Improving dispersion -- a hole/horn in the side of the cabinet?

[Promit]

Hey, new to the forums and working on my first project.

I'm building a single box stereo cabinet and amplifier, with both sides of the stereo in the same box. Sorta like a boombox, I guess. The drivers are a two-way setup with woofer and tweeter, pointed forwards, and I'm probably going with an open back design to get some decent space-filling sound. This is for electric guitar, post-modeler, so bass reproduction below 70hz or so is relatively unimportant.

I'd also like to improve the sideways dispersion, and I was wondering how I could do that. The simplest idea I had way to simply put a gaping hole in the side of the cabinet, and I also thought maybe it would be possible to put an unloaded horn in the side to project a bit better. Would this work okay, or will it just muck things up?

The expensive option is of course to put another full range driven speaker in the side, but I'd rather not do that, primarily for cost reasons.

[chris661]

You'll probably be Ok with just the back taken off - reflections from the back of the woofers will bounce around.

I doubt that you even need to take the back off - a room-filling sound doesn't come from an open-backed speaker, more one which projects sound better (ie, sounds similar level no matter how far away you are, within reason).

Here's an idea - make the box, keep the back, held on with, say eight screws. Experiment with back on/off, see what suits you most.

Chris

[Promit]

Hm, okay. I wanted open back for the rear sound projection as well, but I guess I'll see how it works on the sides before trying to make any major design changes from a basic open baffle.