and sees little use, but it used to be the centerpiece of my published home theater room.
The OPPO was bought mainly for its BluRay surround sound format decoders, and I use the 7.1 analog outputs to feed my STR-DA 9000ES surround receiver as it was made in 2005 and is lacking the most common and popular modern movie surround sound decoders. With the OPPO, that's not a problem any more. I also use the WiFi and USB data capabilities for High Definition audio as I had said, and I see it has TIDAL reception capabilities built in. There's also a "hack" that can be done that allows for SACD DSD audio playback, but I use my Sony SCD-XA9000ES SACD/CD player for Super Audio CD playback as it has a iLink FireWire output, and the STR-DA 9000ES has the matching iLink input, so SACDs are transmitted in their raw DSD digital format all the way through the receiver until just before it hits the speaker wires.
It's a very special and unique combination that plays SACD audio back in the purest way possible. I'm a fan of that audio format.