2. speakers
  3. 151505-20253

Was the Snell Secret a Wide Baffle?

I often regret not buying old Snell A/III when I had the money and the space.

One of my all time favorite speakers. By now I'd have certainly had to throw it away. I'd not have the space, and those woofers with extra mass would long ago have pulled out of their frames.

One thing you don't realize unless you go looking for the pics, or owned one, was that the tweeter and midrange of these  speakers were, in my mind, very wide baffle designs. Yes, curved, but very wide.

Another Speaker I like, which I believe is based on a Snell design, is the Audio note AN/J, also has a relatively wide baffle, as do the Devore Orangutan. Of course, among my all time favorite speakers is the Sonus Faber Stradivari, a speaker I know can sound excellent even in acoustically challenged rooms.

What do you all think, have you heard the wide baffle magic?
erik_squires
tomcarr
1,504 posts
 
I had a pair of Boston Acoustics top model in the 80s. I think it was the A-400 (?). VERY wide baffle. Supposed to be like an infinite baffle. Horrible imaging. Sold them and got a pair of stand-mount Mission 2-ways. Beautiful imaging. Just my 2c. YMMV...

Tom
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,318 posts
 

Yes!  Consider the Harbeth 40.2, Spendor Classic 100, Graham 5/8.

If you're interested in speaker design, Graham are now coming out with a new version of the 5/5 which is quite funky.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/graham-audio-launches-ls-55-montreal

erik_squires OP
16,056 posts
 
Hey @twoleftears

I did see that, it looks like an idea I have seen in some professional speakers. JBL perhaps? Seems to work as advertised.


Would love to see the polar plots. :)
prof
3,473 posts
 
Erik,

I have been lately "seduced" by what seems to be a commonality among some wide-baffle speakers. I’m thinking mostly of Harbeth and Devore O series (may be missing some).


Both those speaker lines seem to produce a richer/fuller-than-usual sonic presentation, where instruments have more size and sense of body. And that addresses one of the main deficits I find in most sound systems (at least those speakers many of us can afford or end up with):Reproduced sound generally is reductive, thinner. Whenever I hear even a live solo violin I’m amazed at how "big" and rich even a single high note sounds in real life, where on most sound systems it would sound like a toy version, thin, wiry, distant, squeezed.

The sense of a full-sized acoustic guitar with an actual body projecting sound seems more fully realized, to my ears, on speakers like the Devore and Harbeth (though the Harbeth doesn’t go quite as far as the Devore).

Obviously there are other things that narrower baffle speaker designs do great (and I’ve just chosen one over the wide-baffle design).


And it doesn’t seem to me that in principle a narrower baffle-to-driver ratio entails thin sound. In fact, I had the Harbeth SuperHL5plus speakers for a while directly comparing them to my Thiel 3.7. The 3.7s put out at least as big and weighty sonic images as the Harbeth, despite being of the "reduce baffle size" school of design. I’m presuming among other things, the sheer cabinet size and larger drivers and lower frequency range figured in to that for the Thiels.

BUT...for their size...the Harbeths did tend to put out a richer, weightier image than other similar size/spec’d speakers.

Another factor to consider is that both the Harbeth and Devore O series ALSO come from the "let the cabinet vibrate" school of thought, which also could be adding richness.





ishkabibil
422 posts
 
Boston A200's.

Fantastic Imaging....

I have found sources of music ie...the CD player...The Btooth device....the table to have an influence on imaging.

More to discover