Questions & Advice for a MAOP-5 WAW

Hi everyone,

I am planning on building WAW speakers and I am looking for some advice.

Goals & Context
Here is some of the things I'd like to do in no particular order:
  • Keep the box relatively small (around 30L max)
  • Around 30cm wide baffle max and around 20cm deep (shallow design)
  • F3 of 30hz, up to 20khz
  • Should work well pushed into corners
  • Vented box for the sub for extra extension
  • Closed box for the wideband (or better suggestions?)
On a more subjective angle (probably not so helpful, but still including it here). I guess I love a 'vintage' sound that's not boomy in the sense that romantic / coloration is not something that normally bothers me. I want to be able to dream away and drown in the music. Not to say that do not believe in measurements, it's just that a flat response curve is not a particular end goal for me. One of the reasons I wanted this system to have an active XO is to also learn and listen for myself how drivers can integrate to produce a sound I love.

Where I am so far
I've been both drawing up some sketches for aesthetics and playing around with Hornresp to get some feeling for what is possible. Nothing is decided yet but I am aiming for something like below. This particular one is sketched to be 294mm wide, 193mm deep and 770mm. I like this because in my opinion these look 'less heavy' when placed on a stand or legs (which I haven't designed yet), as opposed to a floor-standing tower that reaches all the way to the ground.

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So far I've made these decisions:
  • Wideband will be Markaudio MAOP-5s
  • Subwoofer will be the SB23MFCL45-4
  • I'll use a MiniDSP Flex as a digital XO
  • Port on the back
There is still lots open. With this thread I am mostly looking for some thoughts and input for further exploration. Not sure how best to approach this, so I think I'll just post the things I am pondering over in separate posts for anyone to shoot at. Starting with...

A Hornresp Rocket?
In Hornresp I currently converged on modelling a vented box for the SB subwoofer with a slight taper, that gave me a response in the 30hz region while remaining the internal volume under 30 L. Here is a few screenshots from one of the configurations I ended up with, just to give you an idea of what I was doing:

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Then I started playing around with this configuration and I suddenly ran into this weird configuration where the horn is almost like a rocket. This simulates really well for my purpose and decreased the size of the port somewhat. Not sure if this is something I will do, but I am honestly wondering how this configuration can give such a response? The start of the port feels so incredibly small... Anyone knows what is happening here and if this is something worth exploring further? Some screenshots...

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