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The following equipment was used for this speaker review:

Analog sources were an upgraded VPI TNT Jr. turntable with outboard flywheel, sitting on a Bright Star base and a Townshend Seismic Sink. Tonearms mounted on the table were the Graham 1.5TC and Clearaudio/Souther TQ-1. Cartridges included the van den Hul MC-1 Super, Dynavector XX-II, AudioQuest MC-200, Fidelity Research/van den Hul FR-1, Denon DL103/vdH, and a Denon DL-SI. Digital front-ends were PS Audio Lambda CD Drive and C.E.C. TL 2 CD transports, and a Sony D-7 portable DAT recorder connected via…

In my own auditioning of the big Dunlavy, performed with an Adcom 5800 amplifier in Dunlavy's own listening room when I drove up to Colorado Springs to measure the speaker, there was one aspect of its sound that struck me as almost unique. I used the opportunity to audition the test pressing of the Robert Silverman Liszt Sonata CD that we released in June (Sonata, STPH008-2). While visually the SC-VI is an enormous loudspeaker, I agree with SS that, if you shut your eyes, it doesn't sound "big." By this I mean that its imaging was so precisely…

As with some other monster speakers—the JMlab Grande Utopia in May '96, for example, and the Jadis Eurythmie II in March—the SC-VI's size and weight precluded measuring it in Stereophile's listening room, where I routinely perform speaker measurements. (Generally speaking, to perform an acoustic measurement in a room requires the room to be very much larger than the loudspeaker.) But in the case of the big Dunlavy, the fact that the company is based in Colorado Springs—a mere six-hour hop by car over the Raton Pass from Stereophile World HQ in Santa Fe, New Mexico…

In the time domain, the Dunlavy's impulse response can be seen in fig.3. It has an excellent, time-coherent shape, though with some slight HF ringing evident. A reflection can also be seen about 2.5ms after the main pulse, which…

Only problem is, that ol' valve…

Description: Rated power: 35Wpc (15.44dBW/8 ohms), 20-20kHz, at less than 0.25% THD. IM distortion: less than 1% up to 30W. Frequency response: 20-20kHz ±0.5dB at rated power. Input sensitivity: 1.3V.
Dimensions: 13" W by 9.5" D by 7" H. Weight: 35 lbs.
Price: $995 with standard black finish, $1095 with chrome chassis (1992); no longer available (2004). Approximate number of dealers: 220.
Manufacturer: Panor Corp., 125 Cabot Court, Hauppage, NY 11788. Tel: (631) 434-1200. Web: www.dynaco.com.

I hooked the amps up to my hi-fi rig: Aunt Corey's Homemade Buffered Passive Preamp, Audio Research SP-14 phono stage, Well-Tempered Record Player fitted with the Sumiko Blue Point cartridge and Analog Survival Arm Wrap, the Proceed CD Library 100-disc multi-player, Theta DS Pro Basic II processor driven via Theta's excellent digital cable by either a JVC XL-Z1050 CD player or the dig-out jack of the CD Library, and ProAc Response Two speakers seated on the back-breakin' heavy-metal Target RS2 stands. Interconnects were Kimber KCAG except for Straight Wire Maestro between…

The ST70 Series II, like most tube amplifiers, ran quite warm after its preconditioning test and in normal operation. It was noninverting, and though the measured DC offset was generally below 10mV, it was also unstable, as it was with the Nobis. The unweighted wide-band S/N ratio of the ST70 II measured 60dB, referenced to 1W into 8 ohms.

The input impedance of the ST70 II was quite high—over 330k ohms—which is typical of many tube amplifiers. Matching to the output of any reasonably designed preamplifier should present no problem. Its output impedance from the 8…

Editor: My response to Corey's incompetent review of the Stereo 70/II should be just that—a letter to Corey:

Point/Counterpoint: Corey. You incredibly misguided wordmeister. If, as you say, you want to find the best-sounding affordable tube gear, the new Stereo 70/II should have lit your fire. After all, every major audiophile publication in the world has rated the ST-70 as a great value, with The Abso!ute Sound concluding that its "clarity and detail are nothing less than stunning."

First of all, using a ProAc Response Two with a sensitivity of 86dB…