Suggested speakers to take the place of Dunlavy

In Richard Hardesty's "Audioperfectionist Journal" he reviewed the Dunlavy, Vandersteen and Thiel speakers. He ultimately chose the Vandersteen 3A Signatures with a pair of 2Wq subs. He also gave reasons why. All of the above are time aligned and phase coherent designs.
Hardesty felt the Dunlavy had a little too much box envolved in the reproduction. Personally, I thought the large baffle around the tweeter and mid was responsible creating a little boxey sound.
He talked of how well Theil's were built and the all out design that went into them.
After going through more speakers than I care to talk about, I too, settled on the Vandersteen's with the subs. I found these speakers to be very revealing but more important, true to the music. The only caveat is you need excellent amplification, upline components and it is extremely important for the setup to be right.
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I really think the man is a straight shooter and he is certainly not at the service of the industry. He also has years and years of experience both retail and as a reviever.
You may ultimately not like Vandersteen's (which is absolutely ok with me) but at least he gives reasons (which I do agree with) for his decisions based on facts and sound, educated judgements. If nothing else, it is material to help you make a "Sound" decision. We need all of that we can get!

I think the speakers that sound most like Dunlavy's in order from top to bottom are: Thiel, Meadowlark and Vandersteen. I have not heard the Green Moutains, but, would guess that they too share some of the same qualities.

Bigtee's comments are interesting because I was thinking along the same lines when I read Roland's post. You might also consider Piega. The usual caveats apply since revealing speakers are always sensitive to components and cabling. Some of the vandersteen models have tighter bass than others so listen carefully. All of the speakers mentioned will require powerful amplification.

Hi,

I'll point out that all the speakers you all have mentioned use 1st order designs. What I'm hearing from all this is is that it's generally thoujght that the 1st order crossover is most responsible for the sound of the speakers.

I must say that I never noticed the Dunlavys I have heard to sound boxy or anything like it. I've also owned a pair of Thiel speakers and liked them alot, but found them to be somewhat wanting in the midrange area. I like the Vandersteen line but also find it somewhat recessed in the upper frequency regions for my tastes.

I must admit that it's quite disappointing to see Dunlavy out of the mix, but sometimes you just have to move on. Keep on with the ideas--something has to be out there that's as good or better!

Roland