wide baffles and baffle step

Yes, Harbeth, Spendor Classic, Graham, Yamaha, Devote, Audio Note, and plenty others all prove that a wide baffle can work exceptionally well.  So it's clearly not as simple as either/or.  In fact, I suspect my preference for many of these designs has something to do with precisely that feature.

the excellent wide baffle designs succeed in spite of the wider baffle not because of it.  
wider baffles create the need for additional crossover components and complicate the voicing recipe.  
wider baffles do allow for larger woofers and enclosure volumes which enables excellent low distortion bass.  
imaging and high frequency dispersion is handicapped as well by wider baffles.  they require more care and precision in placement and have a more difficult time disappearing than narrow profile speakers.  
in other words more expense in design, engineering and user effort are needed for a successful wide baffle system.  

Strange how these much superior narrow baffles are also strongly preferred by interior designers.

@avanti1960 wrote: " wider baffles create the need for additional crossover components and complicate the voicing recipe. "

That has not been my experience. With a sufficiently wide baffle, no dedicated baffle-step compensation circuitry is needed. If some baffle step compensation is still called for, it can be accomplished by choice of low-pass filter component values, with no increase in parts count.

To my ears, a baffle-step compensated narrow cabinet does not have the lower-end impact and articulation nor the dynamics of a wide baffle which does not need baffle step compensation.  So imo each approach has its place. 

"imaging and high frequency dispersion is handicapped as well by wider baffles."

Yes and no. If edge diffraction is minimized, baffle width isn’t an issue as far as imaging goes.

But if there is significant edge diffraction, then yes imaging is better with a narrow baffle.

What happens is, the diffraction at the edge of the enclosure sends a false angular cue to the ear, and the farther away the edge is, the longer the time delay and therefore the greater the false angle. This holds true up to the point where the baffle edge is about nine inches away (corresponding to a 19-inch baffle width, assuming a 1" dome tweeter); at that point the time delay is great enough for the "precedence effect" to kick in and at suppress the false localization cues. (This is one of the reason why high-end recording studios often flush-mount their main monitors: Doing so pushes the arrival time for the first reflection past the point of generating significant false localization cues, so that the imaging cues on the recording can dominate.)

As for high frequency dispersion, a teeny tiny baffle around the tweeter does result in wider dispersion at the bottom end of the tweeter’s range (think "eyeball" tweeter atop the cabinet). Whether or not this is desirable is debatable from a tonal balance standpoint, but I can see it being desirable from an imaging standpoint.

Duke

Duke
Agreed.