No rock on open baffles?

[davidallancole]

Hello Everyone,

I have recently become interested in the open baffle concept. I like the simplicity of it all and most if not all comments have been good. Many times over I have heard people say they have tried open baffle and will never go back to boxes.

Another comment I hear often has to do with open baffles not being good for rock music. One perticular fellow said he listens to the Cult and Audioslave and said they do not sound good on open baffle. Most of these people I have read from seem to listen to entirly different music then I do. I don't even recognize much of the bands or singers they mention.

I listen to a lot of metal and punk, anything with fast guitars:
Avenged Sevenfold, Metallica, DragonForce, Voodoo Glow Skulls, NOFX, The Vandals.

I don't listen at earsplitting levels either. I figured out the power on my 89dB speakers where I normally listen to them at was peaking at 1 watt, and that was with Metallica. Most of the other music like the punk was a little lower, like a 1/3 lower or more.

So my question is why are open baffles bad for rock music? Does it just sound more muffled? Is there a lack of bass for rock? Is the open baffle too dynamic and fast for rock music that it just makes it sound bad?

Well, anyways, I am going to play around with the open baffle concept when I get a house in the next few months anyways. My cheap play speakers are the Radio Shack 40-1271 and the 40-1024. Here is some links to some specs on them:
http://diyaudioprojects.com/Drivers/40-1271/40-1271.htm
http://support.radioshack.com/suppor...oc14/14435.htm

[Zen Mod]

cheap speaker is always cheap,doesn't matter if you used them in this or other way;

there are ways when cheap speakers sounds lots better than price can say,and OB concept is usual suspect for this;

other thing- good spk construction is good and pretty linear,so it is capable to recreate all sorts of music;

imagine OB as ,say, MK's : two 15" + Lowther (with or without tweet) ....all that per side;
do you think that combo can't move some air?

conclusion: do not fall easy under generalizations of any kind......just build and learn

[ronc]

Martins approach to the question appears to me to be the best solution to the OB/LF response.
I would go fer OBs, but room dimensions appear to not be the best, so i will stick with what i know, BL horns.
ron

[davidallancole]

Thanks for the replys. I would imagine those 2 15"ers could move lots of air.

I was thinking of bi-amping with the two sets of 8" subs I have. One of those thin baffles with the wings with the fullrange on one amp and the 2 8"ers in parallel with another amp all in a line.

[gmilitano]

I played around with the 40-1271 in an OB and it worked ok. Large full range units tend to shout, so listen to them off axis.

The 40-1271 has an ultra high Q, but they could also work in an aperiodic enclosure. Perhaps something along these lines:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/redwine3/system.html


Another idea is a dipole:
Dipoles KICK ***!!!
Perhaps the 40-1271 facing forward and the 40-1022 on the back.


You should be able to have some good cheap fun with these.

[arnoldc]

I have used Open Baffles in my system. I once used a vintage 8" Altec 2459A and they were surprising in sonics. 60% of my LPs are Rock, and yes my friend's OB with Altec 755 + EVT horns does rock. So I think the choice of drivers will determine if your OB can rock.

[preiter]

Open baffles are good for any kind of music.

You may need a large baffle, large drivers and/or equalization to get adequate bass. Or you could pair them with a sealed subwoofer.

[Rudolf]

The lack of bass attributed to OBs has two sources:

1. The objective lack of room gain, because dipoles don´t "pressurize" the room below the lowest room mode. You certainly can compensate for that by adding bass driver surface.

2. The objective absence of some boomy room resonances, which leads some listeners - who do not know otherwise - to the false assumption of lacking bass. In fact dipoles will deliver bass more true to the original than conventional boxes. But without the "help" of those boomy resonances you may have difficulty to get the amount of "one note punch" some rock afficionados mistake for bass quality.

[rick57]

David

For rock IMO you want bass down to at least about 40-50 Hz.
The limit to bass extension & volume in an OB comes down to volume displaced (driver area * Xmax) and/ or baffle size.

There are two broad options

The small baffle route:
Linkwitz's OBs: use 8" drivers with IIRC 6.5 mm Xmax: as *mids either one in the newer Orion, down to 120 Hz; or two 8" in his Phoenix, down to IIRC 100 Hz. The smallish baffles require EQ.
Note the 400-1024s have Xmax of only 2.35 mm

The Orion for lower bass (ie < 120 Hz) uses a pair of 12.5 mm Xmax 10" drivers, the Phoenix uses a pair of 12.5 mm Xmax 12" drivers. Both again use EQ, and are flat or close to it, down I believe to about 30-40 Hz.

A good example of the other OB bass option:
large baffles and/ or more driver volume displaced, no EQ, flat to the bottom of the rock register:
http://www.quarter-wave.com/Project07/Project07.html

Cheers

[opnly bafld]

If you use a high Q driver ( I had two 15" Hawthorne Augies) and a separate amp to drive them the baffle doesn't have to be large IMO. On a 45"h x 20"w flat baffle bass was good down to 40hz. It rocked very well (see Rudolf's comments above).

Lin