Dunlavy Closes Doors

Earlier this month, an unambiguous and simple message went up on the Dunlavy Audio Labs web site: "As of November 7, 2002, Dunlavy Audio Labs, LLC has ceased operations." A phone call to the company confirms that it is indeed out of business, although Dunlavy president Keny Whitright did not return calls seeking comment.

The company had been founded in 1992 by loudspeaker designer John Dunlavy and had changed hands at the end of 2001 when it was sold by John and Joan Dunlavy to Wybron, Inc., a professional lighting manufacturing firm. Wybron had been founded by music-industry veteran Keny Whitright to produce a "scrolling color changer," a box to change the color of stage lights automatically. Wybron was located adjacent to the Dunlavy Audio Labs facility in Colorado Springs, so it had seemed a good idea to Whitright to purchase the loudspeaker company when his neighbor John Dunlavy had expressed interest in retiring.

Whitright had seemed bullish about Dunlavy's future when John Atkinson spoke with him at the 2002 CEDIA conference in Minneapolis, and the company had introduced an impressive MLS-based turn-key room-acoustics analyzer to help dealers get the best sound from the speakers they sold. The company had also announced a pair of new products at the 2002 Consumer Electronics show.

Dunlavy's loudspeaker have always been highly regarded by the Stereophile staff, having garnered an award as "Product of the Year" in 1994 for the SC-IV loudspeaker, and again in 1996 when the Signature SC-VI shared the loudspeaker categeory with the Aerial Acoustics 10T.

Steven Stone favorably reviewed the Dunlavy Audio Labs Signature SC-VI in August 1996, and Robert Deutsch liked what he heard when he reviewed the Dunlavy Audio Labs SC-IV/A loudspeaker in November, 1998. John Atkinson also interviewed company founder and loudspeaker designer John Dunlavy for the August 1996 issue.

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