Open Baffle

[slipperybidness]

All in all, from what I gather is, the open baffle design can sound very, very good, but is extremely dependant on placement to the point that they just won't work in most living/listening room setups.

@AcuDefTechGuy had a set of the Linkwitz Orion for quite a while, and he has had many other speakers to give you his subjective comparison.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

@AcuDefTechGuy had a set of the Linkwitz Orion for quite a while, and he has had many other speakers to give you his subjective comparison.

Yeah, I bought the Orion 3.2.1 because Peter Aczel (Audio Critic) would say they were the best speakers in the world (last speakers you will ever need to buy ),different than "monkey coffin box speakers". He would say the Orions had large soundstage. They do, but so do other speakers depending on how you set them up in different rooms. So I don't think they sound any better than other great sounding speakers. When people came over to my house to listen, they tend to agree with me.

Everyone thinks some speakers are the best speakers in the world or some speaker drivers are the best drivers in the world or some designs are the best designs in the world.

Most things are overhyped. It's too funny.

I'm glad I'm no longer chasing some speakers because someone says certain speakers are so different and are the best.

There are just so many great sounding speakers. The key isn't any one particular design or driver. The key is in how you set them up as long as you have the tools (Pre-pro, EQ, REW, etc.).

 

[slipperybidness]

Most things are overhyped. It's too funny.

That's the key statement right there! Just a different approach to accomplish the same or similar end goal.

Or, "we can't do it like that b/c they hold the patent, so we have to do it like this", but they don't tell you that, they use it as a marketing tool.

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah, he does sell some of the poop too. I started watching his series of videos and was quickly turned off when he started in on fancy cabling and interconnects delivering superior sq.

He's a poster boy almost everyday in the Bullshit Audio group with that series of videos of his. He sells their own silly cabling of course.

 

[sfdoddsy]

The most expensive speakers in the world (Wilson, Magico, etc etc) use cheapish drivers and crossovers surrounded by incredibly dense and expensive cabinets made from vast amounts of exotic materials.

They do this because they are trying to remove the effect of an enclosing cabinet on the sound.

And their efforts work. At a nuge costin cost, size, complexity etc etc.

Cleverer folk looked at the problem more cleverly. If the box is the big problem, why not just remove the box?

You are left with a driver(or two). And a baffle. Hence open baffle.

Your open baffle may be a dipole, in which case it fires front and back with a null to the sides. Or it may not be. Each has proponents.

And most OBs will require multiple drivers and EQ for decent bass.

But in all cases an open baffle is free from the box sound Wilson/Magico etc etc think is so evil they charge you $20k to remove its effect.

Try one.

 

[lovinthehd]

The most expensive speakers in the world (Wilson, Magico, etc etc) use cheapish drivers and crossovers surrounded by incredibly dense and expensive cabinets made from vast amounts of exotic materials.

They do this because they are trying to remove the effect of an enclosing cabinet on the sound.

And their efforts work. At a nuge costin cost, size, complexity etc etc.

Cleverer folk looked at the problem more cleverly. If the box is the big problem, why not just remove the box?

You are left with a driver(or two). And a baffle. Hence open baffle.

Your open baffle may be a dipole, in which case it fires front and back with a null to the sides. Or it may not be. Each has proponents.

And most OBs will require multiple drivers and EQ for decent bass.

But in all cases an open baffle is free from the box sound Wilson/Magico etc etc think is so evil they charge you $20k to remove its effect.

Try one.

How would you prevent an open baffle speaker from being dipole?

 

[Sponge]

Just an update, this is how I made the compression driver a dipole.

 

[Sponge]

A very good example of a awesome sounding dipole driver is a Heil AMT.

I do not feel the need for a lot of EQ that is always stated. The woofers I picked punch out some serious
tight low end. The go to woofers seems to be the Eminence Alpha which has a small voice coil and not much
linear travel and low cost.

 

[Ossidian]

My Hawthorne Audio Rainier MK III Signature Editions use 15" cultured marble baffle AMT
with 15" mids and 15" woofers.

.

 

[Pogre]

Not gonna lie, I'd love to listen to them. I understand the logic behind the design, but I also understand trade-offs are usually made for increased performance in other areas. I don't know that is the case here, which is why I wanna hear a pair. I could see myself really digging having a set if they make my ears happy.

You have a lot of cone area going there! How deep can those play effectively?

 

[ryanosaur]

One of the rooms at the CAS this year was an open-baffle company featuring their "boxed version" of one of their systems... still technically open baffle, just with a stronger frame that can ship as a complete unit.
Anyway...
Sounded decent enough. Biggest thing with open baffle as I understand it thus far, is you need a good size room as they need to be several feet away from the front wall for best performance. I think the Linkwitz Lab page has some good guidelines, iirc. (sorry, in a hurry right now. *blushes)

 

[Verdinut]

At home, when I was a kid, we had an expensive 1934 Deforest-Crosley console radio using two 10" speakers driven by a 20 watt tube amp.

That radio had an open back baffle and at the time, I thought that it was putting out a lot of bass. It was placed in a corner where you gain 3 dB in the bass output. But it couldn't reproduce very low frequencies below 45 Hz or so because of the cancelling out of phase effect. That is the reason why in the early 1950's, we started to see sealed and bass reflex enclosures which used bigger drivers and could output lower frequencies in a more efficient manner.

 

[Pogre]

One of the rooms at the CAS this year was an open-baffle company featuring their "boxed version" of one of their systems... still technically open baffle, just with a stronger frame that can ship as a complete unit.
Anyway...
Sounded decent enough. Biggest thing with open baffle as I understand it thus far, is you need a good size room as they need to be several feet away from the front wall for best performance. I think the Linkwitz Lab page has some good guidelines, iirc. (sorry, in a hurry right now. *blushes)

I stumbled across this from the Linkwitz site as I was digging around. I'll bet it's the one you're thinking about. I think I have my brain wrapped around the concept. I do have a large room and could pull them ~2' from the front wall. Whether that'd be enough..? They do look like they like some breathing room.

Not planning to buy any anytime soon. Could make for an interesting kit type project. There are fewer materials involved so a little cheaper to build unless the drivers and crossovers are exotic and uncommon.

 

[Ossidian]

Not gonna lie, I'd love to listen to them. I understand the logic behind the design, but I also understand trade-offs are usually made for increased performance in other areas. I don't know that is the case here, which is why I wanna hear a pair. I could see myself really digging having a set if they make my ears happy.

You have a lot of cone area going there! How deep can those play effectively?

20hz to 40khz. Bass has weight and is extremely lively.

So starting from the bottom we have one of the great Hawthorne Audio 15" Augie bass drivers. Next we have a wide band AMT driver in a 15" cultured marble cast wave guide covering from 40 kHz to around 350 Hz. Above that we have a PAP 15" OB-Aneo (SEN) filling the gap between the AMT and the Augies. Above that we have a second 15" Hawthorne Audio Augie.

The two Augie bass drivers are driven by their own 300 watt SS plate amps (one each channel and are included). The plate amps have line level as well as high level inputs and the crossover point, gain and phase can be adjusted to accommodate your room and listening tastes.

The AMT and the PAP have a simple, second order passive crossover, are around 96 db efficient and can be driven with low wattage tube amps if desired. Passive crossover components include Geortz foil inductors as well as Clarity Cap ESA and Audio Note Copper in oil capacitors.