# Open Baffle for HT?



## krips (Sep 7, 2008)

I am considering building open baffle speakers for my living room, which is used for 50% HT/ 40% Gaming/ 10% Music. I've heard great things about OB with music, but it is beneficial for theater and gaming as well? Can you have your mains as OB and your center and surrounds as sealed or ported without having it sound 'funny'? Thx.


----------



## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

I have a fully OB home theater. Magnepan 10.1 LR's, Magnepan MGMC1's for surround, and a DIY dipole sub using 2, 15" drivers. No center, once I got it dialed in, the maggies make a fantastic center image.

Eventually I plan to build a dynamic driver OB system for my HT, but too many other things have been getting in the way (job, moving soon, house projects).

The only bad side to most OB's is room placement. Some rooms are just hard to place OB speakers in properly. But if you're willing to work at it, the sound can be amazing. Planar and electrostats can be limited in dynamics, but there are some great designs for cone OB speakers. Here, DIY audio, and HT Guide have some archives of cool projects.

Good luck and keep us posted on what you do.


----------



## jeffreybehr (Mar 17, 2008)

krips, my 3 front speakers are open-baffle, with the LRs line-arrays.









I love the spaciousness of OBs and find all front-only radiators to sound too forward...to 'in my face'. I had built a CC using a batch of those gorgeous-sounding SonicCraft 6-1/2" drivers, but it didn't have the articulation on voices a CC needs, at least for me, so I adapted my already-ownwed Eminent Tech. 12 to that OB; it sounds quite good, altho it occasinally sounds a little bottom-of-the-barrel on male voices.

I think you'll not have problems using OBs for LR and a front-only radiator for CC.


----------



## krips (Sep 7, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. For you guys that use OB, how do you correct for the peaks and dips in the response? Do you somehow build it into your crossover, or do you EQ it? It's nice to hear that I might be able to go OB for just my mains...I simply don't have the room for all 5 channels to be OB. I was thinking I might to in-wall with my surrounds.


----------



## jeffreybehr (Mar 17, 2008)

kripps, OB systems, except for the loss of bass due to wrap-around cancellation, have no more dips and peaks than front-radiating systems. (I suppose there are cancellation effects if they're too close to the front wall behind them.)

I use an active speaker-management system, a dbx-brand DriveRack-PA, for x-overs and EQing. The main (LR) systems are biamped, plus there are big SWs (barely visible) behind them...









The 12" holes in the bottoms of the main systems used to be filled with 2 of those 12" woofers...








...and I've simply been too lazy to cap them. Eventually I'll build new OBs using ELEVEN of those magnificent-sounding 6-1/2" drivers and 8 B-G Neo8-PDR tweeters...
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=264-713


----------



## Guest (Sep 10, 2008)

I say if you have the space for it do it. The biggest thing with the OB is that you run into less ** problems. If you don't have the space for it then you should try designing a vented or a large sealed box. People often comment on the "spacy" feel you get with OB and I know from doing a lot of physical research that the problems are caused mostly by ** and cabinet resonance. So if you don't have the space for but have enough for a large sealed box or something like that then you just need some clever bracing to get a similar affect. 

All of my speaker and crossover testing is done on OB but I have a large studio to do it.

Good luck with whatever you choose.


----------



## krips (Sep 7, 2008)

Well I've stuck my pair of CSS FR125s into 24x36" baffles, and they're centered. They sound amazing. The bass is...not bad...but voices, guitar riffs, etc....they sound very good. Any tips on OB construction or anything before I go ahead and make some MDF baffles?


----------



## krips (Sep 7, 2008)

So, guys, I'm looking to actually do this up now. The drivers I'm going to be using are the CCS FR125 and CCS SDX7. I was planning on going OB with the FR125 and having the SDX7 tuned to 35hz in .6cf. WinISD tells me that with a 2" port it would have a first port resonance of 675hz, and hit its xmax at 29hz. 
It looks to me like it should be crossed at about 500hz, but I'm just guessing here. What do you guy think? Also, are there any serious (or even minor) flaws in my design as you can see it? Have I given enough information? Any help would be appreciated.


----------



## krips (Sep 7, 2008)

Apparently I need 5 posts.


----------



## krips (Sep 7, 2008)

Here's a pic of what I was thinking of (please excuse my primitive sketchup abilities  ). 
The Cabinets
The Edge Response
Thanks for any help guys.


----------



## xlr8 (Dec 18, 2008)

Hello,

I'm new here, but had to reply to this since I just strung up a set of DIY OB line arrays which I designed myself. I used 12 Vifa Logic 5.5" truncated drivers and one 60" maggie mg3a tweeter per array. The room they are in is too narrow to mount really large wings to the 11" baffles so I get absolutely zero bass from the panels. The panels sit atop 2-2 cubic foot cubes which contain 4 7" Vifa Logic drivers in a compound push/pull arrangement. Even with very narrow baffles, the sound is amazing. These speakers make electrostats sound dull and boring. 

I've owned lots of different speakers and equipment in the past and have NEVER experienced the clean, clear and extremely dynamic sound that these speakers produce. They bring out the best and worst of recordings. Well recorded material sounds real, especially solo acoustic intruments. I'm not going to fill this reply with the normal drivel we read in audio magazines and the like that try to describe sound in words. Acoustic intruments sound like they are right here in the room with me. I play several instuments and know what they sound like. I was shocked at what I heard when I re-strung my guitar the other day and sat down to try and pick out a Ray Lamontange (I don't know if I spelled that right) song. It sounded as if there were 2 real acoustic guitars playing in here. I'm not set up for HT, but from what I've heard so far, I see no reason not to give OB a shot.:yay2: 

I forgot to mention that my speakers produce an image that may render a center channel useless...


----------



## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Welcome to the Shack. As a Maggie owner myself, I agree with many of your statements.

Once I dialed in the aiming, I no longer need a center channel. Sadly the positioning and aiming was counter intuitive, but I eventually found an angle and place that I liked.


----------

