I'm genuinely curious for an elaboration on this point. Considering the potential advantages of an open baffle design (or, considering we are in Danny's circle, let's say an open baffle design featuring an improved sound directivity pattern and a driver/crossover arrangement avoiding the pitfalls you mentioned a dislike for in the blog entry you linked me to in another recent thread - thank you for the read, by the way), what in particular in placing open baffle speakers in a room makes them unacceptable to you?
I'm not going to shove my speakers way out into the room. Audio should be heard and not seen. Not only does that make a room look better, but also it
improves the sonic illusion by not giving one visual focal points to constrain the sonic image.
IAnother (maybe related) question to you: Would it be safe to say, that your preferred (only acceptable?) configuration of speaker is:
a controlled directivity, limited frequency range, sealed cabinet design
Cardoid cabinet would work in theory too, though I haven't personally tried it beyond listening to a friend's Gradient Revolutions. Simple impatience is the reason I'm not experimenting with cardoids for my next speakers.
And BW need not be limited. The mains should also be used as part of the solution in the modal range. But I wouldn't use vented or passive radiator enclosures anywhere but in the multisubs.
incorporates a minimal crossover
No. I'm fine with a crossover of whatever complexity required to get the job done, which includes blending the drivers and suppressing out-of-band peaks adequately as well as adequately limiting the excursion of smaller drivers. A circuit's a circuit. I don't care what it looks like, as long as the end product is smooth design-axis response voiced as intended, with smooth power response.
And I don't need "boutique" parts from con men for said crossovers. You look inside a Revel Salon2 or KEF Reference or even TAD Compact Reference One, and you'll see "cheap" crossover parts.
iincludes at worst an equally controlled directivity tweeter crossed very high
No. Tweeter crossover is determined
entirely by the desired midrange directivity and the size of the midrange. And if a given part is unsuitably for that, for whatever reason (can't get low enough, problems mating it to a suitable waveguide, whatever), the right answer is not to kludge the design but to pick a new tweeter. (Yes, drivers are just "parts" to those of us who care about music more than gear.") Any other approach there is simply flawed.
My previous speakers (Tannoy 12" Dual Concentrics) had a 90deg pattern, and a ~1.4kHz crossover. My currently under-construction speakers will have about a 2.5kHz crossover, because that's where the directivity of the magnesium cone midrange matches that of its concentric ceramic-graphite tweeter. (The cone forms a roughly 120deg waveguide.) And I'm fine with multiway speakers, too. Those under-construction speakers could be considered a four-way design, with a 5" concentric driver flanked by 7" woofers in an upper module, and a "stand" containing a 12" woofer used as a Parham-style "flanking sub." (Passive crossover for the concentric and midbasses, active between midbasses and flanking subs. And apropos to this thread, the mains will sit on Sorbothane bumpers. Not "audiophile approved" ones, but standard ones sold at appropriate markup on Amazon.)
I would still be using the Tannoys, but they were unslightly in my new living room. I needed something narrower. Also, given the distance between the speakers and the sidewalls, I think a wider directivity speaker is beneficial in this home.
isome sort of swarmed configuration of subwoofers
Yes. Multiple subwoofers are absolutely required for high-fidelity reproduction in the modal region. Anyone who claims otherwise simply hasn't experienced high fidelity bass at home.
a commonly furnished untreated listening room and careful mathematical placement of speakers
I will not mutilate my room with eyesore "room treatments," but instead design the speakers for that room. People who cannot design speakers for a given room may need some room mutilation for best sound.
uses reasonably priced and available electronics and accessory products
I'm indifferent here. For electronics, good quality expensive stuff is fine, as is good quality cheap stuff. Cheap crap is not, and expensive crap is not. Too much "high end" gear falls into the "expensive crap" category. As for wires, etc., as long as one isn't incompetent about selecting them they will have no impact. If you have to look at them, expensive stuff may be better. (I do finish my wires with techflex and "boutique" ends wherever they're exposed in the room..) But electronics (DSP room correction excepted) are commodity parts, and obviously anyone who wants to tell you s/he can "hear differences" in caps, etc. of the same values is simply functionally deaf.
Oh, and a good modern AVR (such as the Anthem MRX line, or the old Sherwood R972) will sound better than the best separates, if the onboard room correction suite is competently used. The best outboard DSP's (Trinnov, Dirac) more likely than not offer improvements over the AVRs, in the hands of an expert user.
these products relying on their strength of design alone in delivering their final qualities, disregarding type/quality of component parts other than to the extent that they serve their function in the design of whatever component they are used in.
There is no "design" to speak of in most audio "accessory products." Assuming one excludes the advertising copy!
