[Trismos]

I'm not really playing the devils advocate (ok, yes I am) But the "way of the audiophile" would suggest that the truth of the recorded event is what we are seeking to reproduce and hear at the listening position. Does not the OB presentation add a false ambiance, much like what you could add with DSP or even (gasp) equalization or tone controls?

[Russell Dawkins]

It may add some false ambiance but it removes false box resonances and also some room signature in the bass range.

Good question, by the way.

[Trismos]

It may add some false ambiance but it removes false box resonances and also some room signature in the bass range.

Good question, by the way.

Interesting touché

Is music not mastered with "boxed" speakers?

[AJinFLA]

Stereo is already an artificial construct. It's fake.
Just FYI.

cheers,

AJ

[Trismos]

Stereo is already an artificial construct. It's fake.
Just FYI.

cheers,

AJ

I think your point is irrelevant to this post. Stereo is an attempt to recreate a soundstage and is available to whatever speaker system is provided to reproduce it.

[Russell Dawkins]

Is music not mastered with "boxed" speakers?

It actually is, though not all - I think of Mapleshade (Magnepan Tympanis, I believe) and Philips (Quad ESL 63s at one point) and myself (lusting after the charms of OB, but using boxes, albeit good ones).

Nevertheless, it has to be said that dipole offers advantages more useful in the typical untreated household room than the well-treated mastering environment.

[JohnR]

Some would say OB is more accurate (than conventional box speakers):

Loudspeakers with frequency independent, constant directionality such as omni, dipole or cardioid loudspeakers, cause reflections in a room that are essentially delayed replicas of the direct sound and which are therefore less colored. Your ear/brain perceptual apparatus does not get confused by sound replicas. Instead it compares them to the familiar acoustic behavior of your room and readily blankets the redundant information and thereby the room. This automatic brain response is related to the Precedence Effect in psychoacoustics and is essential for creating the illusion of "being there" by withdrawing attention from the living room acoustics.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reproduction.htm

[Bob in St. Louis]

Good question!     I have high hope this remains a productive discussion.
I'll be lurking while the smart guys chat the finer points. 

Bob - Open Baffle Fanboy. 

[Trismos]

It actually is, though not all - I think of Mapleshade (Magnepan Tympanis, I believe) and Philips (Quad ESL 63s at one point) and myself (lusting after the charms of OB, but using boxes, albeit good ones).

Oddly, it would seem that the OB 'presentation' is exactly what you might expect to hear from a live performance... one where you were actually there for an acoustical show in a smaller room like your own listening room. Which of course is seldom the case (if ever).

[Trismos]

Some would say OB is more accurate (than conventional box speakers):

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/reproduction.htm

Yes some would say. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Linkwitz and who am I to argue the science? But this sentence in itself makes no sense to me: "Loudspeakers with frequency independent, constant directionality such as omni, dipole or cardioid loudspeakers, cause reflections in a room that are essentially delayed replicas of the direct sound and which are therefore less colored". I'm waiting for the "and for this limited time offer we'll double the deal! All you have to do is pay separate shipping and handling".... Aren't all reflections "delayed replicas"???

[JohnR]

If the radiation pattern varies with frequency, then the reflection is not a "replica". Conventional speakers radiate sound in all directions at low frequencies, and forwards only at high frequencies.

[Trismos]

If the radiation pattern varies with frequency, then the reflection is not a "replica". Conventional speakers radiate sound in all directions at low frequencies, and forwards only at high frequencies.

That took several readings to digest. I assume you don't mean this as questionable: "If the radiation pattern varies with frequency...." It does or it doesn't. OK. Let's say it does. The suggestion is that LF is radiated in all directions regardless of the design, and OB radiates HF WITH the LF where box speakers only send it forward. (Pls excuse my trying to dumb it down for my own comprehension). And this is (apparently?) what is superior with the OB design philosophy.

[Russell Dawkins]

Oddly, it would seem that the OB 'presentation' is exactly what you might expect to hear from a live performance... one where you were actually there for an acoustical show in a smaller room like your own listening room. Which of course is seldom the case (if ever).

I don't understand why you say this.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Bass radiates like a ten pound bag of flour dropped from high altitude. It goes everywhere.
That's why you can hear the kids in the cars "thumpin" from two blocks away.
Also, thunder knows no direction.

Higher frequencies are much more directional. Think of a tornado siren and how it changes as the horn spins (assuming you live in an area that uses horns that rotate for disaster warning??)

Hope that helps,
Bob

[studiotech]

There are just so many factors to consider here. 

How close do you sit to the speakers?
How close are they to the nearest walls?
What style of music do you prefer?
Are they fully OB or just the mids?
Does your room have a prominent sound of its own?
 
The majority of recording are made using very conventional, closed box speaker systems.  This includes classical and jazz specialists labels too.  So, if you wanna hear what the engineer heard, you need a well treated room and conventional speakers, right?  Maybe....maybe not.

Now, if the recording is a minimally mic'd, well done one, then there are bound to be lots of lots of subtle ambiance cues already captured.  You don't really want to mess those up by bouncing a lot of extra sound around your room with a dipole or open baffle speaker.  In essence, you are superimposing the sound of your own listening room on top of the recorded space that is already there on the recording.  This is especially true if you have a very reverberate room with a strong signature of its own.  You know the ones I'm talking about where you walk in the room and you can immediately hear that you are in a new environment.  I would say sit really close, get the speakers away from the walls and absorb the rear wave if you've got an OB speaker.  Notice where Mr. Linkwitz has the speakers in his room?  Kinda far from reflective surfaces and he sits pretty close. 

IF the recording is not so well done, or sounds very dry and lifeless, maybe having full OB reflecting around the room CAN add a sense of spaciousness, BUT just know it IS an embellishment to the real recording.  If it sounds better to you, go for it.  Is it "artificial"?  Sure, but who cares...

I tend to prefer to hear the recording as it is.  I use OB in the bass and mids, BUT use a lot of absorption directly behind the mid drivers as well as along the front wall, so I get the unboxy, non-resonant sound of an OB, without the delayed reflection from the rear wave.  I spent a lot of time moving a large absorption panel around behind the initial prototype baffles to find the best spot for my tastes.  I then compare what I hear at my house with the system at the studio in a very well treated control room.  When I get close to the same level of image focus and spread, I know it's good.  This ONLY happens when I can control the rear wave.  If the space is well recorded, you can suddenly got from a large wishy washy sound to an even larger realistic sounding sense of space and air around the music.

How about more studio produced sounding stuff?  Recordings with all artificial reverb and delays and heavy processing?  Do they sound better OB?  Once again, I do not think so.  If the recording has that unnatural laser beam type panning of sounds and imaging, does having a full OB bouncing around add some sense of air or naturalness?  I tend to feel that it just confuses the image of whats going on.  Absorbing the rear wave in this case tightens up these images and focuses the sounds allowing them to be heard more clearly.

Greg

[Trismos]

I don't understand why you say this.

Music as I have been brought up with.... Led Zepplin, Pink Floyd, Rush et al was never recorded to represent the band as it might sound in my listening room. As I have grown older and learned to enjoy the finer things, I have become enamored with recordings that present what it might be like to actually have the artist in front of you. These invariably are lighter acoustically recorded sessions but have also included the likes of Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scotts or Pat Metheny Live in Japan.

But really. Your sound system is meant to reproduce both Stairway To Heaven and Stratus as the producer / recording engineer imagined it should sound. If I had an artist playing for me in my listening room, I imagine that it would be well reproduced by an OB speaker. But I don't and I don't think the recording engineer thought of this. They mastered their recordings (more likely than not) on a set of box speakers.

And this is the essence of this post. OB speakers would appear to be the BOSE alternative.

[Trismos]

Nice post Greg

[cujobob]

Technically, no, if you want to hear the music as it is mastered you'd have to use a similar setup. But, is that the goal? The goal is sound you love that works in your room. There are different ways to go about this.

And yes, it's all fake. We're reproducing a signal that has been altered. The studio setup might have mastered the music, but that doesn't mean it has to sound better than a home system could.

Personally, I have mixed feelings on OB. I feel that OB is sort of a compromise in that you don't need to have a room treated as well and you'll get a nice big soundstage but you won't get the precise imaging or maybe all of the detail. OB bass is quite nice, but having multiples spread around the room (quality not necessarily all that important) can get you similar/better results, it's just more complicated.

[bhakti]

In this realm of reproduced music, it's all fake - or engineered to some degree.

Real boobs or fake boobs - does it matter if you love the person?

[JohnR]

That took several readings to digest. I assume you don't mean this as questionable: "If the radiation pattern varies with frequency...." It does or it doesn't. OK. Let's say it does. The suggestion is that LF is radiated in all directions regardless of the design, and OB radiates HF WITH the LF where box speakers only send it forward. (Pls excuse my trying to dumb it down for my own comprehension). And this is (apparently?) what is superior with the OB design philosophy.

Yes, that's correct, although I wouldn't automatically say "superior" as there are many factors to consider. There are other approaches to accomplishing the goal - here is an interesting article by Duke Le Jeune :

http://www.hifizine.com/2010/06/the-controlled-pattern-offset-bipole-loudspeaker/