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spatial audio speakers

airgas1998

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I don't see much love hear for these open baffle designs....i know you need to pull them out into the room, but is there anything else to be aware of??
are standard designed speakers a safer bet??
 

voodooless

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but is there anything else to be aware of??
They are huge! You need a significant amount of cone area to get significant bass output. Many designs are also not truly full-spectrum open baffle, use a normal tweeter for example (or a second one on the back).
 

Joecarrow

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I’ve heard these and own the LX521. In my opinion the Spatial M3 had a few fairly predictable issues when I heard them. The one that bothered me the most was the off-axis response; I felt like the directivity was too uneven and too narrow and I heard some really significant changes in timbre as I moved away from a small sweet spot. I also felt like they were too compromised in bass, but it’s hard to make a definitive judgement in a random room from one audition. Looking at the design, though, I think that if they were designed with external EQ as a perquisite they could have more bass extension.
 

antennaguru

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In my main listening room I am currently enjoying "Quasi" Open Baffle main speakers which are a two-way with the OB mounted woofer handling music from around 80 Hz up to 3500 Hz, crossed over to a traditional limited dispersion horn tweeter handling music above 3500 Hz, and with a separate large subwoofer system handling music below 80 Hz. This is by a significant margin the most realistic sounding loudspeaker system I have heard in my lifetime. It has very high efficiency so is very dynamic, like live music. The speakers simply disappear and are replaced by musicians performing in a real space.
 

nycguy

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https://www.spatialaudiolab.com/
I specifically went to open baffle speakers after researching how to do room treatments. I mention this because the primary benefit of open baffle speakers is that they don't "interact" with room as much as boxed speakers. So the need for room treatments is less. I did measure my room with my previous boxed speakers (B&W) and my current open baffle speakers (Spatial Audio X5) and the room measures a lot better with the open baffle speakers so I can confirm the primary benefit of OB speakers in my space runs true. It's particularly true in the lower frequencies (under 300). The primary complaint about OB speakers is that they lack the "bass impact" or "bass slam" and that is true. However, is bass slam representative of "real" (live) music? I have plenty of bass with my OBs but you just don't feel it like a shockwave.
Spatial Audio does a lot right in their X series -- DSP controlled bass and tweeter with a waveguide for direct connectivity being the strength of their design (beyond the OB benefit!).
Are they big? Well they are both big and small. They are wider than traditional speakers but they are a lot thinner. I actually feel like they are less imposing than my B&Ws. If you're not "used to" OBs....you may think "those drivers are ridiculously large" but the drivers need to be large in OBs.
Do they need to be way out in the room? Well boxed speakers sound better when floated off the front wall too, right? In my room, I have them 3.5' off the front wall and my room is 22' deep so it's a rather normal speaker placement IMO.
 
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