Cardboard Open Baffle Bargain Bin

[Ropie]

These are some open baffle speakers I have been working on this weekend. I started with just some cardboard sheets and a pair of RS 40-1197s. Gradually I have canibalised a perfectly decent set of 1970s Wharfedale Lintons, adding first the woofer in the box and then the tweeter to the top of the baffle (with the crossover from the Lintons).

Here's the first attempt that sounded good enough to make me try to improve them:



Attempt two looked better but wasn't much of an improvement:





Next, I re 'built' the baffles and set them atop my old Wharfedale Lintons and wired them in parallel (the smaller baffles took away some of the harshness that I had been getting). This added much needed bass depth but lost a lot of the 'airiness'. So I gutted the Lintons and replaced them, upside down, with just the woofer in the cabinet. With the open baffles on top the sound was good but still lacking slightly the original naturalness. Twisting the cabinet through 90 degrees helped to integrate the bass for some reason.





Finally, I added the tweeters from the Lintons with their original crossover. This setup now sounds pretty good for a cobbled-together effort and I'm considering making a more permanent version in wood. They are open and full and have a natural sound that i really like. They are a bit rough around the edges, especially with vocals, but for instrumental music I can't really fault them.