Coherent sound, disappear and leave the music, truthful to the source

Small sweet spot, truthful to the source and recording (would not be a weakness if engineers produced better quality rather than a catchy sound for the mass market), best sound if listening area at least 8-10 ft. from front of speaker(need room to coalesce), BIG, BIG.

I traded in my VR4 (when Von Schweikert Research went under in 1999) for the SCIV I currently own. Their production year is end of 1995. It has the Vifa woofers which replaced the Morels of the 1994 SCIV. (In the IV/a's,2-10in ScanSpeak are used). Initially, I liked the sound on some discs, but not others. Several digital front end and cable upgrades later, my respect has been well earned: the speakers give you what's there: the excellent,the good, the bad, and the ugly without editorialization or romantic colorations. They are suprisingly dynamic, almost, though not fully, to electrostatic levels, BUT they have a better integrated bottom end and speak with a minimonitor like coherence. They seem indestructible (yes I've done stupid things while they were connected) and the factory people are extremely nice and informative (I've spoken with both John Dunlavy and Andrew Rigby.)

The bad press written about them in reviews below, I believe is created by those who clip their amplifiers into distortion which is easily heard in the SC-IV if present in the chain, or have poor digital or analog front ends which the Dunlavy's will lay bare for all to hear.

Now I don't have any pretenses that these are the best speakers on the market, or that everyone will like their lack of sound (for everyone knows makeup and picture retouching make all images look/sound different-?better?), but that does not make the product inferior. They stand toe to toe or stand to stand with all the high end companies. In the end, variability in which speaker someone prefers is all right since the interaction of components, room, type of music and the "sound" one prefers, or is looking for, all enter the equation. Those not happy with their SC-IVs are just looking for something else, or have a suboptimal combination of components(not bad, but not synergistic.) However, that doesn't make the SC-IV a bad product. Conversely it is a solid 4.5. Since that is not a possible rating, I'll go 5 stars for value and 4 stars for sound(or vice versa.)

Similar Products Used:

Dahlquist DQ30i, Von Schweikert VR4 (gen.I)

Dunlavy's IVa's are one of the best overall loudspeakers that I've heard. They are very enjoyable and realistic, but still don't convey the musical image that I long for. On the T.R.E. Audio rating scale, they get a "doing!"(or a 4 of 5). The IVa's seem to be a little fatiguing after a while of listening, their imagery is stretched and not as coherent as the "focused array, D'Appolito" driver arrangement could allow. Tonal quality, however, is excellent, as it timbre, and bass resolution. The IVa is one of the few loudspeakers that could come close to accuratly re-creating my "death-bass-disc". If I had to figure price into my grading, I would still feel comfortable with 4 stars, their price (to me) accurately reflects their performance.

I've owned IV's for over 2 years. These were purchased after auditioning several others, including Ariel 10's, Vandersteens, etc. When I heard the IV's for the 1st time, after auditioning others, I knew I found the speaker I was looking for. Since their purchase, to max the LFI have experimented with interconnects, cables and cords, isolation technology. Have tried expensive cables, e.g. Nordost SMP, with interesting effect, a result of design & technology, but found the most effective cable to be inexpensive, $5 a foot Naim wire. Best interconnect to be Tara Decade from source to preamp, and Essence power cord. The improvement in bass using Naim cord over Tara 2nd gen and Harmonic Tech's No. 9's is not subtle. Black Diamond Racing cones much exceed benefits of Polycrystal cones. The net result is a much more evident bass. In all other respects, the DAL IV continues to impress me and friends as a fabulous speaker. There are those out there for whom the musical experience begins with a massive bass response, and short of that the experience cannot be enjoyed. They will not be happy with IV's. But I love them, period.

Fantastic mid's, tight bass, clean highs

Low bass, fixed with sub. size & weight fixed with
strong wife :o) or friend.

After owning several pair of other ribbon and
electrostatic speakers, I was a little leary of
going to a dynamic type of speaker but I decided
to try a pair of these Dunlavy's.
NOT dissapointed!!!! They are very eletrostatic "like"
in overall sound quality. While they do not go to
basement levels of low bass, they are very tight and
airy sounding with a great soundstage that does not
dissapear when you move side to side a little like the
ML's did.

Add a great sub and that will thicken up the bottom
and then you have the best of everything!

Similar Products Used:

Martin Logan ReQuests, Acoustat 2+2's, Magnepan 1.6 QR
Quad ESL 63.