Latest warm fuzzy: Dynaco A-10s

JRhoBurton

All roads lead to music
I saw these available and could not pass them up.

38e719a9c85fb2fe3beebbc12934ff4d.jpg


I ordered my first real system from Illinois Audio in the 70s. This included a pair of A-10s. Before it shipped, I came into some extra cash, called them and changed it to A-50s (those are regrettably long gone). This is the first time I've heard these. Playing now with subs and sound great.

I've wondered why these were the only classic Dynacos that used XO parts on the woofers. Not just a coil, but cap-coil. Maybe the SEAS 6.5s had a peak that was not an issue in the 10s. I plan to run Omnimic tests on the drivers, with and without XO, and on my beat up Polk Mon 4s also. Maybe even do some A/B listening tests. Should I go hi-low...

a95d1294c7f1f243c400798e0dbed7f3.jpg


...or side by side? (BTW, the enclosures are almost exactly the same dimensions.) Can't do true A/B with speakers because they can't be in the same place at the same time, and because level matching is undefinable (IMO) when the DUTs don't have the same frequency response, but those are trivial issues for informal testing.

I will post some results when I got 'em.

John
 
Last edited:
I had a pair of a-10's. They sounded nice. You don't see these around very much especially compared to the a25's. I got rid of mine while downsizing my bookshelf speaker stash. They are the one pair of speakers my wife still talks about (in a good way). Should have kept them
 
Last edited:
Putting aside the SPL issue (and it's not a minor one), please don't even think to run an A/B comparison arranging the speakers in the way shown in the photo. Nor do it putting them side-by-side with the lateral walls touching each other. Otherwise, resonances of cabinets and drivers will be so strong that what you'll actually be hearing will be a total mess.
 
I don't expect any problems. The biggest factor would be that the adjacent box would change the diffraction profile. This should cause a subtle but audible change.

The presence of a nearby woofer is probably a negligible factor compared to the overall loading of the playing woofer into the room. It might be about the same as placing a moderate sized glob of batting near the test speaker. I know some claim otherwise, but I've not heard this "nearby dead woofers" effect, nor do I know of any math or measurements to support it. Your comment does make we wonder if someone has measured? Somebody must have.

Your comments also make me think it might be a good idea to place a dampening layer between the boxes. If both boxes are junk and are prone to rattling or buzzing, having them touching would make it worse. Otherwise it should probably not matter, but caution is good so I'll stick something in between.

All of this speculation is rendered mostly irrelevant because all I need to do is listen to the various combinations: hi-low, side-to-side, one pair only in the room at a time.

I expect the Polks and Dynacos will sound drastically different. I might try EQing one pair to see how similar I can make it sound to the other.

John
 
I found a pristine set of A10's, along with a pair of A25's, at a thrift store in OKC about 7 years ago. Nice little speakers but sold them off not long after. Kept the A25's and the other pair of A25's I found later, though.
 
I removed the crossovers for testing and refurb. Meantime I decided to implement a very intimate combination of vintage and modern: biamping the A-10s. I set the miniDSP to LR4 at 2k on both hi and low, dialed in appropriate levels by ear, and added 4db of boost at 15k with Q at 0.7 (these old SEAS tweets roll of quite a bit on top, plus they are off axis). Also LR4 at 120 to symmetrical stereo subs. No other tweaks. These things crank, and they are very smooth.

I will need to do FR with Omnimic to see how close to optimum my ears got me. I think I have a new sub-genre in this hobby: multiamping old speakers.
 
Nice, I really like the A-10. They look really classic, and sound great. Somewhere deep in my storage lurks a pair that has avoided all the gear purges over the years. :)
 
Back
Top Bottom