Open Baffle Opinions - I Won't go back to Boxed Speakers Evr Again (maybe....)

To tell the truth, a single pole and open baffle is gonna be real tough.

The inside of the speaker needs to have a weir between the two. How wide that weir or baffle is, will help to focus the center. It's the rear pole that is causing the issue.  I never could get it right, BUT I did get close by adding 20 inches to the rear pole DEAPTH and quit trying to use OB for the mids and highs.. I use a dipole design just not on the same baffle plane. 

I had a hinge on the inside weir, THAT really helped to focus and help with imaging.. Get the toe in right the set the weirs parallel, they will image a lot better.

Like IRS design from infinity... the center always suffered because of the OB design and ZERO physical separation between the two speaker drivers (left to right). NOTHING, just space...smear is a serious issue THE BLOB... comes to mind... So you toe in and toe in and.. LOL it just can't work...

BUT sound quality IF you can just silence every part of the room.. Reflections are a pure nightmare with OB design and room size...SIZE does matter... BIG time...Small did NOT work for me.....

Cool looking though.. Nothing like DIY

Regards

As sound travels at approximately 1' per ms, that requires the dipole be 5' from the wall (5'/ms from speaker to wall, 5'/ms from that wall back to the speaker).

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The main reason I had a difficult time getting a Dipole common baffle to work.  You cannot get the timing correct front to rear. The further you get from the front wall the WORSE the timing will be not better. Lets move it closer to the wall. HOW will you ever get the timing correct. Front to rear. 

The only way is to separate the poles and add drivers to the rear pole also.

A rather sloppy way is to add a WEIR, to the inside of both monitor sections. I chose to hinge mine and set the toe on the baffle face. After the phantom speaker is kinda figured out you set the inside weirs parallel to each other.
 
What about the outside of the baffle adjacent to the outside wall, where do you think all that "out of time" stuff is going.. NOT WHERE YOU WANT.. I assure you..

So a box (It has to be a box it can't be open) has to be DEAPER and that distance from the front wall to the rear pole is the distance from the rear pole the front pole BUT only if the distance is the same. So a 20" deep speaker would be 20" from the FRONT wall. The further you pull the speaker into the room the more of a 3/D effect you get BUT loss of imaging. There will be a point where your ears will just QUIT making sense of the music. A sound effect chamber...

The numbers you quote are arbitrary. I've never heard the "within10ms rule" I've found in speaker building that it to be just the opposite.

If you want to smear the image and ruin the sound stage, let like firing drivers fire at different distances from your ear as you're proposing with a common Dipole baffle. You will get one thing "SOUND EFFECTS"

OB Look cool though..

OP follow the ping pong ball.. To the sides of the baffle!.. The outside and inside are going to be the killers. A small room and OB?

Diffusers? You want absorption and dampening.. NOT scattering the sound.. OB? OP.. OB!! We are talking about imaging right?

Second raising the XO point on the UPPER bass unit causes issues too. Ringing.. The larger the driver (usually) the lower in the frequency range it occurs. 12 - 15" drivers are limited by their physical size to reach higher frequencies. Just a physical thing. In theory it works, practically it may not.. The room size and how it pressures up, change a lot of things.. 

A simple window being opened can change how an OB system works and sounds. Fruit for thought... No veggies please :-)

Regards