Was the Snell Secret a Wide Baffle?

I have found that it is difficult to attribute a certain type of sound with a single design element like baffle width, material used in the drivers,  time algnment, etc. Its always about the overall execution that combines so many factors. But I am a huge fan of the Snell Type A. I have owned six pairs including the Type A Original, A-I, AII, and AIII. The AIII is remarkable in its superior dynamics and bass extension, but I found (IMO  of course) that it lost some of the midrange magic and "realness" of previous models. I found the midrange to be thinner, the treble to be a little much (even with the rear tweeter switched off), and the bass to be too much in some rooms. But boy could it blow a room away!

The AI and AII are very similar to one another in sound but after years of listening to them I decided the A Original is the most real sounding of them all. I totally agree with Prof about how most speakers sound too thin... chasing this notion of "neutrality" we have had pushed at us for years. Somehow Peter Snell delievered tonal balance that sounds meaty and real to me. Part of it I believe is reducing floor bounce with the midrange driver height and the thick padding bocking radiation downward from the midrange driver. Ironically he prioritized anechoic flat response in the design. But then hand tuned each reference pair with the crossover in his lap, winding by hand and listening. Or so goes the legend. Maybe someone here haw firsthand knowledge of this.

After owning all the Type A variations I chose to keep only a pair of A-originals and had the woofers rebuilt with new spiders and surrounds. Midranges are resurrounded. Wire was upgraded by the factory way back when. They put most other speakers to shame. I had to buy Verity Parsifals to beat them while retaining the magic in the midrange. Peter Snell was a genius.

Funny aside... at 2018 Axpona I talked to a reviewer who said PeterQ is planning an Audio Note Type A speaker, and in anticipation of its introduction (or maybe for R&D purposes?) has been buying up every used pair of Type A's on the market. Anyone else heard that?
Stu

I agree with Montaldo that it is hard to attribute particular sonic attributes to particular design choices; I've heard plenty of exceptions to any rule.  I've heard quite a few wide baffle speakers and many of them I do like.  But, is it the wide baffle or the particular voicing that I  like?

There are many wider baffle designs that I like, and while it has been a while since I heard the Snell Type A, it was one of my favorites.  But, I also liked the big version of the Snell Type B, and it was not so much a wide baffle design (though far from skinny).  I do like the meaty sound of Audio Note AN-Es and the Devore Orangutans, Sonus Faber Stradivarius, Voxativ, and a number of other wide designs. 

I own speakers are two feet wide, but, that is probably more of a function of the type of enclosure (Jensen-Onken) and the two foot wide mouth of the horn.

I recently heard a giant system that is about five feet wide by nine feet tall.  In this case, the baffle is wide because the horn is enormous, and because it is an open baffle design for the bass drivers, the wide baffle is needed to move the front-back cancellation frequency down to a reasonable point.  This beast has twin 18" field coil woofers stacked vertically, and the drivers look tiny because of the size of the horn (Western Electric 15A).

the AIIIs were hard to beat. I owned two pairs at one time. an original A3, and the later A3i. A3i was more refined sounding with the tweeter and crossover upgrades.

There were four disadvantages to them.

1 you needed a big room to really let them come alive.
2. you needed a ton of power to drive them, the more the better. most tube amps need not apply.
3. to really hear them you needed to biamp them, vertically preferred over horizontal biamping.
4. the woofers are not replace-able, so you really need to take care of them.
Peter Snell hand selected these, and there are no off the shelf replacements.

I drove mine with a quad set of JC-1s. They sounded tremendous. Big and dynamic if the source was. One of the best sounds I had ever heard where the A3's playing 15 ips master tapes. That is the sound most 'philes would die for. 


But do think that curved front baffle had a lot to do with their sound quality.

I also tied driving them with a quad set of dyna M3s. the dynas are ok amps, but the snells just yawned and said no thanks.

3. to really hear them you needed to biamp them, vertically preferred over horizontal biamping.

OMG yes, I had completely forgotten about this. I think Snell may have
single-handedly created the entire bi-amping craze.