[Bcame05]

Hey folks I am new here.  I have a pair of Emerald physics EP 3.7 open baffle speakers.  I have been watching videos of GR research on youtube and I find them very interesting and educational.  Thanks for all that content.  The EP 3.7 consists of a 12 inch paper cone woofer with 2.5” voice coil.  It has a 1 inch exit Polyester compression driver tweeter that is mounted behind the woofer and uses the waveguide of the woofer.  This speaker has served me well with one caveat.  I have varied taste.  I love classical but I also like to really rock out with some heavy metal.  These speakers do fairly well with the classical but when it comes to the hard rock I am looking for more dynamics.  Specifically the punch of the kick drum and the aggressiveness of the rock guitar.  Acoustic guitar vocals are pretty good I am just looking for more oomph to the music.  I have them paired with a 12in sealed sub (Rythmik) and they are biamped through a Legacy Audio Wavelet with a Wyred4Sound ST 500 on the woofer and an emerald physics ep 100.2 on the tweeter.  Can I do anything with these speakers to get where i want or should i just consider getting something different.  I have been toying around with swapping out the drivers but I am very new at this and would not know where to begin or what to look for.  Thanks for any advice folks!  Here is a cut and paste about the speakers from their website. 
System Type: Passive 2-way Dynamic Dipole - DSP crossover & equalized
Frequency Range: 48Hz–22kHz +2/-3dB without subwoofer from target curve
Frequency Linearity: +/- 0.50 dB from 100Hz-20KHz from target curve
Impedance: 8 Ohms nominal
Max Power input: 150W RMS, 300W program
Sensitivity: 95dB 1.83V @ 1M @ 1kHz
Drivers: Emerald Physics High Freq: 1 inch exit Polyester compression driver
Emerald Physics Low Freq: 12 inch paper cone with 2.5” voice coil
Crossover: 3rd order acoustic Butterworth filter at 900Hz
Digital Frequency crossover/Equalizer: – Emerald Physics DSP2.4 
Finishes: 8 Stage Hi Gloss Tri-coat  is standard. Optional Cocobolo or Rosewood is $US600.00
Dimensions: 38.75”H x 22W x 3”D baffle, Base is 15.25” depth total
I dont use their digital crossover but use the wavelet instead.

[corndog71]

Have you tried moving your sub around the room to optimize bass impact?

Other factors could be crossover component quality, speaker placement, room treatments, source quality, amp quality, your cables.

[Bcame05]

My system is relegated to the bedroom atm.  (family grew, house didn't) My bedroom is 12 x 13.  the speakers are about 3 to 4 feet apart with the front baffle about 2 ft from the front wall.  my equipment rack is in between them.  Seated on my bed the tweeter level is about 8 inches below ear level.  I had one hell of a time convincing my wife to let me bring the equipment into our bedroom so things are going to have to stay the way they are furniture wise.  There is a large window along the right wall and a large dresser with mirrors runs most of the length of the left wall with the door to the hallway at the front left of the room.  I currently have the sub sitting behind the right speaker firing firing toward the left wall.  The only other place I could relocate the sub would be maybe halfway down the right wall as there is really no where else to go with it.  I have a dedicated circuit  feeding a PS Audio P 10 which supplies the power to all my gear.  Moving the sub to the side would require a long interconnect or a wireless one.  I forgot to mention that I am not using any crossover right now.  The wavelet is doing that job.  So I have the two amps receiving signal from the wavelet and sending them out to the binding posts directly.  Nothing between the binding posts and drivers but wire. The dynamics I am looking for may be beyond what an open baffle design can deliver.  Not sure to be honest.  I get a good amount of bass and it is pretty tight.  It's just with hard rock there is just something missing.  A few years back I picked up a set of speakers for 5 bucks at a junk auction for my son.  I hooked those up with no sub and I was floored at their dynamics.  This was a game changer to me as at the time I had been using Magnepan 1.6 speakers which sounded great but could not come close to these things.  Seeking better dynamics was the reason I went from the planars to the open baffles.  Trying to get more oomph without sacrificing  too much of the openness of the maggies.  They have done what I wanted them to do.  They are open and image decently although not quite as a "sparkly" top end as the maggies.  They do have better dynamics but I still want to get to where I was with those speakers I got at the auction.  I forgot to mention that the surrounds fell apart so I ended up throwing them out.  (wish I would have known about replacing the surrounds )  I cant even remember the brand but i remember it started with a J and they were based in Illinois somewhere.  It is an obscure name.  Not Jensen or JBL but anyway I digress.  Best advice on what I should change in my system to have the soundstage and scale for classical along with the dynamic drive for the hard rock.  Thanks again.

[ric]

Might be good to try and call Clayton at Spatial Audio, since I believe he also designed the Emerald Physics. But the real problem, it sounds like, is your room, and you can't do much about that, given its small size. If possible, move the speakers into the living room, garage, whatever , but speakers 3 feet apart and wanting bass seems futile. Good luck!

[tom739]

I think you have almost answered you own question, "beyond what an open baffle design can deliver".   My opinion is open baffle do not excel at the hard punch you are looking for. Not saying they can't do it. It's just not their strong point. For example, if you have a ported box speaker with similar drivers your Emerald physics have, 12 inch pro woofer and compression driver with horn, you would have all the dynamics and punch you could stand. Put those drivers in open baffle, maybe the 3 dimensional sound stage improves, but hard impact punch is reduced. A bit of a trade off.

[Tyson]

Yeah, the OB's are not going to sound good that close to the front wall.  Serious cancellations are happening to the frequency response with that placement.  You might be better off with a box speaker.  Personally I really like the GR Research NX Studio as it was designed for small rooms and near-to-the-wall placement (it's sealed).  It goes down to 70hz (although probably closer to 50hz in your setup) so you'll need a sub.  But, the absolute beauty of the design is that the tweeter is a brilliant open baffle planar magnetic design.  So you get the advantages of a sealed box for the midrange which makes it optimal for your setup, and the spaciousness of the planar open baffle tweeter. 

It's pretty inexpensive, too.  Only downside is it's DIY so you'll have to assemble the flat pack, or pay someone to do it for you (and there are several people over on the GR Research forum that can help with that). 

Of course, the best advice is to move your current speakers to a bigger room.  Actually if you get access to a bigger space, then I'd say move up to a more recent design from Clayton.  I've heard the old EP designs and the newer Spatial designs are a LOT better. 

[Bcame05]

Might be good to try and call Clayton at Spatial Audio

Yep I talked with him before I bought the Emerald Physics and he said he couldn't recommend any if his speakers for my space.   

[Bcame05]

I think you have almost answered you own question, "beyond what an open baffle design can deliver".   My opinion is open baffle do not excel at the hard punch you are looking for. Not saying they can't do it. It's just not their strong point. For example, if you have a ported box speaker with similar drivers your Emerald physics have, 12 inch pro woofer and compression driver with horn, you would have all the dynamics and punch you could stand. Put those drivers in open baffle, maybe the 3 dimensional sound stage improves, but hard impact punch is reduced. A bit of a trade off.

Yep that's what I was thinking.  Just posted in case someone had an approach I haven't thought of yet.  Thanks

[Bcame05]

Yeah, the OB's are not going to sound good that close to the front wall.  Serious cancellations are happening to the frequency response with that placement.  You might be better off with a box speaker.  Personally I really like the GR Research NX Studio as it was designed for small rooms and near-to-the-wall placement (it's sealed).  It goes down to 70hz (although probably closer to 50hz in your setup) so you'll need a sub.  But, the absolute beauty of the design is that the tweeter is a brilliant open baffle planar magnetic design.  So you get the advantages of a sealed box for the midrange which makes it optimal for your setup, and the spaciousness of the planar open baffle tweeter. 

It's pretty inexpensive, too.  Only downside is it's DIY so you'll have to assemble the flat pack, or pay someone to do it for you (and there are several people over on the GR Research forum that can help with that). 

Of course, the best advice is to move your current speakers to a bigger room.  Actually if you get access to a bigger space, then I'd say move up to a more recent design from Clayton.  I've heard the old EP designs and the newer Spatial designs are a LOT better.

Thanks a lot for that DIY suggestion.  I will definitely check that out.  Eventually, I will be able to get everything back downstairs to my original listening room which is decent size (26 x 12)  I have been looking with real interest at the Klipsch Cornwalls for when I do move back down there.  In the meantime looks like I will end up learning some DIY.  Thanks all for your input very helpflul

[Danny Richie]

There are several things to consider here.

First of all for those drivers to produce a reasonable response does require a custom designed passive filter with enough notch filters to control the choppy response. The frequency response on those could vary by 10db and more.

Without an additional driver to help out the lower end they will start rolling off at around 200Hz.

Digital filters could be used to fix some of that if properly implemented that is another bottleneck in it's self.

Secondly, your room is way to small for those speakers or any open baffle speakers.

My opinion is open baffle do not excel at the hard punch you are looking for. Not saying they can't do it. It's just not their strong point. For example, if you have a ported box speaker with similar drivers your Emerald physics have, 12 inch pro woofer and compression driver with horn, you would have all the dynamics and punch you could stand. Put those drivers in open baffle, maybe the 3 dimensional sound stage improves, but hard impact punch is reduced. A bit of a trade off.

Unless you are looking at our open baffle woofers....   They will play flat to 20Hz and have all of the hard hitting punch in the gut you want.

The best advice came from Tyson. The NX Studio Monitors are ideal for that room size, and are easily toping any list of best sounding stand mounted speakers.