Open Baffle Experience

My experience with such speakers is limited.  I remember hearing the Spatial speakers at a show but can't quite remember the sound.

But my general experience with dipoles (including my Quad ESL 63 with a dipole Gradient subwoofer), is that the sound was at first intoxicating "wow, it's so free of box coloration! I'm seeing right in to the recording."

The problem was that they didn't excite the room the same way. There was much less "feel" of the music - lacking the sense of instruments really being there, pushing air in the room.  So it was a bit more of an audiophile-intellectual experience.   I found going back to well designed box/forward radiators to be generally much more satisfying.  Of course it's all about compromises..

@mwatsme The recordings were made by Audiogon member @shkong78 at the Pacific Audio Show. I don't know what he used to make them.  To me the Spatials sound very good and are at the very least competitive with the Voxativs.

@jaytor Wave-guides, yes that makes more sense, open-back - nice!

One of the things that has prevented me from pursuing large front baffle designes (like Spatial, Pure Audio Project, Caintuk, etc.) is one of the same problems I hear with box speakers - reflections from the front baffle allow localization of the speaker, they don't 'disappear' so they sound like listening to speakers - ruining the 'being there' effect. Maybe a wave-guide solves this? Problm with wave-guides is they act to compress - same as horns can seem 'shouty' and broadcast forward. Maybe the AMT being open on the backside solves this? Most box speakers take these issues and add cabinet resonances, backwaves, (typically) flat side-panels and so on, stacking too many bad cards in your hand to form a winning combination unless a ton of $ is thrown at it. I once had a pair of egg'ish-shaped speakers made of concrete (no cabinet resonance), they sounded very good... until the Carver monoblocks blew a chunk off the inside in short order - returned those rattly beasts for a pair of bipole Mission spreakers that served me well for decades.

Cool thing about LXmini + OB-subs is they're inexpensive, you get to build them yourself (sense of accomplishment), they barely care about the room or treatments, you can use them to build an entire 'lifestyle' system for $2k (less than many of these guys are paying for a pair of cables), and tune them to sound however you like and whenever you like. What can be done to change the sound of most speakers... an endless game of cable-swapping, gear matching, tube-rolling, room treatments, vibration oscillators all around the room, copper screws, magic beads... the list may be infinite and infinite $.

One of the things that has prevented me from pursuing large front baffle designes (like Spatial, Pure Audio Project, Caintuk, etc.) is one of the same problems I hear with box speakers - reflections from the front baffle allow localization of the speaker, they don't 'disappear' so they sound like listening to speakers - ruining the 'being there' effect

Honestly I do not understand this problem. I get edge diffraction, but my speakers have 1/2" rounds on the edges and I defy anyone to tell me they can hear where the speaker is.  I've heard many other speakers that do a great job of disappearing as well, some with very narrow (Vandersteen) and some with broad baffles (SF Amati Heritage).  I've never felt this was an attribute of baffles which could not be dealt with.