Alternatives to Dunlavy speakers?

9rw: It is a two way street, what does Dunlavy's test specs prove?? For a dynamic speaker, they are good, tonal balance
is excellent, but tireguy is right, a little uninvolving, like most dynamic speakers.

John Dunlavy told me a couple years ago that if he was not a speaker deigner he would buy Thiel. I tend to agree, they have alot of the same sound, but I'm sticking with the IVa's I have. I wish I had some extra money, this would be a great time to buy a pair of V's for me. I would recommend shopping out a bargain on some floor model, dealers must be a bit paniced.

I'm thinking I might do just that, JD.

I think Richard Hardesty does an excellent job of describing Dunlavy's, Thiels and Vandersteen's in his online magazine "The Audioperfectionist." He goes into great detail about these different speakers and comes to a conclusion based on his experiences. He ultimately chose Vandersteen and tells exactly why. I too agree with his conclusions. Vandersteen's test as good as any speaker, they are time and phase aligned and are constructed of the finest drivers and parts. I have tried a lot of speakers over the years and the Vandersteen 3A Signatures and the Model 5's are a couple of the best available.
Everybody has a favorite sound or a favorite speaker. Look at all the people who like Electrostatics. Talking about test results, find one of these that is any where near flat over their range but it doesn't stop people from liking them.
I think it's best we not try to convince someone else that because we like a speaker that it is the best and everyone will love it because that is certainly not going to be the case. Each person can go out and do their own investigation. Read, read and read some more and then create you a list and head on out for the day. I, in the past, have bought speakers on Audiogon and turned around and sold them a month later. It was the only way I could get to listen to them. It afforded me the chance to listen to speakers that no local dealers have in my room.

9rw- The test spec sheet proves nothing which is why I was making the reference to the audiom TLR tweeters(retail on the tweeters alone was $2400 for the pair, so they were pretty serious car speakers- but any ways) spec sheet, frequency response is going to be SOOOOOO different from room to room and for that matter from car to car, they have other ways of testing tonal accuracy and linear excursion but again even that is still pretty pointless. I am not saying these are bad speakers, not in any way just not the last word in performance- to my ears. Happy listening everyone.