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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
jtgofish's avatar
jtgofish
515 posts
 
I agree that wider baffle speakers tend not to image as well as narrower ones.There are exceptions however.It would be more interesting to know why some image well and others don't.I have owned Yamaha NS1000 speakers that have quite poor imaging and yet also own Yamaha NS75T speakers that have an identical size and shape box and which use very similar driver types and yet they image very well.Which leads me to suspect it must mostly be about crossover design.The NS75Ts are a later design than the NS1000 and perhaps Yamaha learnt how to make a better imaging crossover by then.
stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,388 posts
 
In my post above, I meant Infinity Black Widow tonearm, not Black Beauty. Hey, I'm old!

murphythecat
181 posts
 
ill try to bring my Seas A26 to a local store where they have Devore 093

will report back
erik_squires OP
16,059 posts
 
We can also, arguably, put the Focal utopia line in this category.

Let us know, @murphythecat 
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,318 posts
 

Let's not forget the Sonus Faber Stradivari and Cremona Elipsa.


@prof 

Both those speaker lines seem to produce a richer/fuller-than-usual sonic presentation, where instruments have more size and sense of body.

You put into better words exactly the impression that I was trying to name when I was listening to the Classic 100's.  For my own personal shorthand I came up with "music launch", in that somehow just more of the music seemed to be arriving at the listener. But I prefer your formulation.


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