The last monkey coffins I bought were my Advent New Larges (actually a gift) in 1978. They still provide sound for the kids in the den. But my first newer speakers were Vandersteen 1Cs, which have a more-or-less boxless design. I liked the openness and lack of cabinet colorations compared to similarly priced speakers I auditioned prior to purchasing them. When it was time to upgrade last year, I went with another unconventional, free-air design, the Ohm Walsh 2000. Being used to these designs has made me very sensitive to box colorations, which I can hear on many speakers. Sure, if you spend enough money, you can get a really inert, sonically neutral cabinet speaker. But in the more modest price range that I inhabit, these non-traditional designs offer freedom from these resonances and distortions that standard cabinet speakers rarely do, IME.
How many 'listen outside of the box' design?
Whether I owned electrostats or open baffle designs the majority of my audio life I've owned boxless speakers. My choices were made in part due to a logic of removing a 'box' from the equation of having to interact with a room. The more I thought about it it seemed a very logical choice. Why enter a speaker into a box and then have to deal with the resonation of the speaker interacting with the box and the room? I'm not saying successful box designs haven't been built, what I'm suggesting is box designs seem a more complicated way to achieve true room integration. I've discovered, dollar for dollar, I've exceeded most box designs. How many think as I do, or have experienced similar results based upon experimentation?