Open baffle speakers design is the simplest , to get bass response similar to other design , like ported, the baffle size must be huge to avoid low frequency degradations . Tipical size the baffle width 10-20" got weak bass performance. I am wondering how open baffle speakers design became so popular ?
But, give me 3 hours and I'll build you a open baffle speaker in my garage and the sound of it will get you jawdropped. I already know which pro drivers to use and how to build your crossover. I'll charge 20k just for kicks and laugh all the way to China town.
What are you waiting for? Do it and quit ragging on those that produce a product. For just an audio enthusiast you imply knowing quite a bit about designing speakers and cables. Seem like you are sitting on an untapped gold mine of expertise.
Am Good speaker design is a speaker that Sounds good when properly set up. Does it matter if it is made of baling wire and duct tape? Or diamonds and rosewood?
No….
The end result is more important than the means to get there.
I've always thought that open baffle and planar/ribbon speakers have a sound that either attracts you or not. It is an open transparent sound that got me instantly. I am very happy with my Spatial Audio Lab X5s which I consider my endgame speakers.
@ozzy62I owned the Spatial Audio X5 speakers a few years ago and loved them, but I didn’t like the built-in active subwoofers and they sounded thin in the midrange and bass. The X5’s were nice, but they were kind of bright until they made some adjustments and added a resistor to tame the AMT tweeter. I was going to buy the Spatial Audio X4, but changed my mine and went back to a box speaker. I still love OB speakers. I think we chatted briefly on AudiogoN or Audio Circle back when you had the X3’s.
How do your Qualio IQ speakers compare to the X3’s you owned?
This is information to all OB speakers fans. If you dont believe in acoustic silence and only trust what you are hearing , stop reading my post and keep enjoy in bass performance open baffle design . But if you have open mind -Baffle size must be bigger than length assume low frequency wave , For usually size baffle 20-30 " OB speakers bass performance starting from approx. 100-120 Hz https://www.acousticfields.com/wavelengths-in-our-rooms/
The thing I didn’t like about the X3 was Clayton’s decision to use a 12” driver to reproduce the midrange. I never got the feeling that the midrange reproduction seemed “real”. There was no texture to voices and instruments. Dynamics were good and the bass depth and quality was excellent. I kept them about a year and moved them on.
It’s been a while, so hard to compare. The midrange performance of the IQs is definitely top notch. The powered 15” drivers on the X3 might get the nod, but not by much.
Which commercial OB speaker did you hear that you found wanting in bass response? What was it like otherwise? I am surprised by how decent bass can be even with the dipole cancellation and the lack of reinforcement from bass reflex or sealed box loading. This is not the case with all OB speakers I heard, but the good ones convince me that it is possible.
It seems that @bachehas a habit of starting controversial threads about OB speakers. Not a good look for a manufacturer who builds a competitive design.
Why do I get the feeling that the OP doesn't really want to learn anything, and only wants to argue, or try to prove he's the smartest guy in the room?
"If you dont believe in acoustic silence and only trust what you are hearing , stop reading my post and keep enjoy in bass performance open baffle design . "
Well, of course I only trust what I am hearing. What else would I trust? Some link you posted that I'm not going to read? I'm not even sure what that means.
So.....you asked a question on why OB speaker designs became popular.
You received well over a dozen replies from real-world listeners, people with real-world experience.
And you want to argue (in broken English, mind you...) that they don't sound good? That they're bass-shy? Why don't you try a pair for yourself and then get back to us.
Coke vs. Pepsi. There is no right or wrong. Neither type of speaker is unquestionably technically superior. In my limited experience with a small number or audio enthusiasts, a majority moved to open baffle from box speakers. All described a more musical presentation closer to live. All described an evolution away from brand name hype, reviews always positive, focus on specs, and a maturing of their tastes. All wished they had discovered open baffle sooner. I know other enthusiasts that love box speakers. Listen to what you like.
The OPs "But more listener prefer traditional loudspeaker design" attempt to claim being right and have the last word is meaningless.
I have the Clayton Shaw Caladans as my first OB speakers, and really do love them. Clayton uses great quality components, and they are a terrific value with all the knowledge he has from his Spatial days. They will stay in my rotation, and for less than $3,500 are a steal
Danny knows some stuff and is probably capable of designing a box speaker that can blow someone’s socks off too. But, the latter would end up costing more than what his target market would be willing to pay (i.e., diy guys fishing for high value stuff and very modest pricing).
He is a small business/ lacks the resources of the bigger gigs to keep prices down. OB is the easier way out to satisfy his targeted customer base/modest price bracket requirement.
My earlier comment was hinting at some other coaster clowns (not Danny) who know absolutely nothing about speaker design...but seem to be minting with their open baffle overnight speaker "expertise/extravaganza"....Am sure the next venture for these guys would be "high end" cable design...very easy to become a high end cable design expert PhD overnight as well.
"Danny knows some stuff..."
Have you ever owned a pair of GR Research speakers, or spoken to Danny Richie?
"Can’t keep costs down..." Have you taken a look at the cost of his custom drivers? The M165 is $35 and the M165NQ is $139. The M165NQ is awesome. Have you heard the M165NQ driver and how outstanding its midrange clarity is? It is better than the Scan-Speak 8545. I have compared them directly in my Merlin VSM speaker with a custom crossover.
"Modest price bracket requirement for his targeted customer"... I have Ayre KX-R Twenty, Ayre QX-5 Twenty, and Ayre MX-R amps. Am I not in the demo?
Danny’s speakers offer incredible value because it’s him and one other employee. His overhead is a low as possible. "Smart Money" knows what Danny is doing and they’ve heard it and chuckling about people still buying Revel, Klipsch, etc. etc. etc.
"OB is the easier way out to satisfy his targeted customer base/modest price bracket requirement."
Have you watched the development videos and read development threads of his OB speakers? Have you priced a pair of NX-Otica or NX-Treme with 2 pair of dual OB subs? That is not "easy way out" or "modest in price".
He thinks OB is the best, period. Danny can afford to develop any driver he wants and his OB stuff is designed to be the best, regardless of price. He’s not just making cheap speakers to make some money. This is a passion for him. He wants his speakers to sound the best it can be, period.
I have been there and heard it myself. This is not "budget" stuff. It is a magic mix of hardcore development without the overhead and "accountant speaker designers" having a say in the design, parts, and materials.
It’s spectacular, and people who have heard it sometimes have a revelation about what they thought was "right and good" for decades.
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.
@toddalinHow it works is if the rear of the speaker is far enough from the wall (about 5 feet) then there is about a 10millisecond delay of the rear firing information to reach your ear. If a bit less than that, the ear will interpret it as harshness (which is the same reason side wall reflections should be avoided) but at about 10mS, the ear can interpret the information as echo location.
The result is a more palpable soundstage. IOW, it is excellentfor imaging. BTW most ESLs and planar speakers like Magnaplanars are open baffle so this should come as no surprise.
Just wanted to add my personal experience with "open baffle" design speakers. Over 40 years ago I was fortunate to purchase one of the iconic examples of open baffle speakers, the Dahlquist DQ 10s Phased Array as a mirrored imaged pair. I loved their sonic purity and transparency then and I'm happy to say that they are still going strong after 4 decades. They've been driven by various amps over the years and sounded great no matter what was feeding them. Yes, reviews had some knocks over the bass response (factory woofer is a 10" Advent unit) but a subwoofer solved that minor issue. Also the DQ 10s are somewhat power hungry, driven in part by the 5 crossovers in each speaker. I've found a source, Regnar Dahlquist, for Dahlquist parts and upgrade kits. New poly caps, low oxygen p to p wiring, new pots, gold plated binding posts and woofer rebuild. I built my own stands for them as the factory stands were "missing" when I purchased them from Federated Electronics. Salesman cut the price and threw in a pair of Monster Cable 12 gauge speaker cables. Sweet deal at the time.because of that. I now use them exclusively for stereo music driving them with a Prima Luna EVO 400 Integrated tube amp. These were remarkable speakers in their time and are still pure and transparent. Thus closes my contribution to the "open baffle" discussion. My exposure to the open baffle concept is limited but has been rewarding.
The DQ10 was not an open baffle speaker in the purest sense. It was a speaker with numerous time aligned baffles. It was a beautiful sounding speaker that could not image.
One has to be specific about what they are calling open baffle speakers. The are bipolar speakers, both sides radiating in phase and dipolar speakers, the sides radiating out of phase. Most open baffle speakers are dipoles and most are planar speakers of one sort or another, ESLs, Ribbons and Planar Magnetics. Trying to do this with multiple dynamic speakers has never worked well. This brings us to line source speakers. Line source speakers project sound more effectively than point source speakers. Acoustic power drops off at the cube of the distance with point sources, but at the square of the distance with line sources which is why you see them at large concerts. Due to their construction, planar speakers fall naturally into the line source category, with some irregularity. For a speaker to project as a line source it has to be longer than the wavelength of the lowest frequency it is to reproduce. For a free standing speaker to project 20 Hz as a line source it would have to be 60 feet long! There is one major caveat. If the line source terminates at a barriers, a walls, floors or ceilings it will maintain line source behavior down to 1 Hz. Dipolar line sources, like any dipole does not like making bass below 100 Hz. This is particularly true of full range dipoles like ESLs. They will do it, but it creates distortion with everything else the speaker is doing. Even if the speaker ends at barriers. typically the floor and the ceiling, it is best to cross over to subwoofers at 100 Hz, but it can not be any old subwoofer. In order to maintain balanced amplitude behavior with distance it has to be a line source subwoofer. Even two subwoofers will get lost under line source speakers. The major problem is most "line source" speakers really are not line sources. A speaker that is 6.5 feet tall in a room with 8 foot ceilings looses it's line source behavior under about 250 Hz. As you move away from these speakers they will become progressively brighter or tinny.
Line source, dipole speakers have one huge advantage in residential size rooms. Because they do not radiate sound to the sides, up or down there is way less room interaction. Only the front wall is a problem and this can be easily dampened behind the speaker. Only Horn loaded speakers have dispersion controlled at this level.
The OP is right to question the bass performance of "open baffle" speakers. The baffle has to be so large you enter the realm of infinite baffle loudspeakers. People including Linkwitz have tried it, tongue in cheek and they will provide the illusion of bass, but it is far from accurate. What most people are listening to under 100 Hz is a mess anyway. Don't believe me? Measure it for yourself.
DQ10s are not open baffle speakers. They are a bunch of separate, time aligned baffles mounted in a cage with mass insanity for a crossover. They could not image to save their lives. They hold a place in HiFi history next to Bose 901s.
@mijostynthe wall behind the speakers is not supposed to be damped with the apogee speakers, which are dipole. You are the only person I have ever heard say this.
@vetsc5+1 The DQ10 is a remarkable design that 50 (!!!) years later can still compete with today's over-priced speakers. I have a nicely upgraded pair on custom stands. I find the bass adequate though a sub does help if playing pipe organ recordings.
My woofer towers are H-frame open baffle with four servo-controlled 12" drivers. There is obviously cancellation at the lowest frequencies where the backwave wraps around, but the circuitry in the amp does an excellent job compensating for this. The measured response in my 29'x17'x8' room is not without some room interactions, but considerably less so than my previous conventional subs and is the deepest, tightest, and most natural sounding bass I've ever had in my system.
To say that open baffle subs can't create excellent bass is hogwash. Yes, you need more power and more radiating area to compensate for the backwave cancellation, but if done properly the bass is superb.
Open baffle speakers need some room to sound their best. Most of the manufacturers say 3ft to the wall behind them, but in my experience you really need more than this. I have mine set up approximately 7ft from the front wall and 4ft from the side walls. The side wall distance is less critical since the backwave cancellation helps reduce side wall interactions.
As long as I have the space for them, I wouldn't consider switching back to box speakers after living with the speakers I have now.
@mijostyn: I have a nicely upgraded pair of DQ10's and have no complaints about the 3-D imaging qualities. Go read Harry Pearson's 1975 review in TAS. He praised them for their life-like presentation of space!
The Carver Amazing Platinum is a successful open-baffle speaker using four high-Q 12" woofers crossed over at 100hz to a 60 inch ribbon driver. They sound fine without the need for active amplification for the woofers.
@invalid I owned Divas for 6 years. I had just moved back to New England in 1987 and picked up my pair directly from the factory in Mass. My previous speakers were Acoustat 2+2s with Tympany 3s before that and several models of Acoustat before that going back to 1978. All dipoles. The Divas chased me right back to Acoustat 2+2s. I use Sound Labs 645-8s now, 8 foot 645s. All dipoles without exception, but only two full range line sources, the 2+2s and the current Sound Labs.
The reason you have to dampen the front wall behind dipoles that have thin membranes or ribbons is the sound reflected off the front wall at full volume comes right back at the speaker and is transmitted back through the diaphragms causing severe comb filtering. This creates response irregularities and really messes up imaging. In some cases the effect can be euphonic especially if you have not lived with a system that images properly. It can create a false sense of ambience at the expense of image specificity. At worse it can make things shrill and sibilant.
If you go to my virtual system page you can see a device called a SALLIE (Sound Attenuator of Low Level Interference Effects) These are sitting directly behind my speakers and are way more affective than the usual fare. Roger West of Sound Labs only makes them 1 foot wide and I needed them 2 feet wide. Left to my own devices I made them out of Walnut, god forbid someone should look behind the speaker. I had been using plain 4" acoustic foam tiles behind the speakers, but the remaining comb filtering was tying a new digital signal processor up in knots, so I had to do something more drastic. Fortunately it worked.
@jasonbourne71My very best friend in Miami, a Jewish journalist two decades my elder had DQ 10s. We met at Sound Components, Peter McGrath's high end store. I had just moved down there for med school and I was a fish out of water. Leo and his wife took me under their wing. I already had a pair of Acoustat Xs with their built in high voltage amp which had the most amazing image compared to what I was use to at the expense of bass and volume. Since I lived in the Nurses Dorm (don't ask) I couldn't play them loud anyway. So, I'm over Leo's for the first time sitting in front of his DQ 10s and I mean right in front. Leo listened to speakers like most of us listen to headphones. My response when he asked me what I though was, "Very transparent. I can't tell where anything is but they are very transparent." Thus began my career trying to fix other people's systems. I could never get them to image properly and at that point I had not been exposed to the high school teacher's system that permanently warped my brain, or the HQD system that came next. I did not achieve that level of performance until I got my first pair of Acoustat 2+2s some five years later. The DQ 10s downfall was undoubtedly it's crossover. Within a year Leo had moved over to Acoustat Monitor 4s on top of RH Labs subwoofers controlled by the Dalquist LP1 crossover. Biggest set of headphones you'll ever see. There was no way they were going to perform to their potential in that room, but they did image better than the DQ 10s.
There are a couple of opinions referencing the Dahlquist DQ10 "...lack of imaging...". In my experience Speaker imaging in most part is impacted by three components, placement of the speaker(s), speaker design/build and the acoustic dynamics of the listening area. Also to clarify the woofer in the DQ10 is a non-ported sealed unit so that driver is not "open baffle". Jon Dahlquist and his engineering design staff described/introduced the DQ10 as a "5 speaker Phased Array, open baffle" design. The vast majority of industry reviewers and audiophiles then and now still view it in that light. It's ground breaking design remains a highly regarded speaker in the evolution of the audio industry. I'll close by sharing that a brilliant university professor ended a lecture that I attended with the following, "Opinions, by their nature are always correct" She then added as we were about to exit, Oh, do you agree with that observation, what is your opinion of that? Consider that as we shall dialogue on that at our next gathering. She was a pistol that always motivated us to think.
agree for 100% to produce bass 30 Hz baffle size must be HUGE
Disagree. The Spatial Audio X3 with it’s powered 15" woofer could easily reach into the mid 20s with a baffle width of about 18". For all it’s other shortcomings, bass response and quality was not one of them.
I am getting an open baffle speaker in Dec. Do not know the name of it yet, but I heard half of it as a prototype in June (bass was missing). I have a lot of faith in the designer. I will be getting the smallest version which is made for recording studios monitoring consoles. That will also work on an office desktop though I will use stands.
My friend told me that his new speaker sounds better than my Yamaha NS5000 speaker that he heard and loved with my CODA #16 amp. I have my doubts about that but if it is in the same ballpark then that would be a home run for my office. His speaker can be driven by 8 watts so I will use the Schitt Aegir 20-watt Class A amp (for now).
Spatial has some quite different views on OB. They have a model which is open baffle/dipole for the woofers, and claims this is superior to conventional woofers because it reduces room interactions and modes, while it encloses the midrange and tweeter drivers so that the sound going backwards does not then reflect and add confusing information on sound location that would adversely affect imaging and muddle the sound. The woofer claim is interesting because it is in keeping with what I have noticed with dipole panel speakers. There is substantial cancellation at the sides that do reduce room interactions one does tend to get less boomy and uneven bass response. I am less convince about not going OB with the midrange and tweeter because I tend to not mind the mid frequencies and highs from the back wave bouncing around the room adding to the reverberant field of sound, provided that the path length is 10 feet or more so the sound is perceived as an echo and will not be confused with the direct sound.
I own two sets of Open Baffle speakers - Legacy Empires and Jamo R909s. The R909s dont need it because of their design, but open baffles are capable of making a healthy amount of low end if you compensate for the low end drop with an EQ. Both of my OB go down into the 30s and kick drums sound huge on them. I dont know if its specifically the fact they’re open baffle, or simply the diameter of their woofers, but kick drums through literally all of my other speakers I have or have owned sound small in comparison. They’re also both extremely tight and have very even response in the low end and midbass... hilariously I think one of the best types of music for open baffles are dance music and modern pop like Tate McRae, when most people running these speakers are listening to orchestral and jazz. The quality and size of low end and midbass is just so good, and the trend in recent productions are large reverb washes and stereo fx that sound great on an open baffle’s soundstage.
The R909s dont need it because of their design, but open baffles are capable of making a healthy amount of low end if you compensate for the low end drop with an EQ
@phaseyWhy do Reference 909 not need EQ because of their design? As far as I recall they're plain-jane, drivers-in-a-plank-style open baffle speakers. Although their woofers are quite substantial they should have the same low-end behavior as other, similarly designed open-baffle speakers like Caladans and such. Thanks!
Jamo R909 uses unusually sensitive woofers so they’re louder than the other drivers by default with a rising response, then a filter in the crossover is used to drop the level of the woofers at exactly the rate of their low end rolloff. The result is a passive open baffle speaker that doesnt need active EQ to make up for a drop in low end.
If money is no object, one of the finest OB's out there is the Songer Audio. It sets a standard I haven't quite heard in any OB speakers. And the build quality is second to none. Get ready to write a serious check, though. https://songeraudio.com/
Box speakers with multiple drivers create a slew of problems: cohesive sound across the drivers, degradation in sound quality from cheap connectors and crossovers, uncontrolled sound waves bouncing around inside the cabinet, and a waste of money on cabinet design and manufacture. Get a world-class single full-range driver for the cost of an entry level box speaker. You can even get excelllent quality sound from a $400 set of 15" Lii drivers. Or use an 8" driver with a good sub for the lowest frequencies; it's the right tool for the job. Life is as hard as you make it.
I like both the OB and the closed model of the Songer speaker. The OB was a two way system using their field coil driver as a woofer/midrange coupled to an OB tweeter. The closed box speaker did not have a tweeter so the field coil driver operated full range. They both sounded very good, which is probably more of a testament to their field coil driver than to other aspects of their design.
There is another OB field coil speaker that I've heard made by Treehaus Audio. They use huge slabs of wood cut so that the edges of the panel hold the outer bark of the tree. The speaker can be stunningly beautiful. One of the drivers is an old Klangfilm field coil driver that has been reconditioned. I generally like the sound, though not as much as I do PureAudioProject and Songer Audio speakers, and they do look stunningly beautiful.
@ozzy62Frequency response measurements are taken at 1 meter. The frequency response below 50 Hz of an open baffle woofer in a residential room at a 12 foot listening position is at best unpredictable and more than likely horrendous. An open baffle speaker makes a lot of sense if you were going to cross over to subwoofers at 100 Hz. It is easier to avoid enclosure resonances and you get the advantage of dipole behavior when it comes to room interaction.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
