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Was the Snell Secret a Wide Baffle?

I often regret not buying old Snell A/III when I had the money and the space.

One of my all time favorite speakers. By now I'd have certainly had to throw it away. I'd not have the space, and those woofers with extra mass would long ago have pulled out of their frames.

One thing you don't realize unless you go looking for the pics, or owned one, was that the tweeter and midrange of these  speakers were, in my mind, very wide baffle designs. Yes, curved, but very wide.

Another Speaker I like, which I believe is based on a Snell design, is the Audio note AN/J, also has a relatively wide baffle, as do the Devore Orangutan. Of course, among my all time favorite speakers is the Sonus Faber Stradivari, a speaker I know can sound excellent even in acoustically challenged rooms.

What do you all think, have you heard the wide baffle magic?
erik_squires

Showing 1 response by larryi

larryi
4,326 posts
 
I agree with Montaldo that it is hard to attribute particular sonic attributes to particular design choices; I've heard plenty of exceptions to any rule.  I've heard quite a few wide baffle speakers and many of them I do like.  But, is it the wide baffle or the particular voicing that I  like?

There are many wider baffle designs that I like, and while it has been a while since I heard the Snell Type A, it was one of my favorites.  But, I also liked the big version of the Snell Type B, and it was not so much a wide baffle design (though far from skinny).  I do like the meaty sound of Audio Note AN-Es and the Devore Orangutans, Sonus Faber Stradivarius, Voxativ, and a number of other wide designs. 

I own speakers are two feet wide, but, that is probably more of a function of the type of enclosure (Jensen-Onken) and the two foot wide mouth of the horn.

I recently heard a giant system that is about five feet wide by nine feet tall.  In this case, the baffle is wide because the horn is enormous, and because it is an open baffle design for the bass drivers, the wide baffle is needed to move the front-back cancellation frequency down to a reasonable point.  This beast has twin 18" field coil woofers stacked vertically, and the drivers look tiny because of the size of the horn (Western Electric 15A).
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