I've had a couple pair and recapped them to the same with films and mirrored them. Got a couple pair of bespoke stands made and sold a pair to a buddy in our audio group. Other pair in my mains, look and work great with 50 watts of tube power (I use subs so the tube amps aren't doing anything below about 50Hz) and play as loud as needed by our group.
Anyway, jb offered a set of 10 for 2 bills and since I work on the tts he flips, odd higher end euro jobs, I'll be into these just a few hours time fixing up tables and arms he is selling. Well they came in yesterday when he was here to pick up the Goldmund table with the T3 linear tracking arm.
While he was here I thought I'd open them since they have replaced tweeter/super tweeter and we didn't know the condition of the woofer.
Now since I need to make this long since I haven't posted in months, lemme get the back story out of the way.
I swapped a handcrafted Hafler DH-200 power amp for a pair of Luxman MB3045 tube amps back in the mid-80s. These use a proprietary power tube, the 8045G and driver tube the 6240G. The power tube is NLA. So once I had exhausted the ability to use the worn-out tubes, I put them in their boxes and parked them in the basement. Years later Al Gore had finished inventing the internet and I was able to contact someone on the asylum and obtain a copy of the Luxman manual to modify the amps to use the KT88/6550 power tube. I made the changes listed and tried to bias/balance the amps and there was no response to moving either of the adjustment pots. Back into the box they went or did I put them on the shelf in the soundroom since they look cool?
Then with the internet, I started an audio group in our area that gets together monthly to cruise to tunes, suck suds, nosh and chat. I like it when folks bring over new to me music and play my stereo for me. Well the youngest member of that group, maybe about 40 at the time a half dozen or so years ago was very knowledgeable in tube amplification. Has a bunch of it, sounds good, what he has brought over for folks to hear. Anyway, I asked him if he'd drop by and see if we can get the amps going. So he shows up, I have the amp upside down, powered on and not moving the meter while checking the bias (75mA) or the balance (set to the same and repeat until the numbers stop changing). 500Volts coursing through the wiring in those amps.
Thain asks for a jumper, I hand him one and then step back about 6 feet. It appears he is going to connect a jumper inside a live amp with 500 Volts DC in it. He does so and nothing smokes and once I got close enough to make adjustments the bias and balance were working just fine. What? It was that easy, just a jumper? Well yes. The manual did not call out the jumper from the choke to the terminal strip with a resistor over to the tube pin. A part of the mod left out of the instructions.
Anyway that is the story of how the internet got my best sounding amps up and running. Conversion manual and technical help to complete the conversion.
Back to the speakers.
Turns out these DQ-10s might contain a highly regarded modification to remove the tweeter/super tweeter and replace with a better sounding soft dome tweeter and uses a ribbon for the super tweeter. Found out what drivers I have and searched and found out about a Randy McCarter DQ-10 mod that uses the Audax tweeter and JVC ribbon. Randy was the principle in Randall Research an early pioneer in high performance interconnects and wiring.
All the info I have found is folks talking about this mod they had or saw back in the mid-80s well before the www. Some of those folks that talk about it are not listed on the audio sites anymore and others are obviously getting older. Hopefully, the one I have contacted so far will get back to me or maybe I can find another person to reach out to about this mod so I can restore these to be upgraded DQ-10s.
Be great to have some of the best of the mid-80s playing in my soundroom to go along with other top gear from that era. The DQ-10 is still a viable speaker today, especially at the price. But a hot-rodded pair would be great. But finding the info is gonna be harder than getting the amps working.
Anyway, jb offered a set of 10 for 2 bills and since I work on the tts he flips, odd higher end euro jobs, I'll be into these just a few hours time fixing up tables and arms he is selling. Well they came in yesterday when he was here to pick up the Goldmund table with the T3 linear tracking arm.
While he was here I thought I'd open them since they have replaced tweeter/super tweeter and we didn't know the condition of the woofer.
Now since I need to make this long since I haven't posted in months, lemme get the back story out of the way.
I swapped a handcrafted Hafler DH-200 power amp for a pair of Luxman MB3045 tube amps back in the mid-80s. These use a proprietary power tube, the 8045G and driver tube the 6240G. The power tube is NLA. So once I had exhausted the ability to use the worn-out tubes, I put them in their boxes and parked them in the basement. Years later Al Gore had finished inventing the internet and I was able to contact someone on the asylum and obtain a copy of the Luxman manual to modify the amps to use the KT88/6550 power tube. I made the changes listed and tried to bias/balance the amps and there was no response to moving either of the adjustment pots. Back into the box they went or did I put them on the shelf in the soundroom since they look cool?
Then with the internet, I started an audio group in our area that gets together monthly to cruise to tunes, suck suds, nosh and chat. I like it when folks bring over new to me music and play my stereo for me. Well the youngest member of that group, maybe about 40 at the time a half dozen or so years ago was very knowledgeable in tube amplification. Has a bunch of it, sounds good, what he has brought over for folks to hear. Anyway, I asked him if he'd drop by and see if we can get the amps going. So he shows up, I have the amp upside down, powered on and not moving the meter while checking the bias (75mA) or the balance (set to the same and repeat until the numbers stop changing). 500Volts coursing through the wiring in those amps.
Thain asks for a jumper, I hand him one and then step back about 6 feet. It appears he is going to connect a jumper inside a live amp with 500 Volts DC in it. He does so and nothing smokes and once I got close enough to make adjustments the bias and balance were working just fine. What? It was that easy, just a jumper? Well yes. The manual did not call out the jumper from the choke to the terminal strip with a resistor over to the tube pin. A part of the mod left out of the instructions.
Anyway that is the story of how the internet got my best sounding amps up and running. Conversion manual and technical help to complete the conversion.
Back to the speakers.
Turns out these DQ-10s might contain a highly regarded modification to remove the tweeter/super tweeter and replace with a better sounding soft dome tweeter and uses a ribbon for the super tweeter. Found out what drivers I have and searched and found out about a Randy McCarter DQ-10 mod that uses the Audax tweeter and JVC ribbon. Randy was the principle in Randall Research an early pioneer in high performance interconnects and wiring.
All the info I have found is folks talking about this mod they had or saw back in the mid-80s well before the www. Some of those folks that talk about it are not listed on the audio sites anymore and others are obviously getting older. Hopefully, the one I have contacted so far will get back to me or maybe I can find another person to reach out to about this mod so I can restore these to be upgraded DQ-10s.
Be great to have some of the best of the mid-80s playing in my soundroom to go along with other top gear from that era. The DQ-10 is still a viable speaker today, especially at the price. But a hot-rodded pair would be great. But finding the info is gonna be harder than getting the amps working.
