Considering Open Baffle Speakers? The Jury Is Still Out! 

A couple of thoughts for anyone considering an OB speaker. You mentioned vibration as a concern and while this is a consideration for all speakers, it is particularly important for OB speakers. All you have is the front baffle. There is no cabinet to absorb vibration, no place to put sound deadening materials. I’d check the thickness of the baffle. For example, my baffle is 1.75” thick, but around the woofers it is 3.25” thick. A lot of DIYers are de-coupling the top of the speaker from the woofer section by having the tweeter/midrange in a separate baffle maybe sitting on top of the woofer baffle with vibration absorbing rubber feet for example. One test you can do is touch the top of the speaker while it is playing music with bass and see if you can feel any baffle vibration. If you do, there is probably some smearing of the upper frequencies. An area where OB speakers are different from other speakers is bass performance. OB speakers are known to have “fast” bass, but they tend not to go as low as more conventional speakers and certainly lack the “punch” that other speakers tend to have. Don’t assume great bass response because you see a couple of 12” or 15” woofers. Listen for yourself and decide it OB bass is your cup of tea.

Boxed,Dipole,Bipole ,OmniPole is basically all we have Stereo really didn't hit America until the mid 60s. I feel most were comfortable with what Mono did my first Open Baffle was in the early 90s BES Acoustic I've owned over 100 pairs of speakers and every type. My Favorite way to play is the original Alan Blumlien concept like a rear projection screen but with sound going to the front soundstage. Try some open baffle most project the performance behind the speakers that not my type of listening.

Ordered last week a Decware Zen Master open baffle. They are being made at Lii Song and using FAST-15. Will be adding a Lii W-15 bass baffle with Caintuck Audio solid wood.

Lou, the concept - the dynamics of "open baffle" is so intriguing, in so many ways. They really make so many concepts readily illustrative; that the room is a critical part of the system! Well it sure is. But with these speakers, the room becomes even more critical, just like you said about the back wall. I just so happen to have my listening room being of great configuration. And because my home is older, the builders covered all of the drywall with plaster. It's a really solid house with 3/4" plywood floors, with 3/4" oak on top of that. So, my resonances are readily identified. (I know one can't eliminate them. And if we did the music would more than likely lose its soul.) I'd like to try this 'crazy' design because with the latitude I have setting my speakers from the back (and to a lesser degree the side) wall, I think maybe just simple raw drivers might work? LOL Just love your reference to "free resonance". In many ways, the more macro feeling of literary resonance (or emotional) feels related to those of us with aural passion; what's it sound like?! Trust your ears and trust your brain. That one then is the system for you.

You're right, they do seem to be the flavor of the day here on RU-vid. Having a rather small room myself (9x11x8) I presume I don't have enough space (for open baffle, planar or electrostatic) to let them breath.

hi Lou. could you please tell me the name of these 2 Speakers that you showed at the beginning of the video please ?. they appeal to me.. you're totally right. me either. i wouldn't buy speakers that i haven't audition. frankly. the more i hear and read about the open baffle speakers the more i love them.. i'm seriously considering a set but haven't decided which to get. i like the: Linkwitz LX521. Spatial Audio. QUALIO-IQ . Clayton Shaw. Lii-Song .. thank you.

Open baffle is trending and while they are capable of beautiful sonics, they come with their own set of room setup challenges. It’s simply not the silver bullet that these latest YTers are using for clickbait.

There are very few drivers designed for open baffle applications and they are all expensive.

Buyers beware > the lii audio/sound are knock offs of the original Lii Audio's, there is a long article about it on DIY Audio website. Also the pure audio panels only have fixings in the corners of the panels, this surely must introduce flex when you look at how much material is left above and below the large drivers.

Open baffle speakers go back more than 36 years. Jamo even produced one.

I have to respectfully disagree: the jury is NOT out on open baffle (OB) speakers. Recently, there appears to be renewed interest in them, but OB speakers have been around for decades. The design was championed by Siegfried Linkwitz who was a major voice in the audio industry for decades before he passed away. And there is a company bearing his name today which continues to refine his OB designs. And by renewed interest, I only mean that you are seeing a few more OB designs, not some flood of such products on the speaker market. OB designs are unlikely to ever dominate the speaker market. For starters, the speakers tend to be big and they require that they be 2-4 feet from the front wall and 1-2 feet from the side walls. Having a large speaker that cannot be tucked into the corners of the room will tend to have low SAF (spousal acceptance factor). I really do not understand most of your criticisms. Yes, there are design issues specific to OB speakers or more critical for OB speakers. But all speaker designs have design issues. OB speakers are hardly unique in that respect. And like all speakers, the end product depends to a great extent on the quality of the design. Bad design can make any speaker sound bad. Specifically, vibration is an issue for OB designs and you see the better designs try to limit vibration, typically by having a thick baffle (some commercial designs use more inert materials like granite or Dorian, etc), or by de-coupling the woofer portion from the tweeter and midrange for example. Better designs address edge diffraction. No professional designer of OB speakers would use anything other than a driver with TS parameters needed for OB designs. This is particularly true for the woofers used in such designs. And then you overlook that there are hybrid OB designs. One of the weaknesses of OB speakers is their bass reproduction. Without any cabinet reinforcement, pure OB speakers require large woofers. Not uncommon to see dual 12” or 15” woofers or a single 18” woofer. In order to make for a smaller speaker with perhaps better bass reproduction (depending on your tastes), there are designs that use a sealed or ported woofer under the tweeter and midrange which are open at the back. In short, the jury is not out. Good OB designs will persist while bad ones will fade away just like any other speaker. OB speakers will suit some listening rooms and not others. And, of course, some people will like the sound and some people will not. Another “fad” we are seeing in speaker design today is an emphasis on coincident speakers (Andrew Jones designs for Mofi and the more expensive KEFs, for example). The jury isn’t out on such speakers either. It’s just a matter of how highly you value “point source” in sound reproduction. You need to hear some good designs. The Callahan at around $3,000 is a good place to start and the Maccaria at around $10,000 is another. OB speakers are not, IMHO, a fad that will fade away. OB speakers will persist as one of the number of approaches to sound reproduction.

I hope you dont take offence but you went off on tangents on things that affect all other type of loudspeakers (which you did acknowledge) as well and only example was a full range 15 which would not work well in any other situation either. I think the best way to understand them is to get a set that has a full frequency range just like what you'd consider for other loud speakers - ie NOT just a 15 full range like your friend did and place them properly in room - similar to what you would do with a larger magnepan or similar speaker. Also OB drivers not too dissimilar from higher Q drivers used for infinite baffle setups as far as the bass section is considered Also just like conventional designs, you still need to consider your frequency range so a full range 15" driver is not ideal as OB is not magic and cant change the driver behavior so no shock that a full range 15" could not retrieve a ton of detail. Also there needs to be distance from the back wall, so placement would be similar that way to most dipoles like Magnepans. OB setups give that feel of large open presence in a room like a Magnepan may but with more output capability in the bass - depending on size of course and easier to drive most of the time. Also the benefit would be easier to replace parts if they failed or got damaged. I've got a pair I built that are a WMTMW setup with twin 15" drivers for bass, twin 10" mid/midbass and a compression driver for high frequency. Placed properly it can produce a full range frequency range (in my case usable response of 25Hz-20Hz in room) with peaks at the listening positiion of close to 100db without really any sense of strain.

Weird looks like my other comment with lots of info didnt take

I have tried to leave a comment several times and it keeps disappearing.