My first Open baffle speaker

Post my arrival in Baroda in 2011 December, I read some papers, write ups on OBs and BLH and decided to try an OB first.

Following a friend, Dr Vikram in Goa, I opt for Ahuja speakers.

Soon, I bought Ahuja 12FRX of 8 ohm and two Ahuja tweeters with capacitor. I gave them to a cabinet makers suggested by Ahuja dealer.

All three party (including myself) got the interest of making something new. OB design is a complete new thing for both Ahuja dealer and the cabinet maker. I have opt for clothing the baffles both sides.
It cost me 5000 rupees including transport.
  I then played them at home.

They sound clear, open, real, spacious, powerful. I played my Cabasses just after that to compare. Yes, Ahujas lack finess but Cabasse can not give the open, clear mid. Even the bass from Cabasse is more than what I think is real.

Norah Jones, Roja, Hotel California (live), Sona Mahapatra, Dali's demo CD ... all of them came live (at least to me). I think one 12 inch has more presence than some 5 or 6 inches.
I am not an audiophile...I hear music and heard some good speakers recently. I heard some floor standaers and some few bookshelves. Floor standers were from JBL (2 and 3 ways), Mission, Bang and Oluffsens, Infinity, Klipsch, Jamos.
The best to me was Jamo R909 for home application.
I have two Cabasse Joursey, two Mission 702e, two Jamo 402 (I guess) for Floor Standers. My guage reference are them as immediate as it can be. And I always try to remember what I listen in other speakers. That Jamo R909 will always be in my ears.
To me, this OB with my Music Angel tube plays what I like. The tube with th Cabasse Joursey is also quite to my liking.

I want to thank Dr. Vikram for all his support. I did some basic calculation in Xvaffle excel and then followed writting in Enjoy the Music.com - High End Audiophile Audio Equipment and Music Reviews. The Absolute Sound, Superior Audio, hi-fi+ and Review Magazine and followed my mind.
Baffles are of 20" X 36" with two tapered wings starting from 1" to 8" and of 33" high. Baffle has an arc at the top. I also have a 4"x 9" plate on top of the Tweeter. I just thought it will be good. I have used MDF of 12 mm thick and used two plates per baffle to get 18mm thickness. They were bonded with Fevicol and some nails.

Bottom line, such DIY project gave me a lot of joy in reading, thinking, calculating, planning, executing and owning two good speakers. All of this for not so much money.
I will post photos pretty soon.

 

Open baffle - way to go for us

Try talking having your mouth inside a plastic packet or in a handi.
And then speak on an open ground,
You will get a feel how OB (open baffle) speaker will sound.

Spend 800 rupees buy 2 Philips full ranger driver (what we generally call speaker), buy two simple MDF plank of size 10" X 24" each, have one hole fit for mounting the driver at the top end of the plank. Connect it with an amplifier (1200/- cheapest one) and a player (just your mobile phone with MP3 player. Place it 3 feet away from your front wall. VOILA! You have your stereo OB music arrangement.

Believe me the open sound will make you smile.

Then you might miss bass depending upon the song.

We will come to that in next write ups.
Listen to another cabinet speaker later and then listen back to you OB. You will realize how much were you missing.

OB in a middleclass room

We all like music right?

WRONG! We all like big sound, showing off with speakers. We do not like music as natural as it should appear from a musical instrument or from a human voice. How otherwise we then like doped sound from cabinets. Why we like thumping sound of the song Hotel California when actually hardly any speaker recreates actual sound what it should be from a Congo. On top of that we add room reverberation colour too.

We are middleclass Indian who might be reading it right now. We do not have much money to treat our room to make it a proper listening room.

Why not then use the same untreated room in to advantage by using an Open Baffle speaker. Open baffle speaker use the rear sound reproduction to its advantage to create a holographic 3D sound image. Thus you will earize (a term I just coined out to replicate feeling of visualize with our ear).
In other words, OB speakers use our small room to create sound image.
Yes OB speakers need to be 3 feet away from front wall when you are listening to it. But you can always push it back to wall when you are not listening to it. Simple middle class attitude.

And what you get?

Realistic sound reproduction with least amount of expenditure.
Well then how little will be the real expenditure?
Even spending 5K INR can give you OB stereo speaker set which can easily beat a 20K branded cabinet speaker. The best part is you can get it done with your local carpenter and local dealer of drivers (speakers what we generally call them). And can continue tweeking it to make it sound better.

Open baffle is the easiest speaker to get it made locally. It is the most forgiving design as well.

Yes, like all other speakers it works best when placed away from side wall (at least by a foot for each side). So do the same for OBs too, you will be alright. And yes, they should be 3 feet away from your front wall.

Enjoy music.