Open Baffle vs Box

agreed and unfortunately I only know what I read. I, too am an apartment dweller and might be forever which is where Spatials we’re first recommended to me. I’ve put it out there on the Spatial forum that I’d like to hear them from a local and in 30 minutes I’d know what I want to know about them. Seems there are no locals who have them who also post there.

i keep scrubbing them off my list but they keep being re-added. On paper they check all the boxes (with bass being the unknown quantity). If I could just add subs then I’d go that route.

I recently acquired a pair of Maggie .7s and believe they might better fit your needs in an apartment, especially if max SPL is a concern. Unlike the other Maggies I've heard (1.7 & 3.7), the .7s produce real midbass punch, and seem a lot less current hungry. I drive mine with a 160 watt/ch/4 ohms amp. The VU meters rarely peg above 50 watts - that's in a room of about 1365' cubed. 

The Spatial M4s liked to be played loud and I often found myself nudging the volume knob until I was pushing 95db peaks. It's not like they sound anemic at low volume like many speakers; it's just that they urge you to keep cranking, probably because they have super-high power handling and are capable of loading a small auditorium. Not once did they reach a distorted playback level before my ears gave up first. The Sapphires have different drivers of course, so could have completely different behavior for all I know. 

With the .7s, I find the 70-75db range sufficient for most listening. That wasn't the case with 1.7s which wanted to play at 80db+.

I would take the M4s over 1.7s and 3.7s any day, but the .7s are a different animal and I consider them competitive with the entry-level Spatials. 

If you have the space (ie they can be very large) and you don't mind the looks (look ma, no box!) then open baffles are certainly worth a try for the sheer life-like freedom in sound that they offer. Much like open backed v closed back headphones.

What boxes do to the signal isn't pretty whichever way you look at it, you can always hear it, especially in the mids. No such thing as a silent loudspeaker cabinet, though some, like the Harbeth range do try awfully hard.

There are quite a few interesting designs where the midrange unit is backless combined with the bass driver in a box. For me it's telling that Siegfried Linkwitz eventually settled for an open baffle / box combination for his ultimate design. 

Sadly the complexities of getting an open baffle/dipole design to integrate well are no less than those for box speakers.

OB Bass is much more pitch accurate and defined than box bass. The only other bass design that comes close is a true horn loaded design.

Oz

First, my room is volumetrically large with no discernible backwall reinforcement. My box speaker experience includes; Genesis Vs, Usher 6371s, Nearfield Pipedream Accoustics (sans sub woofers), Swan Diva 6s. For OBs; Accoustat 2+2s (2 close friends had custom frame Accoustat 10s, but in very large rooms, both reinforced with dual subs), Magnepan 3.5Rs with and without subs, and currently Emerald Physics KC IIs (with and without subs), and a pair of EP 2.8s on their way (dual 15" + 12" coax drivers).


I have a EP BOM, but the SVS Ultra and Plus subs just don’t marry well without an expensive 3 way active XO; I blew through 4 cheap active XOs, but when they worked, well, there was some magic there.


Unless you are buying huge planar speakers, bass is not likely to have the impact of cone drivers in OB speakers

What I recently discovered was of the many amps I had in the last 4+ years, RIc Shultz’s EVS 1200 has the mid-bass and bass authority none of the others had. I have owned the KCIIs for 3+ years but never heard them as cohesive top to bottom as they sound with 100+ hours on the EVS 1200. This amp could be magic on Maggies as well. A few maggie owners have chimed in that the new IcePower class D is giving them the best sound they've had

I have just recently moved from a full Vandersteen setup consisting of 3a signatures and a stereo pair of 2Wq subs with the $1000. M5 HPB high pass filters to Emerald Physics EP 2.7’s. (As mentioned Emerald Physics was Clayton Shaw’s company before leaving to start Spatial) And I can tell you there is no going back for me. These EP’s are the best speakers I have ever heard. They have the open spacious presentation of Maggi’s with the dynamic power and efficiency of pro audio loudspeakers. They load the room much like Maggi’s. And the bass is to die for. It is so coherent with the rest of the sound because the same drivers reproduce the upper and lower bass. It really is "better than subwoofer bass" as one pro reviewer stated. I know what conventional wisdom says about OB bass but that is not the case with these modern open baffle designs. In fact when I first got them I tried them with the 2Wq subs then removed the subs and the bass output actually increased! The EP 2.7’s are rated at 97 db efficient (without DSP and 100 db with) and the subs just could not quite keep up. I was amazed! Now in ultimate terms the subs go lower, down to 19 hz maybe lower and the EP2.7’s are rated to 38 hz without DSP which is how I am running them now. (But they will go to 20 hz with the EP Bass Optimization Module B.O.M or DSP) Most music does not have much content going that deep so I have not missed it at all. The bass that is there is to die for! No box sound at all. I found that to be one of the biggest surprises. You don’t how much sound boxes make until it’s gone.

I agree that the Vandy’s sound a bit flat and dull by comparison. The EP’s are so dynamic, engaging and just plain fun to listen to, much closer to live music. They do invite you to turn it up, even at low level nighttime listening, they just grab your attention, it’s hard not pay attention to the music.


They do require being pulled out from the wall behind them however. Mine are almost 5 feet to the front of the baffle. Fantastic imaging due to the coax 12 inch midbass and compression midtweeter. Crossover point is at 900hz well below the critical midrange region. So smooth and the tone just is addicting, RPaT it’s all there! I really can’t say enough good things about them.

As they relate to the Spatial’s? They are the same basic design so should have similar sound. The EP 2.7’s have two 15" woofers and the 12" midbass coax tweeter. (Mine have been upgraded to the new tweeter from the current top of the line EP2.8’s and the crossover was tweeked to match)

The concept as I understand it regarding bass cancellation is to just overwhelm it with sheer displacement. That’s why the multiple 12 and 15 inch woofers. All I know is that it works!

There are several Spatial and EP speakers for sale here on AudioGon and elsewhere. Take advantage of the discount, give em a try.
Good luck.