Are "non-conventional" speaker designs worthwhile, or just gimmicks?

[restorer-john]

Even open baffles!

Have you ever heard a really good sounding pair of full open baffles?

I always wanted a pair of these Jamo R-909s.

 

[DanielT]

Larsen and Alison have designs that use the front wall to distribute sound throughout the room with the theory that sum of mean pathways of sound left and right will remain close to equal wherever one listens in the room. So a deliberate mix of direct and indirect sound at the expense of some soundstage.

Ortho Acoustic – Larsen HiFi

www.larsenhifi.com

While we're at it. Three people who worked together with Stig Carlsson, you could say were his disciples, then formed their own loudspeakers. It was John Larsen. By the way, R.I.P. This was written on another forum this summer 2024 by someone who knew him:

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that John Larsen has left us after a short illness from late-onset cancer.
We are working with a number of parts (left over parts, projects) to get a continuation of his life's work.

Stefan

faktiskt.io • Visa tråd - John Larsen har lämnat oss...

John Larsen worked together with SSC - Stiftelsen (foundation) Stig Carlsson to produce the model OA58 after Stig Carlsson's death. You can see how the design of this model became the style for John Larsen's own upcoming speakers.

____
Then we have Peter Steindl, who worked closely with Stig Carlsson. Peter Steindl - CEO/Owner of - Ortho-Reality AB
There we have it again Ortho.
Peter with his Egg speakers. Two tweeters directed in different directions, somewhat reminiscent of the Stig Carlssons Sonab OA12. Made to hang on a wall.

The Egg:

Bremen.se

____
Then we have Ingvar Öhman, who has his speakers which are more "traditional". I take one of his models to exemplify:

Guru - Dynamite Audio

Guru Loudspeakers

guruaudio.com

Here in the thread below, what happened after Stig Carlsson's death is discussed, without complete consensus (I said diplomatically). That about the foundation of the SSC,John Larsen's involvement in it. What Ingvar and Peter did, were responsible for, or not and so on:

Ingvar and Peter remember what it was like

faktiskt.io • Visa tråd - [splittad tråd] Ingvar och Peter minns hur det var egentlige

Edit:
When I'm still on this with inspiration from Stig Carlsson. Then we have Teenage Engineering, which, among other things, makes speakers for IKEA.
This is their Stig Carlsson inspired OD-11:

OD-11 the wireless stereo loudspeaker

made to play all your music, from any device, in wireless stereo.the unmistakably warm and relaxed carlsson sound has returned.now in red, black, blue, yellow, walnut and white.

teenage.engineering

Here they write about Stig Carlsson

carlsson story

 

[deloiter]

For the sake of this question, let's assume that a conventional speaker has:

• a box or box-ish enclosure
• one tweeter
• one or more woofers
• an analogue crossover or DSP

Basically all the most well regarded speakers on ASR follow this convention (all executed differently, of course), from manufacturers such as Neumann, Genelec, Revel, KEF, Kii

My question is, is there any merit to speakers that stray from this convention? Examples include:

• Magneplanar (e.g. Magnepan)
• ESL (e.g. Martin Logan)
• Open baffle (e.g. Spatial Audio Labs)
• Linkwitz's designs (e.g. LX521)

Can any of these other types of speakers seriously contend with the most well engineered designs from a company like KEF?

My uncle made speakers and he used to tell me this. If you line up ten speakers, they will all sound different and at least 9 of them are "wrong" and probably all ten. By wrong, he meant inaccurate in reproducing the signal that is supplied. There is no perfect speaker. He strove to design a speaker that you didn't hear. It would add nothing to the sound and take nothing away. This is all made even more complicated by the quality of associated components and their interaction with each other and the speaker. The speaker interaction with the listening room also has a huge effect on the final sound product.
There is only the perfect speaker for one's taste. Listening to heavy rock and roll (like me) and feeling the bass in the chest would suggest a quality box speaker. However, I feel the speaker that does the best job of faithful reproduction of the original signal fed to it would be one of the Magnepans properly set up in a room. I have had five different Magnepan models over the years and since I like that thump in my chest, I use a quality subwoofer. The sub changes the sound but being an audiophile is like life, prone to compromise. Just one man's opinion.

 

[GXAlan]

My uncle made speakers and he used to tell me this. If you line up ten speakers, they will all sound different and at least 9 of them are "wrong" and probably all ten. By wrong, he meant inaccurate in reproducing the signal that is supplied. There is no perfect speaker. He strove to design a speaker that you didn't hear. It would add nothing to the sound and take nothing away. This is all made even more complicated by the quality of associated components and their interaction with each other and the speaker. The speaker interaction with the listening room also has a huge effect on the final sound product.
There is only the perfect speaker for one's taste. Listening to heavy rock and roll (like me) and feeling the bass in the chest would suggest a quality box speaker. However, I feel the speaker that does the best job of faithful reproduction of the original signal fed to it would be one of the Magnepans properly set up in a room. I have had five different Magnepan models over the years and since I like that thump in my chest, I use a quality subwoofer. The sub changes the sound but being an audiophile is like life, prone to compromise. Just one man's opinion.

I am a Magnepan fan myself, despite running all Meyer Sound gear myself at the moment. I think, there is a selection bias where fans of Magnepan speakers also have the right room and speaker placement for it. We are essentially modifying the on and off axis response, along with the HF beaming and reverse signal from behind the speaker to all conglomerate into perfection at the main listening position…

When I downsized my collection, the speaker that I kept was my restored MG-III.

 

[MKR]

I am a Magnepan fan myself, despite running all Meyer Sound gear myself at the moment. I think, there is a selection bias where fans of Magnepan speakers also have the right room and speaker placement for it. We are essentially modifying the on and off axis response, along with the HF beaming and reverse signal from behind the speaker to all conglomerate into perfection at the main listening position…

When I downsized my collection, the speaker that I kept was my restored MG-III.

There is something special in general with the large dipole planar panel speakers that do what no other speaker type can. Even though my end game speaker quest choice will ultimately not be such a speaker design (mainly due to use case), I have been absolutely smitten with the Diptyque and Clarysis large panel dipoles every time I have experienced them. If I were a wealthy fella and had the listening space, I would absolutely have a pair of Diptyques in addition to the more “standard” soon to materialize full range cardioid design. With that said, the upcoming final “EG” design will have many characteristics of a full range dipole planar, there is good reason for that

 

[Theta]

My uncle made speakers and he used to tell me this. If you line up ten speakers, they will all sound different and at least 9 of them are "wrong" and probably all ten. By wrong, he meant inaccurate in reproducing the signal that is supplied. There is no perfect speaker. He strove to design a speaker that you didn't hear. It would add nothing to the sound and take nothing away. This is all made even more complicated by the quality of associated components and their interaction with each other and the speaker. The speaker interaction with the listening room also has a huge effect on the final sound product.
There is only the perfect speaker for one's taste. Listening to heavy rock and roll (like me) and feeling the bass in the chest would suggest a quality box speaker. However, I feel the speaker that does the best job of faithful reproduction of the original signal fed to it would be one of the Magnepans properly set up in a room. I have had five different Magnepan models over the years and since I like that thump in my chest, I use a quality subwoofer. The sub changes the sound but being an audiophile is like life, prone to compromise. Just one man's opinion.

I think you and your dad nailed it, I would add this controversial statement, if I may. If you quadri-amplify with decent drivers, the right size,(not necessarily expensive), it is difficult to make a bad speaker.

 

[dguillor]

I have a DIY DML speaker that I really like. The acoustics of DML speakers are said to be omnidirectional and diffuse. The sound level vs distance from the speaker is different than regular speakers. The level falls off half as fast. I really like them, the way the sound is more similar all over the room. It’s hard to find commercial ones and they do require some equalization, but I think they have merit.

 

[Oddball]

This design seems pretty interesting. Higher mid range is in the chamber open to back, port is passive 12" radiator to match the 12" active driver.

4 way speaker - 110, 580 Hz, 3.100 Hz crossovers.

 

[HarvBow07]

Have you ever heard a really good sounding pair of full open baffles?

I always wanted a pair of these Jamo R-909s.

View attachment 404559

I love my Emerald Physics EP2.7's. Very similar design except mine have coaxial mid/tweeter. I have been trying to "upgrade" for years. I cannot find another speaker that conveys the spatial aspects of sound reproduction better than the EP's at anywhere near what I view as reasonable. That happens to be the most important part of stereo reproduction to me. Interestingly when non speaker folk hear my system, that is also the most startling thing to them.

 

[MKR]

I love my Emerald Physics EP2.7's. Very similar design except mine have coaxial mid/tweeter. I have been trying to "upgrade" for years. I cannot find another speaker that conveys the spatial aspects of sound reproduction better than the EP's at anywhere near what I view as reasonable. That happens to be the most important part of stereo reproduction to me. Interestingly when non speaker folk hear my system, that is also the most startling thing to them.

Try giving a listen to the Clarysis or Diptyques at some point, I think you will be very impressed

 

[MattHooper]

There is something special in general with the large dipole planar panel speakers that do what no other speaker type can. Even though my end game speaker quest choice will ultimately not be such a speaker design (mainly due to use case), I have been absolutely smitten with the Diptyque and Clarysis large panel dipoles every time I have experienced them. If I were a wealthy fella and had the listening space, I would absolutely have a pair of Diptyques in addition to the more “standard” soon to materialize full range cardioid design. With that said, the upcoming final “EG” design will have many characteristics of a full range dipole planar, there is good reason for that

For me part of that special sound seems to be a sense of more life-like and even scale.

When I listen to live instruments, piano sax, a drum set… the instruments sound large from top to bottom.

But through most typical box, speaker designs, I hear more of a pear-shaped sound:
Instruments in the lower registers can sound bigger and weighty, but as things move up through the mid range, upper range and highs, there is a thinning out of the sound, where high sax notes or high piano become thinner and more reductive, like the instrument is growing smaller. Drum cymbals especially show this problem. In real life, they sound like they large resonating metal discs they are, but through most sound systems they start sounding like smaller spotlights of shiny sound squeezing through small tweeters.

I remember hearing some big Maggies and being struck by the sensation of hearing something more like a life-size piano and life-size drum set.

 

[Doodski]

For me part of that special sound seems to be a sense of more life-like and even scale.

When I listen to live instruments, piano sax, a drum set… the instruments sound large from top to bottom.

But through most typical box, speaker designs, I hear more of a pear-shaped sound:
Instruments in the lower registers can sound bigger and weighty, but as things move up through the mid range, upper range and highs, there is a thinning out of the sound, where high sax notes or high piano become thinner and more reductive, like the instrument is growing smaller. Drum cymbals especially show this problem. In real life, they sound like they large resonating metal discs they are, but through most sound systems they start sounding like smaller spotlights of shiny sound squeezing through small tweeters.

I remember hearing some big Maggies and being struck by the sensation of hearing something more like a life-size piano and life-size drum set.

I have listened a lot through coax KEFs and found them to be a little more expansive sounding. My large Kefs with the 107.2 Reference matched tweeters and 104.2 reference midranges sounded pretty large too. I think it really depends on the speakers and how much effort was put into the mids and top end.

 

[terryforsythe]

For me part of that special sound seems to be a sense of more life-like and even scale.

When I listen to live instruments, piano sax, a drum set… the instruments sound large from top to bottom.

But through most typical box, speaker designs, I hear more of a pear-shaped sound:
Instruments in the lower registers can sound bigger and weighty, but as things move up through the mid range, upper range and highs, there is a thinning out of the sound, where high sax notes or high piano become thinner and more reductive, like the instrument is growing smaller. Drum cymbals especially show this problem. In real life, they sound like they large resonating metal discs they are, but through most sound systems they start sounding like smaller spotlights of shiny sound squeezing through small tweeters.

I remember hearing some big Maggies and being struck by the sensation of hearing something more like a life-size piano and life-size drum set.

I've never heard any stereo system reproduce pianos, drums and brass instruments well enough to be indistinguishable from live performances.

The closest to live sound that I can recall were the Infinity Reference Standards at the 1990 CES. Infinity had a number of violin players (maybe 4-6, but I don't remember) playing in an open space, and they would alternate between them playing live and a recording of them. It was pretty impressive.

 

[Doodski]

I've never heard any stereo system reproduce pianos, drums and brass instruments well enough to be indistinguishable from live performances.

The closest to live sound that I can recall were the Infinity Reference Standards at the 1990 CES. Infinity had a number of violin players (maybe 4-6, but I don't remember) playing in an open space, and they would alternate between them playing live and a recording of them. It was pretty impressive.

Infinity made some very cool speakers around that time. I retailed the Kappa line and they where wonderful.