Open Baffle Experience

I own a pair of Linkwitz "Orion" loudspeakers mated with Burmester amps, pre and DAC and can't imagine a more open and natural sounding speaker.  If bass is on the recording it is heard in full bloom.  The very complex crossover network is crucial to their performance.  Two Peerless woofers, SEAS mid and tweeters in each cabinet fill my "Great Room" with glorious sound.  Mine have the rear-facing tweeter as well and placing them about 3' from the wall produces a perfect soundstage.  I owned Linkwitz's "Audio Artistry" Dvorak for years and compared them with the Orions prior to selling the Dvoraks.  I could happily live with either. I was skeptical about open baffle speakers, too, but am now a true believer. YMMV

Since both "russbutton"and "eric_squires" both mentioned the active crossover in Linkwitz designs, I thought I might elaborate on my last post.  I was fortunate to be good friends with one of  Linkwitz's collaborators on the "Orion" loudspeaker.  He was nearby and I frequently visited as he tinkered on improvements to the design. Siegfried had signed off years prior after deciding that he'd taken the "Orion" to its limits but my friend continued to work painstakingly at them nontheless.  On every occasion the work centered on changes in the active crossover.  We all are familiar with companies that promote their careful matching of components during the build and how significantly that care can impact performance.  Well --- he had a substantial stock of components and hand-matched them before putting them into service, hence the values were as close to perfect as possible.  Every change was followed up by long, careful listening sessions.  Most changes were subtle and a few were remarkable.  I'm positive that my active crossover was altered/improved at least a dozen times over probably a 5 year period, so I can't honestly say that I have a standard Orion crossover at this point.  He was Linkwitz's builder of most of the crossovers for the Orion and as such, was intimately informed of its performance specifications.  As "russbutton" also stated, the Orions are my "forever" loudspeaker as well.