New Open Baffle Speaker from Clayton Shaw

[Few]

The Caladan design seems ripe for cloning with improvements. “Cabinet” construction can’t get much easier, and components are within reach. I think putting the Dayton tweeter in a large waveguide to reduce the strain in the 1kHz region, and better match the woofer directivity, would be an interesting experiment. It would make a commercial offering less affordable, but a diy effort wouldn’t be at all out of reach. I don‘t take Mr. Nude Record Day’s assessment as remotely objective, but there are quite a few independent and positive informal reviews of the Caladan online. I haven’t seen any measurements, so the grain of salt necessary is still pretty huge, but Mr. Shaw has a credible record so I’m staying open-minded for now. It’s such a bummer that health issues have truncated his speaker-creating career. He’s been a candid and generous straight-shooter, and the audio industry needs more of those.

If only I didn’t have five other half-baked diy speaker design ideas withering in my shop…

Few

 

[Nwickliff]

The Caladan design seems ripe for cloning with improvements. “Cabinet” construction can’t get much easier, and components are within reach. I think putting the Dayton tweeter in a large waveguide to reduce the strain in the 1kHz region, and better match the woofer directivity, would be an interesting experiment. It would make a commercial offering less affordable, but a diy effort wouldn’t be at all out of reach. I don‘t take Mr. Nude Record Day’s assessment as remotely objective, but there are quite a few independent and positive informal reviews of the Caladan online. I haven’t seen any measurements, so the grain of salt necessary is still pretty huge, but Mr. Shaw has a credible record so I’m staying open-minded for now. It’s such a bummer that health issues have truncated his speaker-creating career. He’s been a candid and generous straight-shooter, and the audio industry needs more of those.

If only I didn’t have five other half-baked diy speaker design ideas withering in my shop…

Few

I found this wavecore tweeter I wanted to run close to 1k to see if I could “copy” this design.

Shopping

Still deciding on woofers.

I cross to 80hz with subs so don’t need low end extension.

 

[Few]

Wavecor looks interesting (too bad it isn’t cheap)! Dayton provides so little data on their tweeter it’s hard to compare beyond the resonance frequency and sensitivity. I’d like to know the maximum excursion of both drivers to better judge how low in frequency they can be pushed. The f_s on that Wavecor is impressive; too bad it doesn’t come with 93 dB/watt of the Dayton.

Few

 

[Ron Texas]

Is there a spin available for any open baffle speaker?

 

[Nwickliff]

Is there a spin available for any open baffle speaker?

If there were, would it be able to accurately predict what the in room response would be? Are the maths different with different polar patterns or is that literally what the maths calculate to get the in room?

 

[Ron Texas]

If there were, would it be able to accurately predict what the in room response would be? Are the maths different with different polar patterns or is that literally what the maths calculate to get the in room?

There's a spin for the small Magneplanars, I believe. It's very irregular. It would make more sense to me if these open baffle speakers were built as 3 ways, perhaps with a coaxial mid/tweeter.

 

[617]

But you have to make a clear distinction between Clayton Shaw's classic OB concept for the woofers, and Danny's flawed V-frame concept used with NX-Otica and NX-Treme.

With a well-designed classic OB concept, you get the desired dipole radiation. The frequency responses at different angles run parallel to the on-axis FR for small angles and have the maximum extinction at 90°.
A woofer (here 10'', no XO) in a flat baffle like the CALADAN speaker will show horizontal measurements like:
View attachment 327008 View attachment 326967

FR hor deg0°-90°
View attachment 326969
FR hor deg0°-90° normalized, normalized full sonogram (till 3kHz), polar diagram 100Hz and 400Hz (shows the dipole behavior)
View attachment 326970 View attachment 326971 View attachment 326973 View attachment 326974
So the woofer shows nearly textbook dipole behavior. There will be some vertical inter-driver interference of the two 12'' woofer and problems in vertical radiation around the XO frequency because of the large distance of both woofer to the tweeter.

In the CALADAN speaker the XO frequency is 1kHz. The tweeter is not an open baffle driver, but a normal tweeter. This makes the radiation above the crossover frequency somewhat uneven because the tweeter has a wider radiation in the 1-5kHz range as the woofers up to 1kHz.

Above 1kHz the CALADAN speaker is a normal boxed speaker with a wide baffle (which makes the radiation of the tweeter somewhat narrower, which is positive for the transition to the woofer).


In contrast, Danny's V-frame concept used for NX-Otica and NX-Treme has problems with resonances caused by the V-frame baffle.
If woofers are put into a V-frame baffle, the "wings act as a resonator chamber". In the area around the resonance, the speaker then no longer radiates as a dipole, but extremely unevenly and worse than any normal speaker.
View attachment 327007 View attachment 326998
FR hor deg0°-90° normalized, normalized full sonogram
View attachment 327000 View attachment 327003
If you compare this radiation with that of the classic OB speaker above, it becomes clear that basically the woofers in the V-frame baffle only have optimum dipole radiation up to about 100Hz, then the resonance becomes noticeable.

If the midrange drivers also have a V-frame baffle, the problem is repeated and if the depth of the wings is different, the resonant frequency also changes.
This is also shown by Danny's own measurements (the more the angle increases, the higher the SPL of the resonances at 270Hz, 570Hz and 1200Hz become):
View attachment 327004
More details can be found here.

So if "open baffle is the way to go", then NX-Otica and NX-Treme are out of the question for this, as there is no dipole radiation that one would expect with an OB concept.

With the CALADAN speaker you should get the expected dipole radiation up to the crossover frequency at 1kHz and above that the speaker behaves like any other normal speaker with width baffle.

I like how you're trained in an entire suite of acoustic simulation software solely to shit on Danny Richey.

 

[617]

There's a spin for the small Magneplanars, I believe. It's very irregular. It would make more sense to me if these open baffle speakers were built as 3 ways, perhaps with a coaxial mid/tweeter.

Most good dipoles are 4 ways. You need serious excursion to make up for the bass cancelation, which necessitates a low mid woofer which then necessitates a transitional midrange.

Magnepans are irregular because they are planar and are in breakup from a very low frequency up, not because they are dipoles, but I'm guessing you know that.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

I found this wavecore tweeter I wanted to run close to 1k to see if I could “copy” this design.

Shopping

I have that tweeter and will be doing some work with it some time early next year. I also have the one with the waveguide that allows it to go lower. But you will have a ton of distortion with either one at 1K. The measurements in this link are for the one with the waveguide. It could be realistic to go down to 1.5KHz with a 4th order filter, but it's going to distort below that in an unpleasing way. It might be alright at lower volumes but 1K is not very reasonable with it's excursion limits.

Wavecor TW030WA11 Fabric Dome tweeter | HiFiCompass

What is on the test bench? Today we are testing TW030WA11 tweeter - one of flagman high frequency range models of the Wavecor company. TW030WA11 it is a 4 Ohm speaker (its 8 Ohm version is TW030WA12) featuring a quite large fabric dome membrane with a diameter of 30 mm, ferrite magnet motor and...

hificompass.com

You could potentially try to get one of the Bliesma's down to 1KHz, but even those will have some limitations there.

 

[Few]

Very helpful, thanks. Clayton Shaw seems to consistently push his tweeters to lower frequencies than most would expect. While at Spatial it was more extreme, but even with the Caladan my understanding is that he's using the tweeter--without a waveguide--down to 1 kHz, and with a second order high pass filter. Spatial has purged information on older models so I can't refresh my memory, but they definitely were using a dome of some sort down to something like 800 Hz with no waveguide (unless you want to be pedantic and call the flat baffle a waveguide). I have no direct experience with any of their speakers so I don't know if tweeter stress was an issue.

The large diameter tweeters are enticing because of their lower resonance frequencies, but I do worry that the loss of consistent directivity up to the top octave may be too high a price to pay.

Few

 

[Few]

Well I did find this: https://www.audiotempel.nl/product/6354198/spatial-audio-lab-m6

…which claims their ceramic tweeter was used from 576 Hz (not 575!) to 40kHz. I still haven’t seen measurements, though. That‘s quite a claimed range.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Well I did find this: https://www.audiotempel.nl/product/6354198/spatial-audio-lab-m6

…which claims their ceramic tweeter was used from 576 Hz (not 575!) to 40kHz. I still haven’t seen measurements, though. That‘s quite a claimed range.

I would have to see some real measurements done on that tweeter to believe that. It's possible to get frequencies from many drivers that are out of their ideal operating range, but that doesn't mean you will get good performance. I'm not here to criticize other people's speaker designs. I'm no expert but I do know that you can't defy physics and I would love to see how you get 576 (not 575) Hz and 40KHz from the same driver and still minimize distortion.

 

[ctrl]

I like how you're trained in an entire suite of acoustic simulation software solely to shit on Danny Richey.

If you have found any errors in the comparison of the radiation of the CALADAN (classic OB concept) versus NX-Otica (V-frame concept), please let us know.
I have no problem with correcting my mistakes, as I am all about informing consumers about important differences between speakers concepts based on facts.

Someone who, due to the spatial dimensions of their listening room, really needs to minimize lateral reflections should be informed that there are considerable differences in the OB concepts in terms of radiation.
The advertising claims made by manufacturers or reviewers who do not measure their DUTs about "perfect dipole radiation" of OB LS concepts are unfortunately just smoke and mirrors in some cases.

 

[Rick Sykora]

If you have found any errors in the comparison of the radiation of the CALADAN (classic OB concept) versus NX-Otica (V-frame concept), please let us know.
I have no problem with correcting my mistakes, as I am all about informing consumers about important differences between speakers concepts based on facts.

Someone who, due to the spatial dimensions of their listening room, really needs to minimize lateral reflections should be informed that there are considerable differences in the OB concepts in terms of radiation.
The advertising claims made by manufacturers or reviewers who do not measure their DUTs about "perfect dipole radiation" of OB LS concepts are unfortunately just smoke and mirrors in some cases.

Science is a tough judge.

I think you have created some of the most interesting, factual and productive threads on this forum. Helping others distinguish audio fact from fiction is a goal I think many of us share.

 

[617]

If you have found any errors in the comparison of the radiation of the CALADAN (classic OB concept) versus NX-Otica (V-frame concept), please let us know.
I have no problem with correcting my mistakes, as I am all about informing consumers about important differences between speakers concepts based on facts.

Someone who, due to the spatial dimensions of their listening room, really needs to minimize lateral reflections should be informed that there are considerable differences in the OB concepts in terms of radiation.
The advertising claims made by manufacturers or reviewers who do not measure their DUTs about "perfect dipole radiation" of OB LS concepts are unfortunately just smoke and mirrors in some cases.

I don't wish to suggest your modeling is innaccurate, and I agree that people have incorrect intuition about the complexity dipole radiation.

I am merely making light of the fact that good sound is not an accident, and the two speakers discussed here are designed by and for people who, for better or worse, are less serious about audio than you or I. Sometimes I think we've applied more scrutiny to some of these designs than their creators did.

 

[ThatSoundsGood]

Sometimes I think we've applied more scrutiny to some of these designs than their creators did.

This is such a good point. I also think that it's OK if some speakers or audio devices don't stand up to our scientific expectations. If people enjoy listening to music on them then that's what matters. I think we might enjoy discussing harmonic distortion or tweeter excursion more than we enjoy music......

 

[ahofer]

Here, a video from New Record Day, talking about and listening to the latest open baffle speaker design from Clayton Shaw. I Became a fan of his designs after first listening to a pair of his speakers at the Show Newport, quite a few years ago. His latest, The Caladan. I became a fan of NRD for the pains he goes through in attempting to make good recording for Youtube. Headphones if you got em. If you don't want to watch the whole vid, the price is stated at $2950.

Any measurements?

 

[617]

This is such a good point. I also think that it's OK if some speakers or audio devices don't stand up to our scientific expectations. If people enjoy listening to music on them then that's what matters. I think we might enjoy discussing harmonic distortion or tweeter excursion more than we enjoy music......

Right, I regard the OB speaker initially mentioned to be a woodworking project before anything. Nothing wrong with that. The 521 isn't exactly a beauty.

 

[AudioX3]

My speakers are Spatial Audio Labs M4 Turbo S. They sound great to me, and what is most enjoyable is that the sound stage is huge with good deliniation. There is a sweet spot, but also people on either side still get a good spatial staging. For me, these are important characteristics, others may have their own priorities.

I just learned of Clayton Shaw leaving and then starting his own business. It looks like that was blessed by the folks he sold to and they are going to focus on higher end X Series and potentially discontinue the Q series and leave that price point to Clayton's new endeavor.

Q Series - Spatial Audio Lab

The new Q Series incorporates our latest cutting-edge technology that provides exceptional performance, raising the bar in its price class.

www.spatialaudiolab.com

In case you missed it... Clayton Shaw has released an entry level open baffle speaker to rave reviews over at New Record Day on YouTube. There has been a lot of speculation regarding this move and how this relates to Spatial Audio Lab. We made it clear to Clayton that our interest was not to pursue products that fit the audio market at that price point. But, as audiophiles, we are glad that he was able to put something together with a great deal of promise. We also look forward to hearing them next week when Clayton gets back in town. Rumor is they will be available for your listening pleasure at Capital Audio Fest in November if you are out that way. Not sure about delivery timelines, etc. You will need to follow that action over at www.ClaytonShawAcousticLab.com. If it's as good as Ron claims, we're not sure there is a need for a Q6 and we will put our resources into our other development projects.

Q6 - Indefinite Hold​

 

[beagleman]

NEW RECORD DAY guy seems to really really really be pushing these............

Not sure what that means, but.......... I just tend to see potential issues, being glossed over as is typical with most Open baffle speakers.

They will have some qualities that at first seem impressive and positive, as long as you ignore a few built in flaws or issues, or never measure them.

Not saying it might not sound good or even quite good, but throwing (2) Beyma 12" pro-woofers **$150.00 each** and a Dayton $50.00 tweeter onto a slab of wood usually will by design limit it in some ways, they are simply ignoring trying to explain away......

How is the 500Hz -1500Hz area being covered?? He claims the tweeter is good to 1khz, but......is it really?
What 12"Pro-woofer truly has good response between 500hz and 1500hz?

How is "Baffle Peaking" being addressed? (the area where front and back woofer output "augment" each other and cause a big bump in response)

Many "Open baffle" fans or "Designers", I have discussed this stuff with, often say "What is Baffle Peaking", showing that the speakers ARE simply 2 big woofers thrown onto a flat board, with no measurements or actual knowledge of the issues that are BAKED into this type of speaker.