Open panel speakers are the way to go particularly in the mid range as there is less room interaction and you avoid enclosure resonance problems. I have made two pair of open panel speaker one was for a patient with muscular dystrophy who is a music teacher at our local high school. I used Focal drivers which use to be available. They only sell Auto stuff now. The panels were made of two outside layers of solid surface material and an inside layer of MDF. I got a midrange driver that would go down nicely to 100Hz and used a 48db/oct digital cross over down to subwoofers. He also has room control. The plates were small, 10 X 16 inches and we hung them from the ceiling with chains 3 feet from the wall. If you walked in there blind folded and listen to a few cuts you would have a very hard time believing you were listening to such little speakers. Very pleased with the results. I do not understand why more manufacturers do not do this. With the parts we have now like ribbon coils you could dress up the back of the speaker like art work. I think it looks cool and they are small so I can't believe the wife would mind.
