Products of the Year

Joint Loudspeakers of 1994:

B&W John Bowers Silver Signature ($8000/pair; reviewed by John Atkinson, Vol.17 No.6, June 1994 Review)
Dunlavy Audio Labs SC-IV ($4995/pair–$5495/pair; reviewed by Robert Deutsch, Vol.17 No.4, April 1994 Review)

This was a very strong group of contenders, all the speakers having received rave reviews in the magazine. All sound very different from one another; all excel in some areas of reproduction but are bettered in others by another. The voting was very close and, in fact, ended in a tie between B&W's Silver Signature and Dunlavy Audio Labs' SC-IV, both speakers sharing that essential attribute for a world-class loudspeaker: the listener doesn't have to force him- or herself to like their sound. (I've observed this happening more often than you might think!) Both loudspeakers represent the state of the art of moving-coil loudspeaker engineering, with essentially flat on-axis responses. Otherwise, they're very different.

The stand-mounted B&W is a two-way design featuring a reflex-loaded, Kevlar-cone woofer and a metal-dome tweeter, both manufactured by B&W. Though the "bullet tweeter" is set back on top of the cabinet, the high-order crossover means that its output is not particularly time-coherent. However, as its name suggests, it features the use of silver for almost every metal part: the crossover inductors and capacitors are wound from silver, as are the drive-unit voice-coils; and all the wiring, from the amplifier terminals onward, is solid-core silver. Whether due to this use of noble metal or not, the Silver Signature's sound is superbly transparent, yet without detail being thrust forward at the listener in the manner of a "monitor" speaker.

While its upper bass sounds just a little too fat for reality, it has superb control in this region; in small-to-medium–sized rooms, it will effectively produce bass frequencies down to the mid-30s without strain. (Visitors new to my room and the B&Ws invariably look for a nonexistent subwoofer!)

But oh, that treble! Many audiophiles criticize metal-dome tweeters for sounding bright. (Invariably, in my experience, they are actually talking about problems much lower down in frequency, at the top of the woofer passband, that are unmasked by the quality of the tweeter.) There is no brightness to the B&W Silver Signature's high frequencies; instead, there are just the clean, overhang-free, natural-sounding highs typical of live sound. Some find its sound too polite, but that's something I can live with. After the review was published, I bought the review samples to serve as my long-term loudspeaker reference. Six months later, the B&Ws are still bringing new listening pleasure with every new LP or CD I buy.

The floorstanding Dunlavy SC-IV is a very different animal. A three-way design, it uses a vertical array of five drive-units: the two woofers are on the outside, with then the two midrange units flanking a central soft-dome tweeter. By recessing the tweeter and midrange units to bring their acoustic centers into time alignment with the woofers, and implementing the crossover with first-order filters, designer John Dunlavy has arranged for all the drive-unit outputs to add in-phase on the listening axis at listening distances between 8' and 25'.

As well as a flat amplitude response, the results include a degree of imaging precision and soundstage palpability that takes the breath away. At Hi-Fi '94, Stereophile's Miami High-End Show, a pair of Dunlavy SC-IVs was being demonstrated with an Audio Research CD transport/digital processor and Exposure amplification. Though the hotel room was barely adequate, when I sat in the one seat where everything was just right, the walls of the room dissolved and I was enveloped in the recorded acoustic with every voice and instrument solid and stable. Goosebump time!

And the Dunlavys, with their big cabinet and twin 10" woofers, have real low frequencies: bass that plays loud and clean. I'll leave it to Bob Deutsch to have the last word, taken from his review: "There are singers who have great beauty of tone and vocal agility, but not much power—much like the best minimonitors of the loudspeaker world. It takes a rare singer—eg, a Joan Sutherland—to offer tonal beauty, range, agility, and power. It's just as rare to find a wide-ranging loudspeaker that well communicates rhythm/pace, and can play loud...This is a fabulous speaker! I'm buying the review pair."

Finalists (in alphabetical order):
Apogee Mini-Grand ($5595/system; reviewed by Thomas J. Norton, Vol.17 No.3, March 1994 Review)
NHT 3.3 ($4200/pair; reviewed by Thomas J. Norton & Corey Greenberg, Vol.16 No.12, December 1993, & Vol.17 No.3, March 1994 Review)
Thiel CS1.5 ($1990/pair; reviewed by Sam Tellig, Vol.17 No.8, August 1994 Review)