I am CONSIDERING ether redesigning or doing a good retrofit of the driver(s) and crossover in the DQ10's. I view this a bit like a tribute band. I am not talking about designing a whole new speaker (there are many great DIY designs already out there) but rather just those changes that would allow for improved sound while still maintaining the original design intent. This is a complex and time consuming project so I would like as many as possible to benefit from it. Note: there is NO intention of making any money on this. The design would be public domain and any mods required would have to be done by the owner or someone hired to do the work.?
Even if the polls shows interest this should not be construed as a guarantee that I will do this.?
An EARLY estimate of the cost to self upgrade is $200-$300 if using adequate components.?

Multiple choices ARE ALLOWED.

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Any improvement of the DQ10 will be both measurable and audible.?

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I like the idea. I don’t own DQ10’s but will keep my eyes open for some to save.?

First and foremost, thank you Charlie for bringing this topic up and leading the charge for possibly looking at a redesign of the crossover and/or driver upgrade. I certainly will be interested as my DQ 10’s are in need of a crossover parts upgrade, original crossovers number (01621 & 01623) with new woofers in 1986 and can’t remember if the surrounds were reformed in 1996 ish.

?I just wanted to mention that there is a service (GR-Research, (owner Danny) channel on YouTube) that analyzes many speaker brands and depending on the issues uncovered in measurements may/may not upgrade drivers and/or crossovers. Danny will sometimes create a kit of parts (usually for the crossovers), to improve the circuit or possibly just upgrade parts. I will say that Danny is very light on comments on the listening impressions/improvements and delves more into the measurements. ?Obviously this isn’t free and they reside in Texas so you’d have to get the initial set of DQ10’s there for them to analyze. Just before the Covid outbreak I was thinking about taking my DQ10’s there but with that event and some severe health issues in the family it has been shelved.

?I will provide the link to one of the videos for anyone interested in this possibility. Someone, hopefully in the Texas, would have to take the first set of speakers in for us to all benefit from the analysis. I’m not sure if he discounts the solution (crossover parts/drivers) for the owner of the speaker he is analyzing.

It should be noted that?Charlie’s involvement may be more beneficial as he is intimately familiar with the speakers being an owner himself.

?

One of many GR Research YouTube video review examples chosen at random, search for the GR Research channel for other videos: ??

Here’s a link to GR Research website, no endorsement intended or implied:?

Website: ??

Hope this adds something to the discussion, and takes nothing away from Charlie’s wonderful effort.

Thanks Str8Wire.
I am quite familiar with Danny and his channel. That is certainly a possibility. I live in Texas as well, though it is a 360mile drive one way! Danny does have his strengths and weakness but that certainly would be the easiest way to get this done. for me this is a minimum of a 3 month effort and finding suitable replacement drivers is just the start. The crossover is hybrid series/parallel network and my crossover simulator will not handle this. Of course it could be redesigned to be a traditional parallel network but I believe the current drive nature of a series network has a lot to do with the DQ10 sound. Perhaps I will give him call after the holidays.
Thank and Merry Christmas.

There were 12 positive responses to this poll, everyone wanted a major redesign. I have started searching the market for potential driver candidates. I have looked at the lists and comments about what people have used in the past. While there are a couple of candidates for the tweeter the dome midrange is a real problem. Any redesign I would do would use moderately priced components as to me it does not make a lot of sense to spend $400 or more dollars upgrading a speaker that they likely bought for less than.
Right now I am leaning towards eliminating the super tweeter and choosing ?a 3/4" ?tweeter that can properly cover that range.
Only 3 people have the desire/ability to make acoustic measurements. This makes things a bit harder.?
If anyone has suggestions about drivers that they know of that are potential candidates for mid dome and tweeter please let me know.?

Got in on this poll late but would be really cool to see what can happen. Though, I have to admit I'm still baffled as to why I like the original 5-way as much as I do/did. And to try to do better with 5 (or 4) new drivers--I guess I would wonder what "better" means. But seems like an amusing project nonetheless and will be very very curious to see where this goes. I unfortunately don't have a pair at the moment as I sold my most recent pair a few months ago. Weirdly I am always on the look out for another pair.
I've tried several tweeters and by far the best was the scanspeak D2010. But that will be almost half the budget. The visaton DT94 is extremely similar to the original, much cheaper but not that much an "improvement." For me the mid-bass coupler was kind of the most suspect driver of all. The original surrounds seem to suffer all kinds of variations and I would look to replace this driver before the dome. The existing midrange domes have all sounded great to my ears.

I am interested in your work, either as a redesign or retro fit.? As far as having Danny do any work on your 10's he can and will but what what you get will no longer be a DQ-10, when I spoke with him about this he was less than enthused by the design.

My 10's were bought as a basket case, missing the LA woofer and the mid bass drivers, one mid dome had a broken internal lead and all wiring had been removed from drivers and labeled incorrectly.? This pair also sat in a hot Dallas garage for an unknown number of years and was in bad shape so I have had some fun with them and felt no guilt over what I have done to mine, they were destined for the dumpster if someone did not rescue them.? I replaced the missing LA woofers with the New LA woofers, sourced original Philips 5060ad mid bass drivers and repaired the broken mid domes and did a full re-cap of the crossover with Audyn and Solen poly caps.? I did replace the mid domes with HiVi DMB-A's and 5ohm 15 watt resistors to correct the level and impedance imbalance and found no difference in performance but none was expected as Deer Creek Audio did the measurements on this replacement and found it to be a very good replacement, they once offered a kit for this.? The measurement can be found here... ? I have replaced one of my original tweeters with a Peerless BC25SC55-04 1" square frame tweeter as a test and it appears and sounds very close but no measurements have been taken to confirm, I chose these tweeters to correct the time alignment brought on by the difference in the HiVi mid dome and the stock one.? I will be replacing the other stock tweeter soon and will disconnect the super tweeter and associated crossover components when I find both the time simplest way to disconnect the crossover.? I am not married to this tweeter so if someone finds a better replacement I have no issue with a change.

Just a quick update, while I have made some progress and evaluating options for DQ10 upgrade/ changes I am having issues finding driver candidates that are available. Many of the ones that look the best are on backorder, some of them for many months.
I am considering just using the drivers I can find (?These are inexpensive , available, and should be close to drop in replacements. Although they are likely not higher quality than what were in the speakers when they were new, they are modern maybe better designs, and they are not 45 years old!
Thoughts?

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Richard, initially I am looking for a suitable dome mid and tweeter replacement. Some users have also commented that it would be nice to replace the Phillips AD5060 cone mid. Since mine is working great that is lower down on the list.

Charlie - first off, this is a great undertaking and interesting to follow, thanks!!! I am curious as to your goal...is it to:

1. Find current day, equivalent (new condition, closest match to original specs) replacements for original drivers, or (refresh the speaker)
2. Find drivers that might deviate in design (for the better) from original drivers (goal is to improve speaker BUT also control costs and minimize Xover mismatch)
3. Go all out and find the best options for each driver (cost less critical, performance and specs rule) (goal is a "new and improved" DQ-10, no limits)

If you liken it to guys who restore cars, some are purists - they must replace everything with as close to original as possible to honor the goal and design of the original, and only deviate when ts absolutely necessary. A noble pursuit and I (for the most part) lean that way. If you start to wander too far from the original you're progressively abandoning the whole reason for owning that speaker in the first place. On the other end (C), there are some who feel the original drivers are now (and maybe always were) inferior to those currently available, and seek to "upgrade to improve" on the original design. Option B is somewhere in the middle...improve what we can....accept what we can't, maybe?

Also worth pondering...I suspect Jon and Saul could have fitted the 10 with more expensive, esoteric drivers, but mass manufacturing limitations at the time, along with selecting widely available components that allowed them to turn a profit and achieve a sustainable margin. These parts also had to be durable and reliable so they didn't have people complaining of failures. Since the 10 was a mass-marketed product, all these elements factored into their ultimate design choices. I'm always reminded that Jon was designing a "Quad ESL for the everyman."

But swapping old for new isn't always a taboo thing. As long as a driver syncs with the original in "design and intent," but over time has become even better performing and maybe even cost less (think any electronics over time), then it seems reasonable (and possibly smart) to consider those components. But realistically, I doubt many owners today would seriously consider dropping $225 for a tweeter to replace one that cost $35 back in the day, for a speaker that only fetches $500-600 a pair in the resale market. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't do it. Not saying you're considering this....just saying that if the goal is to identify drivers that are cost-effective substitutes, then the two you suggest might be good options (performance aside for now). IMO, the real value-add of your effort is helping those of use who own a pair (or in my case two) and eventually want or need to replace a driver, have a list of objectively-evaluated and tested comparables to work from without have to do massive retooling of the Xover.

I don't think there's a "right" approach. Regardless of your choices the debates of "this driver vs that one" will rage on anyway. But many of us not schooled in engineering will find your mission quite interesting and useful no matter.

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Hi Charlie?

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Good feedback and questions. Right now my intent tends towards between A and B with focus on fixing a few of the problems I have identified. This was a breakthrough design for its time and want to honor Jon's design intent. That having been said I believe some things can be improved. The most obvious is the elimination of the Piezo Super tweeter.

C right now is unlikely as to do this right would require a fresh start from scratch.?