Open baffle speakers


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 ?

bache

^ Can’t wait to see these OB’s. People who are against OB’s haven’t heard all OB’s. Their designs are endless. 

Spoke with the wife about keeping 2 speakers in the Livingroom. She says she does not care and go ahead. Nice. It will be great to be able to do a head-to-head with the Open Baffle and the NS5000.

Requisite Audio gear looks darn good! This new speaker is exciting. Meanwhile, respectfully, the word is connoisseur.

 

My journey is very similar to that of  @sns .  I just haven't attained his level of sophistication... yet.

I started with box speakers but once I heard the Dahlquist DQ12s (the precursor to the Nola) I couldn't unhear the box.  I've listened and the presentation of the box speaker is lacking air, realism, it is very constrained.   The only way I can explain it is if you stand behind someone talking / singing and then put them in an enclosure that's what box speakers do.  All that resonate information that is also audible from the front is absorbed and the lack of it is very noticeable.

Like SNS I too have moved to corner horns.  For some reason they don't have that Box sound and don't take up any actual living space.

As and experiment I would suggest trying a pair of DQ12s.  They can be purchased for about 4 to 5 hundred and can be sold for about the same.  The DQ20i are a little more but have the same design with  better components but are also a little harder to find probably because of their original selling price was a lot higher.  They don't have the traditional open baffle look and can be still sound good closer to the wall.  Be warned though they will change your perception of what audio sounds like.

I met up with my friend who is designing the new open baffle speaker I am interested in. I noticed that he had his setup almost the same distance as I sit in my office (near-field). My office is the second floor of my home overlooking the first floor. With an open guard railing that makes the room seem sonically bigger.

After some discussion we came to the conclusion that the 15-inch top driver + 15-inch bottom driver configuration will work in this space. He will have smaller configurations but the 15-inch one is the one we listened too, and he said to go with that. The reason being that this system has a configurable bass and the bass dispersion pattern of the speaker is a figure eight shape. 

So that means I can get speaker to work in the current space and a future space when I eventually move.

Unfortunately, this is not going to be cheap, and the following items are going up for sale.

  • RAAL VM-1a tube headphone amp
  • CODA #16 amp
  • Audience FrontRow speaker cable
  • Sanders Magtech amp
  • Magnepan Mini speakers
  • KEF KC62 sub

 

 

@yyzsantabarbara You should be able to acquire an OB for the price of a used Coda 16. I paid $3k for these with a 15” woofer and sub designed specifically for OB’s. And they were made with zero MDF. They’re solid Sapale, commonly used as a Rosewood replacement for guitars.

The huge benefit in OB’s is the capability of using flea watt tube amplification to drive them. You can’t do that with a typical box speaker. You need power, and typically lots of it to drive them. You need none of that to drive OB’s

@coltrane1 the one I am getting is still not released but I heard it with a Felix Envy 8-watts (maybe less) headphone amp. Only issue for me is that I will take a slight hit in the quality of amplification for the speaker that currently is driven by the #16. I am thinking of either the Schitt Tyr or Wutan for that speaker. It is a trade-off I am willing to make.

@yyzsantabarbara there are tons of low watt tube amps. The amp I use is an Inspire by Dennis Had. They’re 12 watts a channel.

@coltrane1 I have read posts with people talking about Don Sachs, Decware, Dennis Had, et al. I never paid too much attention since they did not work for my power-hungry speakers, Magnepan Mini and Yamaha NS5000. However, now with the open baffle that I am getting a new world of listening opening up.

I just ordered a pair of the Lii Song Liionidas with the Platinum 10 driver. 

As Tom Petty once sang, “The waiting is the hardest part”. 

I recently heard, and liked, the OB speakers from Cinnamon Audio (Portuguese).  It is a three-way with active amplification and DSP processing for only the bass driver.  The DSP corrects for room acoustics and applies the appropriate bass boost to account for back wave cancellation of the front wave.  This is a very nice dounding system.

Just received my Lii Song Liionidas open baffles with the Platinum 10. I've had them playing all day. With about 10 hours on them, they have nice tonality, glorious midrange, and lovely top end. The sub bass is starting to come through, but the mid bass is very shy. 

They still sound very tight and will need a few hundred hours to be their best. 

I am enjoying the ride though. 

@campo007 Congratulations, and Enjoy! You deserve them! Can’t wait to see how they sound after being broken in!