Open Baffle Experience

You bring up a serious benefit od dsp based crossovers

 Dabbling with qith passive crossovers is expensive as hell.  You can easily spend 5x more on the parts you don't end up using.

This whole discussion has all been about open baffle merits, referencing the Linkwitz designs. What’s been totally missing from the discussion is the merits of active amplification. All of the Linkwitz designs use active amplification. Very few, if any of the various muy expensivo hi-end designs use active crossovers. In many ways, active crossovers are as significant to the Linkwitz designs as is open baffle.

Linkwitz was a stalwart proponent of active speaker designs long before DSP crossovers and equalizers were even available.  He also designed his speakers for excellent on and off axis response, an art lost in many high end makers today.

I wanted to talk in this thread about the general limitations and benefits of open baffle designs and how they compare to boxes or even other line sources.

The LX521 is a standout in my mind because it is a 4 way, allowing for fine tuning of the horizontal polar response, but having to use 4 channels per speaker is a big no for me.  😁

What do you think the active part of Linkwitz designs brings others lack?

So here is kind of an oddball question.

Would OB speakers do well in a demo/hotel room?

Hey @emrofsemanon 

You have it mostly right... an "infinite baffle" is a situation where you have a theoretical infinite width and height wall on which the drivers are mounted. 

The open baffle uses both the rear reflection but also the nulls to the sides. The idea is that you get less side reflections, but also quite a bit of ambience which can help improve imaging from the rear.

Just wanted to point out that I do hope to keep this thread focused on those using dynamic drivers instead of ESLs. 

One of the things that has prevented me from pursuing large front baffle designes (like Spatial, Pure Audio Project, Caintuk, etc.) is one of the same problems I hear with box speakers - reflections from the front baffle allow localization of the speaker, they don't 'disappear' so they sound like listening to speakers - ruining the 'being there' effect

Honestly I do not understand this problem. I get edge diffraction, but my speakers have 1/2" rounds on the edges and I defy anyone to tell me they can hear where the speaker is.  I've heard many other speakers that do a great job of disappearing as well, some with very narrow (Vandersteen) and some with broad baffles (SF Amati Heritage).  I've never felt this was an attribute of baffles which could not be dealt with.

I'm really not sure that traditional measurements work well with open baffle designs.  I've never seen anyone claim a tiny OB performs great in the bass.