Open baffle speakers

I used to know this guy he was from Turkey ,he believed just have a big single speaker a woofer.Well 2 of them .He just hooked up wires from the receiver to the speaker and had them just up against ,his equipment stand ,and just play them.The guy was great at fixing broken audio equipment. He said you don't need a speaker in a cabinet just lay it up....

I am intrigued by the open baffle speaker, but sadly it seems they must be a ways from a back wall to sound good. At least that's what I heard. In my space, the speakers need to be close to the rear wall so I guess I'll stick with my Harbeths.

I have an old set of Emerald Physics CS2.3 open baffles with two Buckeye NCx500 amps, run through a MiniDSP Flex and its amazing sound, great bass too.  There is no lack of bass.  Dirac helps too. No shortage of frequency range or dB. Highly recommended.  Compared to Magnepan 3.7i  it's more "forceful" or physical sound that can be felt, the Magnepan is refined, not as much "feel" to the bass, not to say it's lacking, just different, refined.

Also, I am of the opinion that when sound is coming from the rear and bouncing willy-nilly about the room, it may give a sense of depth to the soundstage but can’t really be good for imaging compared to a nice closed-back point or line source, or even time-aligned speaker.

@toddalin  Well, I’ll take the other side of that.  As a musician it’s obvious that musical instruments project sound in a 360 degree pattern, not just forward.  If the room can’t deal with that info then it’s a problem more with the room than the speakers.  When I’ve heard dipole designs from Spatial, Nola, etc., when they’re properly set up in a room they can be absolutely beguiling in a way traditional box speakers struggle to match.  And I’m a proud and happy owner of box speakers so not like I’m biased one way or the other.  That’s been my experience anyway. 

When Dizzy is blowing his horn, certainly some sound goes to the rear and bounces around.

But with open back, were talking essentially as much sound going "backward" as is going forward, and it’s out of phase. Maybe this is proper for a Leslie, and some percussion (including piano) but little else that primarily goes forward, including guitar amps, PA systems, and such.

It just doesn’t seem like it would present the same pin point imaging as two well placed speakers with no sound emanating to the rear except what is natural to the room they are being played in. But my listening to these OB systems is limited.

If there is anyone in the Orange County, CA area with a nice OB system that they would like to share, I would love to come hear it! Of course you would be welcome to come hear my offerings.