Open baffle speakers

Also, I am of the opinion that when sound is coming from the rear and bouncing willy-nilly about the room, it may give a sense of depth to the soundstage but can’t really be good for imaging compared to a nice closed-back point or line source, or even time-aligned speaker.

@toddalin  Well, I’ll take the other side of that.  As a musician it’s obvious that musical instruments project sound in a 360 degree pattern, not just forward.  If the room can’t deal with that info then it’s a problem more with the room than the speakers.  When I’ve heard dipole designs from Spatial, Nola, etc., when they’re properly set up in a room they can be absolutely beguiling in a way traditional box speakers struggle to match.  And I’m a proud and happy owner of box speakers so not like I’m biased one way or the other.  That’s been my experience anyway. 

+1 @coralkong I’ve heard Spatial speakers on several occasions and they never sounded bass shy even without subs — on the contrary the bass sounded excellent. 100% agree almost all box speakers benefit greatly from a couple subs as well so that’s not a deterrent to owning an open-baffle speaker in my book. As always there are trade offs either way, but when you can get that level of sound/openness/efficiency without the considerable expense and additional weight of an having to build/ship a heavy, inert box it’s not hard to see why open-baffle designs offer some significant advantages. I could live very happily with what I’ve heard from these designs and may well own some in the future.