Open Baffle Experience

Open baffle seems like a terrific idea. Unfortunately there's unusually a wall behind them.

 The reality is most speakers are just wooden boxes with drivers in them. It has been that way for decades but the public have been duped. 

Well, kenjit: here are some that have not been duped.

Do not listen to folks who claim open baffles are better than box speakers.  Its just sour grapes

This is silly. To each, their own:

Some enjoy the taste of sour grapes

Unless you listen to box vs. open baffle you can’t really comment.  I heard the Spatial Audio X4’s at the audio fest and thought they were wonderful and could easily live with them.  Oh yeah I have 20k box speakers.

I have built two sets for friends using Focal drivers at a time when they were still available. Both of them were coupled to sealed subwoofers. The baffles were a Corian sandwich with MDF in the middle. They were two way with a very straight forward 12 dB/oct crossover. The baffles were hung from the ceiling using decorative chains and the subs were just underneath. They were in essence open baffle LS3 5As. They sound much larger than they are. The owners are very happy with the results. 

Building an open baffle system is much easier than trying to build a non resonant box and the open midbass/midrange driver makes the speaker sound three times as large as it really is. Open baffle subwoofers is a patently silly proposition. I have tried it and the results are poor.  

@goose  You sir, make a good point, and have credibility.