Open baffles..anyone heard one?

Savyasaachi schrieb:

Anyone who has heard an open baffle speaker please post ur inputs and views

Yes I have heard open baffles, even made them. The best one I heard was the Audio Artistry Grand Beethoven.Truly a speaker for one who has seen it all and heard it all.Very unimpressive in the best sense of the word.Frankly I dont think many would like the sound.It is not for artifact freaks who like deep bass and the like.Gradient I have heard too and can say the same.Build yours after at least half a decade as it will only appeal once your are past 30 years of age and I am serious about this, as age is got a lot to do with the way you perceive life,and open baffles are like bitter choclates, you like them only when you grow older.Hope you take my view in the correct light.
Regards Deaf

One very interesting open baffle I heard,which was really cool as it used a very special single driver was the Blackforestaudio. The driver in question was a 8" Fertin FLB 20 Mk4. Very open and realistic sounds came out from this system.I prefer this open baffle as it was simple in execution, the Fertin unit was definately the best single driver I have ever heard, leagues above the Lowthers and the like which have several drawbacks,the Fertin actually seemed to have no real colouration.I should actually investigate more into this brand,only problem is that each driver costs about 400Euros, still cheaper than Lowthers though.
Regards Deaf.

Linkwitz orion is a very good one
(I think the beethoven needs to be Bi amped)

Another co entering it is Jamo with some High end Baffles since Klipsch took them over

Never heard them though

Arj schrieb:

Linkwitz orion is a very good one (I think the beethoven needs to be Bi amped) Another co entering it is Jamo with some High end Baffles since Klipsch took them over Never heard them though :(

Both the Beethovens and the Orions are multiamped,and both are designed by Siegfred Linkwitz of LR crossover fame.

The Jamo speaker was 4-6 years in the making and uses some amazing drivers,especially the magnesium mid which has its first breakup at 9kHz.The 15" woofers are Perrless Denmark and the tweeter a Scan.This is a passive speaker and has been highly rated in the German press.Love the colour schemes though.Thy cost a lot though 10000EUROS a pair.I'll buy the Fertins at 800EUROS and spend another 200Euros on the most elaborate baffle and smile all the way.Still too much money when I can actually get really good sound in Rs 10000.
Regards Deaf.

they sure look good.. just found an image.
as per the comments

Transition from two 15" woofers to a 5.5" Seas midrange is at 250 Hz. Crossover to a Scanspeak Revelator tweeter is at 2 kHz. The polar response of these speakers should be interesting above a few hundred Hertz. But finally someone big seems to be catching on.

Arj schrieb:

they sure look good.. just found an image. as per the comments Transition from two 15" woofers to a 5.5" Seas midrange is at 250 Hz. Crossover to a Scanspeak Revelator tweeter is at 2 kHz. The polar response of these speakers should be interesting above a few hundred Hertz. But finally someone big seems to be catching on.

Dear Arj,
They must be magnificent,I had talked about their launch several months ago on the forum.Still too much money though.
If you ever want to make something on the open baffle domain for yourself, let me know, I'll put together something for you.
Regards Deaf.

hey arj,
those seas L15s are among the best in the market right now..superb VFm..
now the orions and their numerours clones have received the highest praise in DIY audio circles..almost every experienced builder has built one ..
and yes..they are all active...
would cost quite a bit to put together something like that....

Deaf i might just take u up oon that offer in the future..

Arj..

Anytime Ben
Regards Deaf

deaf schrieb:

Dear Arj, They must be magnificent,I had talked about their launch several months ago on the forum.Still too much money though. If you ever want to make something on the open baffle domain for yourself, let me know, I'll put together something for you. Regards Deaf.

They look really tempting, but only problem is size am sure they need room to breathe behind them ..

Would you know the reason for their HIgh cost ? being open baffle the main costs would be the crossover and the drivers right ? since the cabinet is nonexistant ?

I presume once you know the design a DIY must be simple with these.. right ?

just came upon this bit of audio history
[quote]For people who are interested in audio history, it is worth noting
that open baffle dynamic-driver speakers were the first kind of
dynamic driver speaker that was strongly developed(all those open back
radios!), long long ago, and that the theoretical analysis of the
situation has been around a long time,too(eg even the earliest
editions of Beranek's standard work on acoustics). In fact, the
understanding of this considerably pre-dates the exact analysis of
ported box speakers for instance.The open baffle problem is a lot
easier!

The more things change ,the more they remain the same.

Without taking anything away from conteporary designers, I find it
more than a little amusing to see the open baffle idea being greeted
by the audio world as something new!! It is anything but.

(Even in the modern world,with modern drivers, the idea has turned up
often in years gone by, e.g., the DALI Skyline series of more than a
decade ago and of course the Carver Amazings, though they had a lanar
magnetic mid/tweeter driver, not a dynamic one).[/quote]

so what type/kind of drivers would be most suitable for open baffle ?

Are there any rules or do's and dont's on driver selection for open baffle....

I would assume the bass driver motor system should be extremely strong, long excursions....but I'm sure there would be other important considerations...for the bass as well as midrange and tweets...

could anyone enlighten us ?

Manek.

Dear Arj
The driver in a top open baffle have to be quite special, either extremely overengineered like the Jamo or extremely cheap and but clever in execution.The quality of parts in Jamo are definately of the highest quality eg a 10mH air core inductor would cost a bomb in oem part value coupled with high value custom carbon resistors,custom caps etc. The fit and finish of the baffle, the cast for the aluminium strut the base plinth cast would all result in growing costs.Finally the cost is high due to the fact that large numbers of such products are never manufactured so the numbers game never really kicks in.
Finally any open baffle that a diy guy will make, will never approach the sound that a Jamo 909 will acheive in terms of ultimate resolution, due to the number of years put in experimenting down to the last resistor type and its supplier and its effect on the sound.
Lastly the size and space required is the main issue against open baffles,but is less relevant today as most high end speakers including so called bookshelf speakers require room behind them.This is the main issue why I told Ben I have chosen a different path from open baffles and choose to work with designd that take a room boundry into consideration and works with them instead of agaist them.
Regards Deaf.

Manek schrieb:

so what type/kind of drivers would be most suitable for open baffle ? Are there any rules or do's and dont's on driver selection for open baffle.... I would assume the bass driver motor system should be extremely strong, long excursions....but I'm sure there would be other important considerations...for the bass as well as midrange and tweets... could anyone enlighten us ? Manek.

The smartest solution is to use cheap long excursion drivers with a very high Qt of 3 not 0.3 .The only issue is low sensitivity, so make a 16 ohm version and use four of them like carver did.
Regards Deaf

The June issue of HIFI CHOICE has given the Jamo 909 a vey interesting review,check it out.I was mistaken about the time frame though ,apparently it was already ready 8 years ago!Man I feel like a newbie now .
Regards Deaf.

Deaf , from what i have read..drivers with a fairly high Qts..though not as high as u have quoted with a high mechanical damping facotr and high Bl is called for in open baffles..
Correct me if i am wrong..

Savyasaachi schrieb:

Deaf , from what i have read..drivers with a fairly high Qts..though not as high as u have quoted with a high mechanical damping facotr and high Bl is called for in open baffles.. Correct me if i am wrong..

Dear Ben you are not wrong,only Carver used extreme high Q of 3 as that gives a 20db peak at resonsnce,which in their case was about 23Hz.Coupled with the fact that their baffle was 36" wide meant a cutoff from 190Hz minus 3db.A drop of 21db at 22hz is what result from this math.The high Q of 3 would therefore offset this front to back cancellation.Simple but really clever.
Regards Deaf.