Dipole speakers, subwoofers and that rear wall

I "Embrace it" in a tuned chamber vs trying to tune the WHOLE room to the open driver. It can sound wonderful, but NEVER accurate. I've had to Endure dipoles more than Embrace them.. I had IRS Betas for 20 years. Wonderful speakers for the money. I did everything to those speakers.. Including "Embrace", I even divorced them a few times too. 20 year love hate relationship. :-). I really liked the servo bass columns. My first real DBA (4 servo columns). 1980-2000.

It’s a timing issue, the front wave vs the back. The front wave hits the seated position, when the back wave is hitting the front wall. No matter where you put the front baffle, the rear of baffle has to travel further. Longer rooms help. Our user group went through this with 123s, 20 years ago. (GRs adopted nightmare). We or he could NEVER fix the problem. I must admit we all agreed they look awesome and have great sound effects, but most simple stand mounts speakers will whip the pants off dipoles. The only place they fall short is "SOUND EFFECTS" if that is your thing. I like a rear firing separate driver (s) for the back of the main cabinets. We ALL use SB/SAT design.

Subs are simple. Decouple the subs and raise them UP. Set them on tunable bass traps or between them, OFF the ground.. It’s like magic. Vs works very well in leu of conventional DBAs. The V baffle is at 30 degrees, the flat rear is a passive radiator. There are THREE directions the sound is coming from with a single cabinet. Two units placed on either side of the seated position is a full blown DBA less 2+ extra cabinets. It’s all the rage with US poor boys.. Again SB/SAT design.

Oh, you mean "cabinet." That’s what most people call the box that holds speaker drivers.

What I mean is the mids and highs are in separate enclosures in the front and rear. They have NO common space between front and back mids and or highs. Usually about 18-22" apart (front to rear). Front baffle and Rear baffle enclosures are within the CABINET housing. They fire from the back of the speaker and hit the front wall FIRST. They don’t require such a large, long space to produce the same airy affect but they are deadly accurate also..

Small planars enclosed with NO open rear pole from the front driver. Way better design.. GR tried the same thing.. I had both of his Neo 10 x 2 and X 4. Like I said great sound affects, but accurate, NOT even close. His NX (?) different story.

Danny was also the fixer on the 123s too. Kinda.. LOL. They were just BAD. You needed a stadium size room to start with. The sweet spot was as wide as a sofa and it wasn’t so sweet. :-) There were several pairs around here 15-20 years ago.

GRs OB servo is a VERY nice system. I use it with Rythmiks sealed systems. They aren't cheap to finish out either.. Paint is through the roof.. 1K to 2K in one year for auto finish. 100% mark up.

What is a "tuned chamber?" I've never heard of this room treatment.

Instead of dipole, use both front and rear baffles and both are enclosed within the cabinet design. RM50 VMPS. There are a few more now. The old QLS Infinity.  NOT the RS OB design. RS1 & Bs and the 2 and 2Bs or the IRS series.

A boxes (or cabinet) with TWO active baffles, front and rear.

Tune the room?

Read my Handle.. Helmholtz. The only way to properly tune a room.. 

There is a guy that post here that uses the term "Embedding" he has 3 major areas. HE is very close on his design.. A little muddled in his room, BUT he did it by reading and experimenting. A brave endeavor by my standards. :-)

Helmholtz, I use adjustable slot resonators for above 120hz and adjustable tube traps for 120hz and below. All designed by SB/SAT. Oldhvymec's design, it works VERY well. I've used them for over 10 years. He's been at it for over 45 years. 

Curtains, Resonators and Tube traps. OHM bass system is the bomb. Ask him. He always helped me. I have one of his air ride decoupling systems from way back.