Dunlavy SC-IVa Set up help

I wonder what John Dunlavy or some of the people who used to work for Dunlavy (like Drew Rigby) would say about Sean's suggestions. My guess is that they would be horrified.

I also wonder if Sean has ever owned the Dunlavy SC-IV/A. I have, and the speakers gave me spectacular results -- even when set up on the short (15 feet) wall. I used some room treatments, placed them out in the room about three feet and the sound was very good. Also, these speakers are very efficient and do not require monster amps to sound fantastic.

I used to own SC-V's and had them in a room that was 16' x 26' with a 10' ceiling.
I could never get completely satisfying results out of them in that room. I ended up selling them and getting Vandersteens, actually. I always had better luck with placing absorbant material to the sides of the speakers, and not messing with the front wall too much. I think I usually placed them between 5 to 7 feet from the front wall, but I experimented with every single position, including on the long wall- and nothing ever sounded just right for me.
I came to the conclusion that the bigger Dunlavy speakers are really tempermental about where they are placed, and I would never go through that headache again.
Sorry I can't be of much help, but in a room your size it would seem you may have an even harder time getting them to open up.

Will

Sean is correct is his thoughts on bass room inneraction with certain Dunlavy speakers and various ceiling heights. I have owned Sc4's for many years and have sold numerous pairs in the past. Bass cancelation can be minimized by the use of an angled baffle between the top of the speaker and ceiling surface.My experience tells me focus within the stage is also enhanced with the use of this baffle..Tom

9rw: I think that John Dunlavy would agree with my suggestions. The reason that he didn't build the speakers in such a manner probably has more to do with cosmetic appeal ( or lack of it ) and inability to properly package and ship such a product than anything else.

As to your specific short wall installation, 15 foot isn't really all that short of a wall. With that much room, one could very easily get the speakers a good distance apart and still have a couple feet on each side of them.

As to your comments about the speakers not needing "monster amps", that is purely subjective. Having heard these speakers with both "good sized" amps and what most would call an "over-abundance of power", i've always preferred the higher powered installation every time. For that matter, so have the owners of the speakers that i've heard, hence their decision to go that route. Sean
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Somehow, I don't think John Dunlavy cared much about cosmetic appeal. That's one reason Dunlavy is out of business. And the owners manuals for his speakers sure don't suggest anything like what Sean is advocating.

Even in my previous house, with a room that measured something like 14x19, I had the SC-IV/A's on the short wall and the sound was spectacular. The bass extended into the 25 hertz range and the speakers vanished better than anything I'd ever owned (including Merlin VSM-SE, ProAc 3.5, Quad, Acoustat, Totem Mani-2 and several others). Before purchasing the speakers, I talked to Dunlavy's Drew Rigby, and he assured me that my relatively small room would not be a problem. In fact, I got much better bass in that room than I got in my 15x24 room. So Rigby was right.

As for amplifiers, one of Rigby's personal favorites for the SC-IV/A was the Rowland Model 2, which is rated at 75 watts per channel. That's hardly a monster amp.