Yeah they do several squatters like the one above in different sizes and price points and also sell kit plans for self build. They also have a more traditional tower form factor OB.
I’m determined to scratch the Decware itch one day but not OB. Maybe their floor standing radials in the kitchen will be nice and the knackered PMCs I’m currently using can go back to being spare drivers and crossovers for the main speakers in the living room.
I’ve also found the subject of open baffles (and full range drivers) interesting, but what has always put me off even considering open baffles was the missing bottom end, though of course these days subs are readily available and can be used, though that adds another dimension of choosing and correctly setting up (ok for those that don’t mind it missing, or with music where the bottom 3 octaves or so is absent). Also with their rear radiation there us a need for a good distance behind and if there is a wall anywhere near (as opposed to a long length of room) acoustic behaviour of the wall behind them may be much more significant, more than with closed baffles (boxes). To my mind better if practicable would be too have a virtual infinite baffle, by setting the drivers into the wall, also open into a room behind, which would remove all rear reflection issues, and remove the low frequency cutoff so being limited only by the driver. But that is a completely different thing, albeit with parallels.
Yes, I’ve already decided that I would have to swing my room around from playing across the room which works very well currently with my boundary designed speakers, to playing along the room with the OB speakers about 1.2m out from the Wall behind them.
I’d absolutely love to install the drivers in the wall of my listening room/TV den But the Room behind the wall Is my kitchen which would restrict playing music to only times later night when no one is in the kitchen.
Also positioning the speakers in the wall would be Hit and miss as they would sound different when they were in the wall to if you tried them just in front of the wall.
Indeed. Another very interesting speaker, not needing space behind (but they are quite deep) with similar roll off, and full range drivers - used to be Lowther, then Voxativ, now by Cube, are the clear acrylic horns by Ferguson-Hill, formerly called FH-1, now Jetstream. (However they’ve gone from very expensive to a stupendous price having had a threefold price hike in less than 10 years.) They also do matching clear acrylic subs. But tgat is way beyond thix thread’s subject!
I initially drove my PAP 15 Classics with a NAP300 and now with an Aavik I280 putting out 300WPC … the speakers responded wonderfully to both …
At 92db the speakers are easy to drive for low power tube gear …
With 2 X 15inch woofers in each speaker there is no want for additional bass … speakers are rated at 20Hz to 20KHz …
I currently have about 4ft from each speaker to the wall behind them … anything less and the bass starts to blur a little … distance to side wall appears to be unimportant.
The FH speakers look terrific IMO but I’ve never seen them reviewed anywhere. I wonder how much they amount to form over function? A speaker for the rich who want something that looks fantastic and stylish but maybe doesn’t quite live up to the price performance wise. A bit like some of the Bang & Olufsen stuff. But maybe I’m wrong.
Having heard Quad ESL 57’s I can well appreciate what getting rid of the box does. It comes as a shock when you realise how much colouration the cabinet introduces in most box speakers - even ones which are regarded as having very low colouration like LS3/5a’s. But I could never live with them. They lack the solidity and gravitas of presentation of a good box speaker.
Given that they are simple straight horns, if the drivers are good (and the former Voxativs they changed to after Lowther certainly were), I would be surprised if they aren’t great - the question is whether they suffer honkiness as do some horns, but the immediacy of sound should be second to none above their cutoff frequency. I have less confidence in their matching subs - for the money I’d want to try Wilson Benesch Toruses, though they don’t go high enough.
Yes - now they do seem to be more a matter of form over function. But then again, maybe not.
My own Klipsch Forte III’s have outstanding immediacy which is one of the things I love about them. They have a very live feel. I once read that if you want to know what a band sounds like live then listen to them on Klipsch Forte III’s. I haven’t noticed any of the typical horn honkiness or shoutiness which is what horns are often criticised for. The bass driver is direct coupled rather than horn-loaded like the mid and HF units and this seems to work well. There are 15 inch ABR’s on the cabinet rears.
Horns are definitely not for everyone though. I find they are ultra-revealing of any little system changes which is good and bad. They are surprisingly forgiving of poor recordings though, something I wasn’t expecting.
I do recall when I first got them, bearing in mind I had only ever had small speakers at home before, my intial reaction was to wonder where all the bass had gone. We had these two very large boxes in the lounge and they seemed to produce less bass than my previous small speakers. The penny finally dropped when I realised that when there was real bass in the signal it hit hard and deep. What was missing was the upper bass/lower mid bloating, a trick often employed in small speakers to make them sound bigger, and which I had grown used to over decades. It’s sudden absence came as a shock and needed a little readjustment to.
Talking of OB speakers in an acrylic baffle, here are some photos from the Northwest Audio show this year, of the Long Dog Audio room, my favourite room from a sound quality point of view in the whole show.
They asked me what record I would like to play and I chose a Thelonious Monk live album from their extensive collection.
I’m trying to achieve the experience of listening to music played live in my home. As I have heard it at concerts. I’ve never heard any speaker that has brought me closer to this than the Fote III’s. You may be looking for something different.