New Open Baffle Speaker from Clayton Shaw

[audiogeek]

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.

You bring up some very interesting (common sense for audio enthusiasts?) points on the OB design flaws. Thanks.

 

[beagleman]

You bring up some very interesting (common sense for audio enthusiasts?) points on the OB design flaws. Thanks.

Paul Carmody's DIY Speaker Pages - Sunflower [Redux]

The Repository->DIY->Sunflowers

sites.google.com

Made this one several years ago, and it was designed with actual good sound in mind. Not a FULL open baffle but still in the spirit of this thread I hope.

And it also addresses the one point I was making, about "Baffle Peaking" and how to deal with it etc.

 

[egellings]

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.

The price seems reasonable.

 

[Nwickliff]

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.

I was a little confused as to why they didn't post any measurements of the speakers. I like New Record Day and he always posts measurements and believes you shouldn't talk about a product without some facts to back it up but i saw zero measurements of these speakers. Has anyone seen any measurements? I was also trying to figure out how the heck they were getting full range without a midrange helping that tweeter and helping the woofer. I still want to know because if it's possible that would be soooo cheap and easy to create with a 4 channel amp and a 2x4 DSP. I always use subs for the lowest octaves no matter how much people love their open baffle bass.

 

[beagleman]

I was a little confused as to why they didn't post any measurements of the speakers. I like New Record Day and he always posts measurements and believes you shouldn't talk about a product without some facts to back it up but i saw zero measurements of these speakers. Has anyone seen any measurements? I was also trying to figure out how the heck they were getting full range without a midrange helping that tweeter and helping the woofer. I still want to know because if it's possible that would be soooo cheap and easy to create with a 4 channel amp and a 2x4 DSP. I always use subs for the lowest octaves no matter how much people love their open baffle bass.

I rewatched the video, and see where he showed the crossover and bragged about how there are only a few components used......To me, a Red Flag.


I could be entirely wrong, but with my knowledge of DIY speakers and Open Baffle speakers, it is somewhat questionable to me as to how a very simplistic crossover can be employed (appears to be 2 caps and one coil on tweeter, equating to a 3rd order high pass) and One cap and One coil on woofer (equating to a 2nd order low pass roll off, but beyond that, nothing else.

I get they are pushing the simplistic crossover thing, but all Open Baffles have response issues in the several hundred hertz area due to front and rear sound combining at one frequency range, (Creating a big peak in sound) and then cancelling at other ranges, due to wavelength dimensions.


Typically, notch filters OR, crossing over above the "Peaking" frequency are the only 2 ways to get around this built in design issue. I see neither in this design.

I too would love to see some measurements, but see this going down the same road that many DIY OB speakers go.....lack of truly getting a good response or claiming some inherent issues, are somehow NOT inherent in their design.

 

[Nwickliff]

I rewatched the video, and see where he showed the crossover and bragged about how there are only a few components used......To me, a Red Flag.


I could be entirely wrong, but with my knowledge of DIY speakers and Open Baffle speakers, it is somewhat questionable to me as to how a very simplistic crossover can be employed (appears to be 2 caps and one coil on tweeter, equating to a 3rd order high pass) and One cap and One coil on woofer (equating to a 2nd order low pass roll off, but beyond that, nothing else.

I get they are pushing the simplistic crossover thing, but all Open Baffles have response issues in the several hundred hertz area due to front and rear sound combining at one frequency range, (Creating a big peak in sound) and then cancelling at other ranges, due to wavelength dimensions.


Typically, notch filters OR, crossing over above the "Peaking" frequency are the only 2 ways to get around this built in design issue. I see neither in this design.

I too would love to see some measurements, but see this going down the same road that many DIY OB speakers go.....lack of truly getting a good response or claiming some inherent issues, are somehow NOT inherent in their design.

I just went active and only use my two 15" drivers for below 300hz. Use KEF Q100 Coax for mids and highs. Not truly dipole because the tweeter is enclosed but everything else it. Cheap and affective. No idea what the polar pattern looks like but in my room there are 4 other speakers (surround) and a LOT of 6" rockwool panels so I'm not as concerned with the off axis response. I guess technically there should be very little off axis response once you reach a certain degree given the front to back cancelation.

 

[MKR]

There is no way you can have an open baffle (dipole) passive design with neutral/accurate FR, no way. Active DSP is a must. Maybe these “slap some drivers on a chunk of plywood” and call it good folks (and there are many) should visit SLs web site and learn a bit about what it takes to design an accurate OB/dipole

 

[Nwickliff]

There is no way you can have an open baffle (dipole) passive design with neutral/accurate FR, no way. Active DSP is a must. Maybe these “slap some drivers on a chunk of plywood” and call it good should visit SLs web site and learn a bit about what it takes to design an accurate OB/dipole

SL? Also, at least half don't even measure their designs! It's nuts! No treatment, no eq, no measurements, no dsp and they think they have audiophile setup because they spent $1000's on drivers. Trust their ears they say....

 

[MKR]

SL? Also, at least half don't even measure their designs! It's nuts! No treatment, no eq, no measurements, no dsp and they think they have audiophile setup because they spent $1000's on drivers. Trust their ears they say....

Yup, exactly… SL = Siegfried Linkwitz (the man, myth, legend of dipole), may he rest in peace (miss him, I am sure he would have been a member of ASR and made great contributions!)

 

[Nwickliff]

Yup, exactly… SL = Siegfried Linkwitz (the man, myth, legend of dipole), may he rest in peace (miss him, I am sure he would have been a member of ASR and made great contributions!)

I think he also wanted to design speakers that did away with the need for treatment too so they would work in these untreated rooms. Finally got around to doing mine and the difference is night and day. The amount of reverb that you can hear in the recordings is amazing when it's not mucked up by your own rooms decay and reverb.

 

[MKR]

I think he also wanted to design speakers that did away with the need for treatment too so they would work in these untreated rooms. Finally got around to doing mine and the difference is night and day. The amount of reverb that you can hear in the recordings is amazing when it's not mucked up by your own rooms decay and reverb.

Yes! Love to hear this. I am a definite “adapt the speakers to the room” believer, which is definitely possible with todays modern DSP capability, and especially with cardioid. Rather than the old school “adapt room to speakers”. I don’t want my room looking like an anechoic chamber to get good sound! Some minor level of treatment may be necessary, but if your room looks like a padded cell in an insane asylum, you have some serious speaker issues … fix the speakers, not the room!

 

[Nwickliff]

Yes! Love to hear this. I am a definite “adapt the speakers to the room” believer, which is definitely possible with todays modern DSP capability, and especially with cardioid. Rather than the old school “adapt room to speakers”. I don’t want my room looking like an anechoic chamber to get good sound! Some minor level of treatment may be necessary, but if your room looks like a padded cell in an insane asylum, you have some serious speaker issues … fix the speakers, not the room!

Mostly agree. I think some things need to be fixed with room treatment. Go as far as you can or your better half or sensibility will let you and then adjust the speaker. I still don’t think you can get better results without doing a LOT of both.

 

[beagleman]

There is no way you can have an open baffle (dipole) passive design with neutral/accurate FR, no way. Active DSP is a must. Maybe these “slap some drivers on a chunk of plywood” and call it good folks (and there are many) should visit SLs web site and learn a bit about what it takes to design an accurate OB/dipole

Open Baffle speakers seem to attract many users/"Designers" that DO simply throw some quite big efficient woofers and a tweeter on a chunk of wood, sadly.

While anyone is free to do what they want, I draw the line, when they claim how great they sound, despite no measurements, no understanding of how the front and rear waves cancel AND combine and so on.

The inspiration seems to be mostly "looks", and secondly, simplicity of design and lack of crossover compensation.
But also have seen that many of these guys do not like any of their "Designs" to be questioned or scrutinized.

 

[beagleman]

When building my "Semi" open baffle speakers....only the mids were open to the back, found Paul's information quite valuable and easy to understand.....

Paul Carmody's DIY Speaker Pages - Sunflower [Redux]

The Repository->DIY->Sunflowers

sites.google.com

"When I went back and re-measured the raw drivers to create the new crossover, I noticed that there were some strange issues going on with the midrange dipoles. Most significant was a massive 6+ dB spike in the output of the mids around 375 Hz. What precisely was causing this? After doing serious studying at Siegfried Linkwitz' and John Kreskovsky's websites, I learned that this is called a "dipole peak." The dipole peak is a phenomenon where frequencies which start out as out-of-phase in the back of the baffle wrap around to the front, and by the time they get there are now in-phase, and thus combine to create an increase in output. Of course, this only happens at the frequencies whose 1/2 wavelength equals the distance it takes to wrap around the baffle--in this case, 375 Hz, or 18 inches.

Regardless of whether or not that previous paragraph made sense, something had to be done to address this dipole peak. I tried several different contour and notch filters, however my ears alone were not enough to analyze the effectiveness of these filters. The problem with just using one's ears for such a task is that they are good at "getting used to" response aberrations and masking them. So with each new filter, I'd not only listen, but measure the speaker's anechoic and in-room response, with MLS and RTA Pink Noise, respectively. Finally, I had a filter that really hit the dipole peak dead-on with just the right amount of attenuation (C5 + L3 + R5)."

 

[beagleman]

I just went active and only use my two 15" drivers for below 300hz. Use KEF Q100 Coax for mids and highs. Not truly dipole because the tweeter is enclosed but everything else it. Cheap and affective. No idea what the polar pattern looks like but in my room there are 4 other speakers (surround) and a LOT of 6" rockwool panels so I'm not as concerned with the off axis response. I guess technically there should be very little off axis response once you reach a certain degree given the front to back cancelation.

Baffle "Peaking" is a 6db boost in response due to the front and rear waves combining and adding together due to being in phase with each other. Below the Peaking frequency and that boost, the response will naturally be out of phase and cancel with a resultant roll off of bass frequencies.

 

[Rick Sykora]

With Linkwitz's passing and Kreskovsky moving on, the most prolific, current open baffle work has come from gainphile. See here: https://gainphile.blogspot.com/

His designs have actual measurements and directivity diagrams. Have considered building his S20Zs until I realized I really do not sufficient open space for open baffle speakers.

 

[MKR]

Mostly agree. I think some things need to be fixed with room treatment. Go as far as you can or your better half or sensibility will let you and then adjust the speaker. I still don’t think you can get better results without doing a LOT of both.

Again, if you need a “LOT” of room treatment, the speakers are the issue, not the room. Choose better speakers

 

[MKR]

With Linkwitz's passing and Kreskovsky moving on, the most prolific, current open baffle work has come from gainphile. See here: https://gainphile.blogspot.com/

His designs have actual measurements and directivity diagrams. Have considered building his S20Zs until I realized I really do not sufficient open space for open baffle speakers.

Thanks @Rick Sykora ! Wasn’t aware of this site, great stuff

This also looks to be a very well thought out (engineered) dipole design …

https://evo2.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Bitches_Brew_Open_Baffle_Live_Edge_Speakers.pdf

 

[audiogeek]

Thanks @ Beagleman, Rick, and MKR for the links. 3 really interesting sites with measurements to back up their designs.

 

[Nwickliff]

Again, if you need a “LOT” of room treatment, the speakers are the issue, not the room. Choose better speakers

You think speaker design can treat room decay?