Don't forget that the first open baffle speaker was the Dahlquist DQ-10. Woofer in a sealed box and 4 drivers (mid, upper-mid, treble, super-tweeter) mounted above in a horizontal array. A favorite of both Harry Pearson (TAS) and Peter Aczel (The Audio Critic). It resembled the Quad ESL (a favorite of John Dahlquist) and was about the same size. The DQ-10 was the first sophisticated speaker to appear in the mid-70's and was a commercial success! I still own an upgraded pair.
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Open baffle designs remained niche market products because of the inherent conservatism of the speaker companies. John Dahlquist later produced the DQ-20 and DQ-30. After he sold his company and it closed his associate Carl Marchisotta went on to found Alon (now Nola) and continues to develop and market OB speakers. |
Lest we forget (again!) Bob Carver developed and marketed (successfully!) the Carver Amazing Speaker in the mid-80's. Two versions, the Platinum (4 12inch woofers and a 60inch ribbon) and the Silver (3 12inch woofers and a 48inch ribbon). Both designs were OB trapezoid shaped. And sounded better than anything else of that era! Still competitive today against multi-kilobuck speakers! |
Well, they are different, they are large, and they need a lot of power. Other often praised examples would be the designs by Siegfried Linkwitz: http://www.linkwitzlab.com/index.html |
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