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Dahlquist Loudspeakers
System 4
Home-Theater Speaker System
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Description Model:
QX8 speakers
Price: $600 USD per pair
Dimensions: 32.3"H x 7.9"W x 11.4"D
Weight: 25.5 pounds each
Model: QX50C center-channel speaker
Price: $300 USD
Dimensions: 6.7"H x 18.9"W x 7.8"D
Weight: 14 pounds
Model: QX4 surround speakers
Price: $250 USD per pair
Dimensions: 10.2"H x 5.9"W x 11"D
Weight: 6 pounds each
Model: QX125S subwoofer
Price: $500 USD
Dimensions: 17.8"H x 12.2"W x 16.8"D
Weight: 33.2 pounds |
Description (cont'd)System Price:
$1650 USD
Warranty: Five years on speakers, one year
on subwoofer
Features
- Polypropylene woofers
- Aluminum-alloy tweeters
- Dual gold-plated binding posts (QX8)
- 10" paper-cone woofer (QX125S)
- 125W amplifier (QX125S)
- Level control (QX125S)
- Phase adjustment (QX125S)
- Adjustable crossover (QX125S)
- Black oak, cherry, or high-gloss blackfinishes
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The new Dahlquist designs and manufactures its
speakers, including the drivers themselves, in its Canadian-based facility. Its full line
of loudspeakers spans several size and price points, ranging from small, inexpensive
bookshelf speakers and matching center-channel speakers to towers and subwoofers. And then
there's the System 4, the subject of this review, which has a retail price of $1650 USD.
Product description
The Dahlquist System 4 consists of a pair of small tower
speakers (QX8), a horizontal center-channel speaker (QX50C), a pair of small bookshelf
speakers for surround duties (QX4), and a self-powered subwoofer (QX125S). In the QX
speaker range, the QX8 is the smallest of three tower speakers, the QX50C is the mid-sized
model of three center-channel speakers, and the QX4 is the smallest of three bookshelf
speakers. The QX125S sits in the middle of the company’s three subwoofer offerings.
The QX8 is a tad short for a tower speaker, standing only
32.5" high -- not that there’s anything wrong with being short! It is finished
nicely in black oak, with clean lines and graceful proportions. Its removable grille fits
snugly to the front of the speaker. The rear-ported QX8 sports a 1" aluminum-alloy
tweeter and a 6" polypropylene woofer. Rare in this price range are the dual
gold-plated binding posts, suitable for biamping or biwiring. Dahlquist lists its
"average room" sensitivity as 91dB, with a nominal impedance of 6 ohms. These
numbers indicate that the QX8 is an easy amplifier load, and my audition confirms that
they are indeed easy to drive with modest amounts of amplifier power.
The QX50C is a mid-sized center-channel speaker in a
sealed-box enclosure with a sloping top finished in matte black. Its size roughly
corresponds to the top of my 32" direct-view TV. The driver array consists of the
same 1" aluminum-alloy tweeter as seen in the QX8, flanked by a pair of 5"
polypropylene woofers. It employs a single set of gold-plated binding posts.
For surround duties, Dahlquist sent a small
direct-radiating bookshelf speaker, the QX4. This speaker is also an acoustic-suspension
design. This speaker has slightly different drivers -- a .75" aluminum-alloy tweeter
and a 4" polypropylene woofer. As a matter of interest, Dahlquist has a dedicated
surround speaker, the QX20R, which can be switched from direct mode to a diffuse mode.
This speaker may be more suited to your preferences or your home-theater layout than a
direct radiator.
The subwoofer supplied with the Dahlquist System 4 is the
QX125S. This subwoofer is a little taller and a little narrower than most subwoofers in
its price range. It features a high-efficiency, class-D amplifier, rated at 125W nominal
output. The driver is a forward-firing 10" paper-cone woofer, which is vented by a
massive front port. The QX125S has line-level inputs along with speaker-level inputs and
outputs. There are controls for the variable crossover and volume level, as well as a
phase switch, which allows fine-tuning of the bass in your room. The QX125S automatically
powers on when a signal is detected and an LED on the front of the subwoofer changes color
from red to green to alert you of its status.
The QX125S includes a useful feature: a toggle switch
labeled "Input" with settings for "LFE" and "Norm." When
switched to "LFE" the subwoofer bypasses the internal crossover and allows your
receiver or processor to dictate the crossover frequency. This is usually the preferred
method of hooking up a sub in a 5.1 home-theater system, since it avoids overlapping your
receiver’s crossover with the subwoofer’s crossover. This switch is useful and
welcome because most other subwoofers I’ve tried use a separate RCA input for
bypassing the internal crossover in the subwoofer. A switch is easier to, well, switch.
Visually, I would describe the Dahlquist System 4 as nicely
proportioned. In my average-sized room, the speakers simply looked right, and did
not dominate their surroundings
Home-theater set up and performance
Because of the just-right proportions of this
Dahlquist system, I easily set it up in my family room right where the considerably
smaller Energy Take
5.2 system was. The front left and right speakers were placed 9’ away from my
listening seat, at 30-degree angles relative to the center-channel. The surrounds were
placed 6’ away on 36" stands, 90-degrees relative to the center-channel speaker.
The center-channel was placed on top of my 32" direct-view TV, and the subwoofer was
adjacent to the front left speaker.
It was clear to me from the start that this is a special
speaker system. My first impression was that of awesome high frequencies. In
chapter 2 from The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, the strings of Eric
Serra’s score, reproduced through the Dahlquist QX8, had much more air than I’m
used to hearing. The highs were not harsh at all, but were quite extended and
non-fatiguing. This high-frequency performance proved to be both satisfying and
quite revealing.
The rated sensitivity of the speakers in the Dahlquist
System 4 is fairly high, and this allowed me to crank the system to loud levels with only
65Wpc from the Outlaw Model 1050 receiver I’m currently using. In the final chapter
of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Joan is burned at the stake and all
five of the Dahlquist speakers are reproducing the full force of the orchestra and choir.
Some home-theater systems that I’ve heard can become gritty and harsh at loud volume
levels such as these. I heard only a hint of dynamic compression with the Dahlquist System
4, which is admirable performance for a system of this size.
The Dahlquist QX4 speakers performed surround duties with a
precise sound. This was evident in chapter 2 of the same DVD, a dream sequence where I
could clearly hear the sound of voices behind my listening position. The QX4 was able to
accurately locate sounds directly behind me without the use of a center surround
speaker, which impressed the heck out of me.
Since the Dahlquist QX4 employs .75" tweeters and the
QX50C center-channel and QX8 main speakers utilize 1" tweeters, I was a bit concerned
that the QX4 would not match tonally with the other speakers. Good timbre matching is a
sign of a well-designed home-theater system and the Dahlquist QX series clearly has
this area covered. In the aforementioned final chapter from The Messenger: The Story of
Joan of Arc, the choir vocals reproduced by the QX4 were a tonal match for those
produced by the QX50C and the QX8. I heard a coherent wall of sound employing a single
voice, where no one speaker stood out from the others.
Another DVD that I used evaluating the Dahlquist
home-theater system was Memento. Although the sound throughout this DVD is subdued,
the dialogue is well recorded. The Dahlquist QX50C center-channel speaker reproduced the
voices of Guy Pearce and Carrie-Ann Moss with excellent clarity.
Like the QX4, the QX50C was matched tonally with the QX8.
In chapter 6 of Memento, a telephone's ring leaps from the left front speaker to
the center-channel speaker. The ringing sounded identical in both the QX8 and the
QX50C -- a task made more difficult by the fact that the QX50C, with its top-of-the-set
placement, occupies a vastly different-surrounding location than the main speakers.
Where the QX50C did not work as seamlessly with the QX8 was
in scenes that panned across the front soundstage, but this was due to the way I placed it
in my room. Because of the discrepancy in height between the QX8 and the QX50C on top of
my 32" TV (which is a difference of 20"), panned sounds started in the right
front QX8, bounced up to the QX50C, and then back down to the left front QX8. If the front
three speakers were at the same height, the panning would be horizontal and seamless. If
you can place the QX50C below your monitor or screen, this would likely not be a
problem.
Rounding out the Dahlquist System 4, the QX125S subwoofer
provided room-filling bass without sounding boomy in my medium-sized room. In the T-Rex
chase scene from the opening chapter of the Dinosaur DVD, the room shook with
authority with the volume level near maximum. The quantity and quality of bass reproduced
by the Dahlquist QX125S would probably satisfy all but the most fanatical bass freaks.
Comparison
I compared the Dahlquist System 4 to the similarly priced
Paradigm Phantom-based system ($1676), which consists of the Phantom V.3 main speakers,
CC-270 V.3 center-channel, ADP-170 V.3 surrounds, and PDR-12 subwoofer. The biggest
physical difference between them, that I could discern, was the Paradigm system's use of
dipole surround speakers as opposed to the Dahlquist's direct radiator.
The two systems also differ significantly in terms of tonal
balance. The Dahlquist System 4 has an extended high-frequency response, whereas the
Paradigm Phantom system sounds slightly darker in comparison. This was evident playing The
Holly Cole Trio’s Don’t Smoke In Bed CD [Alert Z2-81020]. On "I Can
See Clearly Now," the strings sounded airier with the Dahlquist QX8, revealing more
of the music. In contrast, the Paradigm Phantom V.3 showed off its midrange prowess,
reproducing the purity of the piano. However, David Pilch's bass notes sounded less clear
in the midrange and lower frequencies through the Dahlquist QX8 than through the Paradigm
Phantom V.3.
When I sat in the ideal listening position, both systems'
center speakers were good matches for the main speakers. Playing the DVD Memento, I
was hard pressed to detect any differences in voice reproduction across the front stage.
However, sitting off-axis, the Dahlquist QX50C center-channel exhibited a roll-off in the
high frequencies compared to the on-axis sound. Since all horizontally arrayed
center-channel speakers I’ve heard exhibit this behavior to some degree, this may
have been more noticeable in the Dahlquist QX50C because of its exceptional
high-frequency response.
In terms of surround sound, the Dahlquist system, with the
direct-radiating QX4s for the surround speakers, sounded less diffuse than the Paradigms.
In chapter 7 from The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, eerie music envelops the
viewer; with the Dahlquist system, the location of the QX4 was a touch more prominent.
In side-by-side comparisons of subwoofer performance, the
Dahlquist QX125S performed as well as the Paradigm PDR-12 in all but the bass-heaviest
soundtracks. For example, in the T-Rex scene from Dinosaur, the jump factor
provided by the Dahlquist subwoofer equaled that of the Paradigm, but the Paradigm
subwoofer pressurized my room better. With the Dahlquist QX125S, I heard the bass rather
than felt the bass, as I did with the Paradigm PDR-12.
Conclusion
The Dahlquist System 4 is a room-friendly system ideal for
a medium-sized home theater. This system will allow you to place your center and surround
speakers in less-than-ideal locations, such as close to walls, in cabinets, or on a shelf,
without sacrificing much in the way of sound quality. While this system performed
great in all aspects of home-theater sound reproduction, its exceptional high-frequency
performance stood out for me. I’ve had this system in my home for longer than usual,
and its sound quality was always first rate. If you’re looking for a high-value
system for your family room, add the Dahlquist System 4 to your "must audition"
list.
| Review
System |
| Receiver - Outlaw Model 1050 |
| Sources
- JVC XV-721 DVD player, Pioneer Elite PD-65 CD player, Rega Planar 3 turntable
with Grado Prestige Silver cartridge |
| Cables - Sonic Horizons |
| Monitor
- JVC 32" direct-view TV |
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