$999 DIY Baffle holding its own against $10K Hifi versions!?!? 🤯🤯 

A solution to your issue with the screws is to cut a ring and glue it up on the back. THis gives you plenty of meat to screw into as well as allowing you to route a nicer bevel in that pulls all the way down to the driver rim. :) Also if you ever want a fast, beautiful finish that is literally a wipe on wipe off affair, use Danish Oil. You can even tint it for a nice range of colors. Either way, very nice job my friend!

I have no doubt that your baffles sound great. I discovered in the past that you can take almost any single full range driver, put in in a piece of plywood, and set it 3-4 feet from the front wall . It will outperform most over the counter speakers in 3-4K range. My latest setup consist of Eminence Alpha 15 in. woofers in the bottom, and 8 in. Tang Band full range up top . The baffles are 22 X 38. I'm driving the bottom with a pair of Maraschino Cherry monos {250 WPC} and a push pull 7 watt tube amp driving the top. The absolute biggest Improvement in the sound came when I replaced the passive crossover with a Marchand electronic one with a 250 Hz. setting. I would put these up against anything i've heard in that 10grand range. I bought the Tang bands and the Marchand used. I have approx. $1200 total in everything. I'm retired now and sometimes listen to this setup for 10-12 hrs straight.

Maybe play some music through them just so we can get an idea of the sound with our headphones.

Nonsense, single enormous wideband is useless as frequency goes higher. If you want proof to that, measure off axis. Curious that you left that part out. By the way, that's coming from someone who built a two way open baffle himself. There's a lot of reading on the subject I could recommend, if you're interested.

..proceeds to actually pre-build the baffle....while there in Home Depot.

The best sounding speaker is one that you make yourself...

I'm not being negative. I am asking these questions, and learn from you, if I want to go this route . I only have a pioneer int. Sa8500. I can run my mac mc250's through it or not. Vinyl or cd.

What is your surface mounted the driver and milled the edge for a surface mount?

I wonder what the sound quality be if the baffle was plexiglass. I know that it would be more expensive. Check out MACO SPEAKERS from Toronto, Canada. Granite Baffles$$$$.

We want some record with good mircophones and complex music tracks

Can you share where you ordered the L pad and price. Im doing the same with eminence 15 Inch Gama 2 woofers and a CD. PSD2002 Got everything sorted but for the L pad.

Thx for a poor mans audio chance to live high. Thinking of apeing what youve done if stuff can be obtained...curious of itsy weight ?....cos want to position high. Dublin.Eire.

Next question ! How are you dealing with the cabinate resonances / floor ?

I've been fascinated by open baffle designs since I heard about Pure Audio Project speakers, I know this design has been around much longer than that. I built a pair of box speakers about 40 years ago and have wanted to try again, your design sounds like the way to go. You know so much more than I do about this, I just joined the discord and will start learning from you and others on there.

La Dolce Audio site does not have any speaker kit information at this time? Where can I buy speakers, Russian cap etc?

All marketing hype and fancy names tricking "audiophiles" into thinking anything sounds better than a paper cone and speaker wire on the ground.

Would making the baffles out of granite, produce a better sounding speaker?

How did those baffles sound with the lii song f15s you showed part way through the video?

I would like to see the diagram to the crossover very interested in building these brother

that not a Hifi System that more like a pa System like you got 4 18inch bro You know how loud that would be in a house dam no cap man 😂

Baffle speakers sound absolutely clearly wonderful.. but why are they so damn expensive it is truly inexpensive to create baffle speakers such as the spatial m-and-x series baffle speakers they're wonderful but you're definitely going to need a subwoofer and why are they so damn expensive there's no need for that.. I found something out last week but nobody's supposed to know what it costs to manufacture to create one of these nice sounding x series baffle speakers and believe it or not.. the cost to build one of these for the manufacturer it just under$600 us.. so why are the asking $7,000 or more for a pair of these that is really ridiculous.. and believe me that will change because very very few people who love these speakers would be willing to go into debt and pay up to 30% interest to pay for these overtime because less than 20% of the population in the United States has six to ten thousand dollars to throw away on speakers. I'm only speaking truth your guys I'm getting a little tired of these prices for good sounding speakers and it's time to push back and publish would it cost the manufacturers to build these damn things in and then ask yourself why are they making such huge profits on something that's so reasonably cost to produce.. everybody loves to listen to music with love a pair of the spatial model x 5.. 29th sell them cheaper so every household can have a pair.. audio equipment should not be considered jewelry. But when you look at the prices, these manufacturers want you to think that it is jewelry for God's sake and it's not.. so will lower your damn prices are already some more people can have something nice in their home.. this means that nobody who makes less than $45,000 a year could ever have a nice pair of speakers in their home. I guess the 45% bottom-half the American population doesn't deserve nice things now do they??? Building baffle speakers it's really cheap to do.. come on with all the other speakers that only have a six and a half inch woofer in them.. and why is thatyou won't get a bass response below 40K so you got to show out another thousand dollars for subwoofers which is absolutely sick ridiculously absurd.. anybody can build a subwoofer with some would a nice 12in Bass drive with at least a 2lb magnet a few pieces of hardware from radio shack crossover configuration sold in China by the millions. It's called a DIY speaker and you could do it if you really wanted to and you could do it for cheap..😅 really speaker brand manufacturer he's going to get in through their head.. Stop trying to create jewelry out of home audio equipment it's becoming a bit boring in frustrating as hell. Recently I received some really nice Tower speakers worth well over $3,000.. and I can't really use them so I call the local audio Fidelity place and said hey I got four speakers were $3,000 a piece here's the brand name in the model number . And of course they've never been opened in there still exactly the way they were when FedEx delivered the damn things.. do you know what they offered me for them?? In trade for another manufactured brand of speakers equivalent to these that fell in their store for around 4200 bucks a pair.. they said well will give you $300 in trade for each one of the speakers that are supposedly still new in the box never opened that still have the FedEx paperwork fresh off The printer.. screw that stuff man.. I told him to stick it up their ass.. everything is they sell the exact same speakers that I want to trade in for $2,200 each.. trying to rip people off because they think I am sounding desperate I'm not. So be careful out there when you buy audio equipment it becomes near worthless even if you've never opened it within a month of obtaining it.. enough already start getting reasonable with your prices so that everybody can play the game of home audio roulette.. and then I got to wonder how many tens of thousands of people will agree???? So let's find out leave some replies to my comment thank you very much

OAK ?!?!?!?! what about making them out of oak ???

Do you have a speaker kit that wil outrival a twenty thousand dollar pair of speakers?.... Where does it end... 😆

Good job. Still enjoying my original Hawthorne Audio speakers.

Sounds fabulous and this has got me thinking would you want the baffle to resonate or not. Some speakers are designed to resonant and some aren't. We all know there is a product called sorbothane which is horrendously expensive but does work miracles in absorbing vibration. However there is a really cheap product that you paint on that does the same thing yet costs nothing compared to sorbothane. It's called decidamp 150 and you paint a light layer of this on to your wood it almost totally get's rid of any ringing..It's flipping awesome and would be worth some experimentation!!!!

How do you know where along the baffle to cut the hole?

Did I see Polk 10g in the background

wonder why the big brands cant design a baffle 😂

Ill pay you if you build me a set, thanks.

La dolce website doesn't seem to have anything on it.

Thank you so much for luting us know taht we can also make them great video

This is pure Comedy....😂😂😂 Anybody who thinks this is Quality of some sort Is completely delusional. Since I worked for speaker lab in 1977, Then speaker factory, Then speaker city, Designing and building loudspeakers since 1977 And working with some of the best speaker engineers in the world , this is pure Comedy Thank you I will laugh for the rest of the day.

the beauty of open baffle is no box coloration… you could still add some dampening material to the back of the baffle. or use marine grade plywood - the loaded bass driver *will* put some vibration into the baffle. i would probably have split the baffles for the 18" and the 15" so that the 18" will only rattle it's own baffle (more about this later). the width of the baffle will have a big influence on the bass quality - remember, the bass driver will put the same amount of energy towards the back but in opposite phase. the front and the back wave will eventually meet and cancel each other at all frequencies where the signal is exactely in opposite phase. the wider the baffle, the less cancellation. on old Voice of the Theatre speakers, they often added wings on piano hinges to add bass oomph. one important thing: don't worry about rigidity; our drivers do give enough structural rigidity. what you *should* be concerned with is bracing the panels so they can not move back and forward. you want the driver push air forward into the room and not the speaker baffle backwards, as newton's law of actio est reactio would predict… imagine a 15" driver suspended by nothing but some thin rope from the ceiling. now do a sweep with low frequency sines from 20 to 200 Hz at high SPL. you will notice that the driver will start to swing back and forth and the more it does so, the softer the sound will get - if the resistance of the air is higher than the inertia of the speaker, the bass energy will not move through the air, but instead push the speaker backwards. this not only lowers the efficiency, but it also smears up the sound. you won't notice this until you really brace the baffle so it cannot move at all. the foot of your speaker is way to small to prevent the top heavy baffle from rocking - and yet, you did hear an improvement when you re-seated the baffle from the front of the foot (where it could freely move forwards when it was pushed from behind by a positive rear wave) to the middle. however, with the 15" driver mounted so high up, you would ideally brace the baffle from it's upper edge both, to the back and the front with diagonal struts. i know, this makes the baffles an eye sore and you'll constantly trip across the front mounted struts - but i guarantee you that you will be … uh … baffled by the improvement. instead of bracing it with diagonal struts, you could also brace it against the ceiling. (eg with two vertical 1" aluminum tubes that screw into the upper edge of the baffle and into a threaded plate mounted to the ceiling. yes - this makes your speakers kinda immobile, but that's actually what you want with open baffles. there's no free lunch…) bracing the baffles to the ceiling also ensures they are really in a right angle to the floor i.e. you're actually hearing the frequency band of the midrange/tweeter driver on axis (where it's usually the flattest))

all talk no demo. HATE THIS VIDEO

Not one mention of the LX521.

dude I just bought some a8h

I learned a bit and enjoyed watching this. Thank you for the info. Look forward to the complete build. +1 sub :)

Thank you for this. Looks pretty easy. Why did you use metal core inductors rather than open core inductors?

whats the sensitivity of these?

Actually there are plenty of examples of speakers over $15K even that have less than $1000 parts in each box. That's expensive wood...

How does it sound.........

Red OAK stair tread....Don't think I've ever seen a start read made out of soft cedar.

You've moved on quite a ways since your incessant promotion of Paradigm and B&W speakers. ;)

Audiophile is a dirty word now.

absolutely fantastic, love this project, I absolutely need more details as to the drivers you used. the construction makes perfect sense. what I really love is the flexibility as far as the crossover goes, and yea a class A El34 sounds perfect. I'm super stoked. 👌

Very cool. Da Wuf Da. 🐻

Shave his back:)

I use 2 crown XLS 2502 amps for my open baffle, they have built in DSP control, also allows me to adjust the level of my open baffle sub separately.

Mate that was just fantastic. More I listened the more motivated I got. I did an OB project in 2009 and strangely I also found that the WIDE baffle was VERY good. Yet others will say this is wrong. ie you should have folding side fins. Whatever! I am more likely to build what YOU did. From my old experience I believe. I had a good quality audiophile friend hear my 2009 OB's and his comment was "they look like sh*t ( my ones lol ) but sound like HEAVEN! Better than $10,000 speakers" were his words. Do you have a parts list and spec sheet for sizes of the board and the crossover you ended up with? I think I wanna build 'em! :) thanks!

I can’t believe you were able to put those bass drivers on your turntable cover without it breaking.

Be interested in how these sound with Lii W 18 and a GR Research Triple Threat. I’m an old school EDM(barf acronym) that loves bass, and OB speakers with their lightning response and reflex make for epic living room dance parties. Great video!

Would you be able to share a schemtic? I have a oair if 15" Betsy baffles and want to modify...thanks

My brain is so skeptical but I'd love to hear em! Open baffle designs sound incredible when they're implemented well.

There is no "th" at the end of the word height>

You know damn well that $10k speakers are really $2.5k speakers. Out of $10k rrp at least $5k of that is margin for the distributor and retailer. The manufacturer makes the speaker for around $2.5k and puts a $2.5k profit on it for themselves.

Instead of a $1k diy soeaker that outperform the best $10k commercial speaker, why not working on a $100 diy speaker that outperform the best $1k commercial speaker. Isn't that more challenge ng and more exciting ?

Nice - a 'baltic' birch would be a further improvement and it looks good on the end grain (many more laminations) though is about twice the price.

Ok finally finished mine late tonight, don't even have the good green 3.3uf capacitor or suggested better chokes got the stuff from this video, but I did ad horns with same eminence driver. It just doesn't make sense, how amazing they sound not in a fancy box with compartments and all that stuff. Can't wait to get the good chokes and uf capacitor, will upload pics to discord when my old a$$ figures it out. Donald Fagan The Nightly sounds amazing on these speakers. BTW

Discourse not discord 😁

You should have gone for the 8 mh

30:10 That is such a good idea. PS Audio have extra tweeters at the back of some of their speakers (with deep boxes). And the tweeters are a long way apart. But with using the same tweeter to do front and back it's acoustically way better. No phasing problems, way more defined sound than an extra tweeter at the back. ❤

Paper cone speakers are basicly the same . Once had a old CBS engineer tell me a good speaker has no sound it reproduces the sound. Those over the hill prices for a name is marketing. You definitely can build your boxes and select your own driver's.

Pretty cool project, some things tho - you'd want a proper xo between the compression driver and your bass unit - you don't want to excite those cone breakup artefacts on the upper end - not a lot of drivers are well behaved in that regard. Cap only xo - idk - that will stress the driver a bit, but depends on the power level. Opening the rear of the compression driver is huge no-no - rear chamber is needed for proper loading and acoustic impedance matching, so response, distortion figures will be all over the place. Also flush mounting from the front is better - no surface discontinuity, compared to a chamfer.

I'm seattle I didn't know you guys were local..

I don't doubt that they sound better than any commercially available conventional box speaker. I started building open baffle in 1994 and I don't know of any conventional box speaker I could enjoy listening to. Open baffle has a lot of advantages such as inherently more uniform polar response and virtual elimination of cabinet resonance issues. They don't have to have lean bass, it all depends on how you EQ them and on whether you have sufficient volume displacement. They can be designed to be bass heavy if you like. Either way, lean or heavy bass, the open baffle bass will always sound more natural than any box design. Great video about a really nice project, keep up the good work and always stay outside the box;-)

Hi! Great stuff, following this set up on Facebook. I get you went el cheapo on the first and amazing what you can get out of them. On the second with the better baffle material and using the same coaxial, why didn't you add a 15" woofer ( considering the down size, the 18" would be too big ) and set it up to get closer to the first in performance ? I can't see ( and as you stated, it didn't sound as good in comparison ) how it could with missing the bass driver ! Just thinking...cheers

Wished you had given us an actual sound test!

I’d love to know when the La Dolce drivers will be available? Do you have any recommendations on similar coaxial that would be OB worthy? We’ll done on this project and thank you!

I'm sure the difference in sound between the baffles most likely has to do with wave cancelation. Wider baffles will generally sound better because they don't allow as much cancelation of lower frequencies. Every frequency has a specific wavelength. That and wider baffles most likely do a better job at projection of some frequencies. Also your distance (placement) from rear walls will also play into this. Maybe a smaller baffle wouldn't be so bad if it was brought further out into the room 🤷🏻‍♂️ who knows. I don't really know enough on the subject. That's why experimenting is fun. What really matters is how they sound and if you like them. Sounds like you do 😎. Enjoy!

Just shows how grossly overinflated the industry hardware has become. I'm using an RD 57, dipole, push-pull, line source, planar magnetic, in 17 inch wide MDF, black Formica covered panel/baffles, with outside red oak trim beveled on a table saw set at 23 degrees to mediate diffraction, both sides, to figure in dipole operation. Cost me 1085 bucks/pair to ship from Seatle to Eastern MA. The second iteration of same is employed as the midrange driver, that in 2022 cost 680,000 dollars, for the loudspeaker system a certain manufacturer sells. This particular driver the RD 75 used to be available from partsexpress, RETAIL, for 1400 bucks a pair. BTW, below 200Hz, using (2)Morel 164's/channel each loaded in 12 foot long schedule 40 PVC with (4) 90 degree elbows per waveguide for the Bass. Got me where I wanted, to own a pair of loudspeakers that sounded as fine as my Stax earspeakers.

A few thoughts, L pads are not the best for sound, try some Quality resistor circuit. Yes to thicker baffle , but with proper back support, try some side wings. Check out GR research for more info. Good luck.😊

its a cheap and easy why to go no crossovers great speaker for open baffle sounds great wheelchair larry

How would these compare to classic open baffles like the Alon series from Acarian / NOLA?

You guys should sell these direct. All the open baffles I have seen are all $5K and up. I want something in the $2k or Less. Sell them for $1800 and buyer pays shipping.

Fantastic Video👍. I see that it is all about open baffle and I’m a fan of open baffle to too, but is there any experience to use this drivers and this principles to impact on the role off with a close cabinet. I would like to build home cinema speakers and I wonder if I could use this combination. Thanks in advance.

Would love to have heard them! Compared to the more expensive speakers.

Looks tempting. How about the off axis performance?

If they turned out so good exactly why didn't you play them, so we could hear, on this video?

Great video thanks. How do you think a single full range driver would perform? Cheers Peter

Thank you for sharing 😊

Where can I find a full build sheet? Currently running an R8, VPI scoutmaster/AT MC cart with a pair of Kef's - I really want to try a pair of open baffles. I can do all the work

Love open baffles, know how efortless, spacy and even low-deep they can sound, but your "deep" in 100-250 Hz I`m sure reduce energy, punch and attak dramaticaly. If you make somehow a small +2+3 db in this area instead of -4-5 you will be pleasanly surprised;)

Did you do a slight delay on the woofer to compensate for the tweeter distance? It may also be worth looking into optimizing baffle width.

How low does it go?

Awesome awesome video and tutorial, thanks for the lesson I’ve practiced with building 2/3 way speakers and subwoofer systems in the past. I’ve never known the idea or concept about open baffle speakers , I image it might be similar to or better than my old Dalhquist speakers I have currently and maybe some old Magnepans I’ve experienced in past.

DiY = great build/info & price..! Sandbag below the 18"..? ✌🍾🎉👍

Your speakers costs a lot more than the indicated $999 if you factor in your work and time for research & development.

I collected components for a stereo PA system using two Eminence Beta 12CX speakers with tweeters that screw into the back but am only using a single 18" a LaVoce "Transducer" sub as the BBE Matrix-1500 amplifier only has a single sub port. I'm curiois to know if mounting the single sub on one of the speaker baffle would be preferable to using a separate open baffle or tuned box? Your video was very helpful and I'm happy to steal as many ideas as possible from your success

Definitely something I will get into on my next speakers. Have you guy thought about torrefied wood which is used in acoustic guitars, less likely to expand and retract. Also wood glue in combination with screws will make for tighter seams.

Ive owned quite a few speakers over the decades including Magnepan 3.5Rs (meh), Accoustat 2+2s, and Emerald Physics 3.4s- 12" concentric woofer with 1" polyester tweeter outboard XOs- both truly awesome, but the EPs are only ~41" whereas the 2 +2s were ~ 8ft

Stair treads would be red OAK, not cedar

I’m glad they sound great, the wife would never except those in our living room.

Thanks for the great video I like stuff like that I build my own speakers too have a great day🙃

What are the speakers behind him with the twin midrange drivers??? Ive always wanted that in a speaker to make a thicker midrange presence.

Sounded like a lot of BS in the header, but I anyway started to see this video and the realised that I have this Silver Iris drivers but never managed to build anything good with them. They are at my storage at this moment. My problems was 1). I never was able to reduce the breakup resonances at around 2kH of the 15" enough with the Silver Iris crossover. Same problem that I have with Eminence 15A. 2). I never liked the sound of the Silver Iris horns. It looks like this video have a solution to that problem.THANKS I will rebuild the Silver Iris tweeters according to this video. I don't know what I will do with them but I have a few project that I think that I can use them for. 1) Open baffle with the Silver Isis 15" bass 2) Open baffle with SB 15OB350 15" driver with Klipsch K401 horns for the Silver Isis. 3). Front loaded horn with EVM12L and Klipsch K401 horns for the Silver Isis. 4. Replace the K77 in my La Scala clones........and so on......THANKS FOR THIS VIDEO!!!!!!!!!! Is it really possible to reduce the breakup of the 15" driver enough with a passive crossover?

Very cool video! Thanks for all the hard work to show us the way to save $$$ for fine sound.

Legacy audio makes open baffle, but they are hideously expensive.

Awesome video. Love the picture of the old Bush stadium back there.

Hì. Whère can i buy them?

Is that a Polk Audio model 10 behind you?