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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?
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rleff
1,065 posts
 
Sgunther- I would probally be selling the home and moving into a smaller living space; the soundlabs do need some room to work their magic as you probally have a similiar
experience with your Summits.
However if I do have the space and last another 17 years I would plan to keep them but odds are against me on that if feel;but if I win megaball then that all goes out the window.
I could listen 24/7 and never tire;how about your logan's? On your spacing do you toe them in at all?
On the box speakers I have owned; dunlavy scIII's were very similiar to the m2's;I could live with the dunlavy's with no regrets I feel.
energizer
113 posts
 
Outside the box,!Try two different speakers, from two different companies as a stereo pair.Or two different speaker types as a stereo pair.
lou_setriodes's avatar
lou_setriodes
672 posts
 
I'm a box guy but love the looks and idea of the boxless designs...truth be told, I have very limited exposure to boxless designs and have only heard them a handful of times. While I love the looks of them, I just could never get into the fact that they have such a small sweet spot, or where they just set up wrong? I've only listened to Maggies twice, ML's once and Apogee Centaur Minors once and that was a long, long time ago...think I'm way overdue to hear them again.
energizer
113 posts
 
If you think Magnepans have a small sweet spot,then something was wrong with the set up you listened to.
summitav
163 posts
 
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'm not sure the absolute goal is to "integrate" the speaker with the room, as much as to "recreate" the original venue's sonics in spite of the room.

Using a driver release system that must release backwave sonics that cannot do anything else but cause a reflected room distortion (sound not in the original recording) is just as problematic as the backwave being released into a cabinet.

All speakers have their trade offs and advantages. In general it will be your "preferences" as to how those trade offs are dealt with that will attract you to a design.
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