Why not more popular?


A couple of years ago, I got my first set of open baffle speakers. I've owned a few pairs of Magneplanars and many box speakers over the years, but my current speakers are the first true open-baffle speakers I've owned. 

I am absolutely smitten with the sound. Musical, dynamic, powerful, and an amazing deep, open, airy sound stage, with none of the weird boxy resonances or port huffing that I've heard from so many box speakers. 

What I don't understand is why there are so few speaker companies making open baffle speakers, and why are they not more popular among audiophiles?
128x128jaytor

Showing 2 responses by tweak1

I owned quite a few floor standing monkey coffins/box speakers including; Nearfield Pipedream (10K prototypes), Genesis Vs (HPs personal pair), Usher 6371s...


and before all of those, Accoustat 2+2s with upgraded servo amps
and after the monkey coffins, Magnepan 3.5Rs, I found both of these to cut off the visual flow of my awesome multipurpose room.


I replaced the 3.5Rs with Emerald Physics KCIIs, with Clarity Cap upgrades, and wired with WireWorld OCC. Great for a regular size room, but mine is ~35 x 21 x 12. I tried to incorporate my SVS Plus and Ultra cylinder powered subs, but never could get a good seamless blend.

I replaced the KCIIs with EP 3.4s (12" concentric woofer with 1" polyester dome tweeter), which sound seamless down to ~ 40hz and blend much better with the SVS subs, but when I moved them out from ~6ft from the front wall to 7.5ft that freed them to come fully alive. IMO, the 3.4s will more than satisfactorily reproduce 95% of music we all enjoy in a more normal sized room. Quite the bargain if you can find them. There are a couple bigger EPs for sale in the classifieds


My subs are ~ 10 years old, and Im sure SVS sells vastly better subs now, but even theirs are expensive. What to do? Next up for me is EP 2.8s, which uses all carbon fiber drivers; a 12" concentric, plus 2 @ 15" subs per speaker. That should take me over the top

In summation; OBs are capable of life like reproduction at a reasonable price, and cost a lot less to ship
So far I owned EP KC IIs for a couple years, and now 3.4s (with outboard XOs) for over a year. I made 2 inexpensive improvements that paid HUGE dividends to the 3.4s


* I moved the XOs off the speaker bases which vibrate like crazy
* I replaced the crap jumper wires (from speaker binding posts to the XOs) with WireWorld internal speaker cables
Because my room is volumetrically quiet large by audio standards, I also have 2 SVS powered subs
I have owned Accoustat 2 + 2s and Maggie 3.5Rs. The Maggies came in a distant 3rd

hth