Open Baffle vs Box
@helomech could you add some more of your experience in how bass behavior is different with the Spatials? I’m on the fence but since I listen to a lot of bass heavy music I’m trying to create a mental picture of how OB bass differs. The bass of the M4s is articulate. It's not the fastest I've experienced but neither is it slow. The Vandys have lower extension by at least half an octave but that's to be expected. I did experience a small amount of bass-boom with the M4s after the woofers began to loosen up. However, I attribute that to my unusual room that has thick concrete walls on 3 sides and a concrete floor. It's the most challenging room I've ever dealt with in terms of bass, so I wouldn't fault the speakers. I probably could have resolved the issue with different placement but I wasn't willing to compromise on that at the time. Spatial grants a 60-day in-home trial, so there's really nothing to risk aside from return shipping cost, which in my case was quite reasonable being that I'm only three states away. Even though I didn't keep them, I still believe they're one of the best (if not THE best) speaker values out there. Most speakers that sound their equal in absolute terms cost at least twice the price. |
audiosaurusrex I think there is one more aspect of the new Spatial M3 that you will only know for sure by trying them at home....that is the saphire (ceramic) mid/tweet driver. (from the Spatial Audio page on Audio Circle..." new wideband, large dome unit which operates from 500Hz to 40kHz"....and...." the 2 woofers operate in parallel below 100Hz, so the impedance drops to 4 Ohms.... Minimum is about 3 Ohms over a very narrow range)." So, the way I read this....both 15" woofers operate together below 100hz...one 15" woofer covers 100-500hz and then the ceramic driver covers the rest. I heard the original M3 non turbo units at Spatial in a somewhat small rectangular corner or their speaker assembly area in Salt Lake...and they sounded darn good...not a hint of brightness...so I'm guessing these sound even better....and with the 60 day home trial, the only thing you risk is a couple hundred bucks of return shipping.... |
gochurchgo, what you get is a confused mess lacking in both punch and rumble. As the wavelength of the reproduced sound gets longer than the driver is wide the sound gets increasingly more omni directional. The wavelength of 100 Hz is around 10 feet, far longer than a 12 or 15" driver is wide. The rear wave of a woofer is 180 degrees out of phase with the front wave and both are omni directional. They cancel each other. Stand directly to the side of an open baffle woofer and there will be no bass. Now depending on the distance to the front wall the rear wave will bounce off the wall and come back at you at a different phase angle and things get more confused. Contrary to popular belief increasing the size of the baffle board does not help at all. Low frequency sound is very powerful and can travel long distances in air. Ask anyone who has been within 10 miles of a plane breaking the sound barrier. For all the difficulty in building a proper bass enclosure the results are well worth it, even more so given modern high power amplifiers and digital bass management. So why wouldn't this work with dipole sub woofers? Well, when two sound waves 180 degrees out of phase sum you get zero. More of zero is still zero. |
