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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
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,840 posts
 
My JBL 4319 speakers are of the old school, wide baffle design and they image better than my old, narrow baffle monitors that were purported to be imaging champs.

With the JBLs, the images can be as wide and deep as the recording dictates with very stable imaging, with a rich and full toned presentation.

I have nothing to complain about and think that all the fuss about narrow baffles was just a way to see if things could be improved and it caught on and became de rigueur, only to come full circle, and, hopefully, back to the basics that work.

All the best,
Nonoise
jond's avatar
jond
5,801 posts
 
All of the Audio Note speakers E, J, and K are descended from Snell, Peter Q bought the designs. I have a pair of J's myself and have heard E's and J's multiple times and they are all great speakers. Not just the wide baffles but the high sensitivity, plywood cabinets, and closely matched drivers all contribute to the great sound.
andy2
1,549 posts
 
There is definitely debate between wide baffle vs narrow baffle.  Objectively, wide baffle has diffraction issue at low frequency whereas the narrow baffle diffraction happens at higher frequency.  Subjectively, wide baffle does not quite have the image detail of narrow baffle but on the other hands, people have comment that wide baffle such as the Sonus Faber has more of live sound.  When you listen to live music, you don't really see "image" as from a stereo reproduction, but more like a bubble of sound coming from the musical instrument, and wide baffle tends to have these type of sound.  But I think the weakness of wide baffle is that the image could get phasey especially at low frequencies.  The speaker baffle does affect the phase of the driver and the wider the baffle, the more it will affect, and hence the image phase in general.  

Personally I prefer narrow baffle mostly for it has better image localization.  As for having image size as in real life, I don't think it has to do with wide or narrow baffle.  It's more about overall implementation.  
b_limo's avatar
b_limo
2,274 posts
 
Erik, your other thread about “this being a great time to build a speaker” got me thinking about the A26.  Not to derail this thread, but if I do build them, I’ll pm you for some tips 👍
andy2
1,549 posts
 
Erik, your other thread about “this being a great time to build a speaker” got me thinking about the A26.
I would recommend www.diyaudio.com
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