I have worked with audio and built amps for 17 years and still love the feeling of being surprised.

I didn't expect this to be so good. Such fast and tuneful bass. Great!

Great video. What you hear is certainly dependent on what you are listening through. When watching the video on my main system, which also has the GR dual 12" H-frame subs, the bass is as you describe. The open baffle gives the spaciousness and lack of room loading while the servo control provides the articulate detail and clarity. However, on my office system, not so much because this one has a smaller 10" sealed servo sub. Good bass but the greatness is gone. Then again, that's the point. The servo controlled open baffle bass reigns supreme.

One of my favourite vids on your channel so far. Keep the fun coming. I need some open baffle subs ;D

I LOVE how you pulled this off I too use small speakers I have three sets kef101s teac au77 and speakers meant to be installed on a motorcycle all driven by different amps and JAZZ is the music going thru and they all sound amazing I do have BIG SPEAKERS 15INCH drivers but that's not what it's about I'm with you on that DONT overstep the BASS cause your missing out on the other harmonic details GREAT VIDEO REALLY!

WOW! I'm impressed ! I never knew open baffle was this good. Now i'm imagining a pair of Magnepan Magneplanar 3.7s teamed up with a pair of these open baffle speakers......hmmmm

Just brilliant, love it. Excellent review. As we say in Ireland, "keep her lit". Thank you.

Great video, thanks for the recording technique which give us an idea of how it sounds

This is coolsville, bass carries the load and smiles all the way home. Not surprized at the LGKs given this past week's TechTuesday breakdown, learned a lot! Thanks.

Very nice observation and I've had a similar observation when I was given a pair of ADS speakers last year. A pair of their L810 speakers, Series 1 and with a BPC era Sherwood receiver, they sounded great, but polite, which was what I had for amplification but noted right off, the bass, no slam, no theatrics, just good, clean, and tight bass. For the first time I was able to fully hear Nick Fleetwood's drum kit in Rumours, on vinyl no less. For the first time his kit sounded deeper, more nuanced than just one note, and on many recordings, the percussion tends to be just forward of the speakers. While these are not open baffle, they are an acoustic suspension design, utilizing 2, 8" bass drivers, the mids and tweeters were handled by soft dome drivers that are themselves fully enclosed, the midrange a 2" unit, the tweeter, 3/4" and a complex crossover, as in something more than a capacitor and a resistor and were NOT inexpensive back when my particular pair was made in 1979, $700/Pr was the list price for these apparently at the time. The Series 1 that is my pair are an oddball in that they were 6 Ohms and maxed out at 100W, but the range was 20-100W so if you tried to run them too loud, even on a 60W RMS/Channel amp with lots of top end, you'll pop the fuses. :-) So my friend that gave me them liked their sound, even and natural sounding, and that's the general conclusion by many that owned/own these. Bass is quick and articulate, maybe not quite as good as a well designed servo driven/open baffle design, but no slouch. I have an old SHURE test record from 1971 that uses actual instruments and even at level 4 (the loudest level), the bass drum at a moderate volume comes off clean and I hear literally the smack of the drum stick hitting the head, the ring of said head and the fade out/reverb cleanly. The table for the curious is a bottom feeding Kenwood KD-12RB semi auto belt driven table from the mid 80's with a Grado Prestige Green 1 cart mounted and fed into a phono stage kit, the Muffsy PP4 before heading to the NAD 7240PE receiver then to the ADS speakers. That little, plastic plinth wonder that at first glance is a nothing table, works well, very well I might add with the Grado and Muffsy that it sounds way better than it is so there is that, but it's getting time to upgrade that to something better, eventually.

Nice job Ron. Especially appreciated the opening acoustic bass only track followed by entire mix. Keeping it very real for most folk...INTERIOR DESIGN and acoustics may make acoustic suspended the better fit. Whatever, Bass quality (not just quantity) is a MUSIC fidelity game changer! Don't buy if doesn't easily sound like instruments vs variations on a tonal mud puddle.

Hey buddy, love the jazz, great stuff ! Might wanna throw a couple other genre's into the mix to show folks that these will play whatever is thrown at them and add a ton of definition to the lower octaves of whatever they are listening to. For people concerned about WAF, there are some options for configuring/finishing these OB H-frames jay

Fancy LGK you got there! Didn't know it's Let's Pimp My Speakers up at Ron's house...

I heard every note on my Cerwin Vega SE 300's. I run them with my Optonica SM 4646 intergrated dual monoblock delta powerd amp.

That bass just makes me smile! Nice video.

Hi Ron, great video. I built Visaton Petit Orgues. The base goes down to 16 Hz. 😁 Instead of passive crossovers (330,- € per pair) the wide-range drivers are connected to the front channels of my AVR and the woofer drivers are connected to the subwoofer pre-outs of the AVR via a Crown XLS 1002 power amp. The four drivers of a pair of Visaton Petit Orgues cost 180,- € (plus wood, screws and cables). Currently I'm looking into making the wide-range drivers open baffle, too. If you want four times the SPL you can look into the Visaton Grand Orgue layout. If open baffles are to clean for home theatre usage you can always add some kind of reverb to simulate closed or ported boxes but still have clean sound when listening to music. Bohemian rapsody recorded in a church with a 8000 pipes organ sounds great with these speakers. Boxed speakers just can't produce the deep base of big pipes clearly and crisp.

I first got into open baffles 40 plus years ago. They are so much better than box speakers.

Bass boominess is the most common "problem" when it is cheaply done. Ported enclosures are highly problematic, but efficiency is enhanced. Acoustic suspension enclosures were the standard for 25 years because their distortions were 4 times+ lower than ported. They go much deeper size for size. The cabinets must be better built due to internal pressure. Power requirements are 8-16 times higher and power was expensive. Now that high power is cheap, there should be a return to sealed enclosures. Open baffle eliminates boominess but is less efficient still and appearance is an "issue", especially with some wives.

Bad ass! Actually sounds like an instrument playing instead of just deep bass.

Ron, it’s coming thru loud and clear!

As Paul McGowan said, as far as music listening goes, a subwoofer’s purpose is to make your front main speakers sound like they have more bass, not to draw attention to it’s self. At the same time it’s got to dig deep, and be fast, responsive and tight and not over emphasised. As an audiophile id rather hear more accurate bass and less of it, than heaps of bad sounding muddy and muffled bass.

Omg that sounds fantastic, I love this, the audio is wowing me out

Floor shaking bass is fun for movies but accurate bass reproduction is more satisfying when listening to music.

Very impressive. I was listening to this on a pair of oppo pm3 headphones plugged into my iPhone. And if what I was using could accurately reproduce what you recorded. Then I’m impressed

Sounds like you are talking more about hearing more of the mid-bass than just bass in general. The best systems can have both the “crazy slam” and the clear, articulate notes of the bass guitar.

Were on the same type of genre jazzy playful notes... Any way what I did to my vintage speakers is I simply open the baffle , and the wideness and clarity says hello and embrace the whole room

If open baffle subs are so great (I don't doubt you) can you help me understand why you can't buy them anywhere? Why are all open baffle subs DIY?

Let’s chat about the lack of a giant microphone in the shot 👏👏👏 Oh yea, and your content? Fabulous as always! Open baffle is a game changer, the most profound discovery of my 5 decades in this hobby. Guess what folks? Instruments don’t have wooden boxes built around them so why in the world would we add one? Duh

Great review. Thanks Sarah

They sound great, but I am listening them through my sealed subs :)

I never heard a real open baffle subwoofer but i have open baffle 1960s speakers and they don't go below 50hz much but midbass and midrange are absolutely awesome. Midbass is extremely fast and responsive. I especially like these super light vintage paper cone speakers. I think that lightness of the cone makes them extremely fast without servo.

My open baffle H frame jobbers, non servo..., changed my concept of speaker sound completely... I seem rather bored by speakers in boxes these days, even ones costing north of 25k/pr...

Would very much like to see a video discussing the hookup, adjustment and integration of the Servo Subwoofers/plate amps. I am planning to add a pair to my X-Statiks, but all the knobs and adjustments look intimidating. Bass management with LFE input (mono bass) vs. line level (stereo). Or? What about the Neutrik connectors?

It would be interesting to provide a link to the material you played back in the video. I would like to compare it to home playback in my rig. Oh wait, I just hear I need to be a patron... Well I might consider!

I LOVE the sound of an upright acoustic bass! But most of the time it seems to get buried underneath everything else. This was beautiful ..... i loved it! So, who do I have to kill to get this quality of bass???? ........ that poor guy is sooooo dead!

Hey Ron, which servo sub kit do you have on the H frames? 3 or 4? Also, have you mounted the amp somewhere on the H frame?

what crossover freq and slope are you using? I also have dipole subs but have never felt like I got the dsp honed in.

I love OB. However I also love pipe organ. A supplemental sealed, horn, IB, or TL is really needed for those. I would love to come up with a design for large passive OB speaker with OB woofer and sealed helper. The trick is how to passively combine the below 40Hz sealed driver without causing difficult impedance or nasty electrical resonance peaks. Of course a separate powered sub is the obvious answer but an integrated passive solution would be so much more elegant.

A demo with jazz!❤

Can you share your diy open baffle measurements? Or share your build plan?

So for all the fans of subwoofer systems, let alone open-baffle, who don't have the measuring gear to check (i.e., nearly every audiophile I have known), how do you ensure a time-aligned signal at any given listening position? If you can't ensure time alignment physically or electronically, and therefore have no way to ensure that you are listening to a signal that doesn't have part of its spectrum degraded from misalignment, how do you prevent the same set-up from performing considerably better or worse just based on how it needs to be situated in a listening space that is typically also a living space?

This is what I like so much about the Tekton Lore Reference. It’s got a relatively small and stiff 8” “guitar amp” driver with 2 huge front facing ports. No chuffing, no air resistance. The bass is as close to open baffle as you can get in a ported speaker. Still, it’s no match for *any* Magnepan. If you have the space, you should try a Maggie for a few weeks.

For me it's how does the bass guitar or upright bass sound? Is it clear and defined. But I do love being able to have my system reproduce 16 hz or lower with authority.

Very interesting. I take the room and its space is most important. Im compelled to make OB just to hear for myself. But a proper placed and eq'd sub (not ported) is tight and won't sustain any longer than the signal feeding it.

Cool, and I agree. But even if your speakers are playing back absolutely perfect reproduction quality, a recording on KZfaq on the user's end is going to sound exactly like the user's system. I suppose with good headphones, you could compare your recording to a direct feed and if they sound the same, that would be a good testament to the speakers that were recorded.

Ever since I built my large open baffle speakers, bass from a boxed speaker sounds muddy and crappy. Cant find any alternative. I cant go back. Its been since 2013.

In my desktop system, almost no activation from the sub was needed on those tracks. If you have sufficient depth and dynamic range to run your mains full range, then just dial in the sub where they begin to falter, I've found that I retain good pitch delineation. But with a small satellite, where the subs have to cover up beyond 100 hertz, you have to really have a fast sub to make music sound coherent. Open baffle is an interesting solution. I wonder if it would coordinate with planars and electrostatics better, due to the dipole radiation pattern?

for me bass is how much does it sound like the real deal, like a bass guitar amp or a celloo contrabass

What open baffle speakers can do for my proto norse Vicking music ?!?

There are some well-reviewed 1,000 USD sealed box floorstanding loudspeakers out there that makes an upright acoustic bass sound like someone playing a harp wilth acoustic bass strings strung on the low note section of the harp.

how directional are the subs? what difference do you hear if they are oriented to be side firing (narrowest part of cabinet oriented to listener)...trying to figure out max wife acceptance factor

Yes, the pair of GR-Research/Rythmik OB 6x12's here are great!

Very nice but the best cleanest bass I've ever heard was done with multiple cheap 10" drivers coupled to 1" thick cardboard panels suspended on rubber surrounds. Each panel was about 10 sqft driven by eight cheap 10" drivers. It was basically an H-frame but only about 4" deep. Given a 16 Hz tone it was dead silent but you could feel your chest vibrating and your voice was modulated at 16 Hz. Second and third harmonics were greater than -70 dB down and higher harmonics were non existent. Pipe organs sounded amazing on that system! Oh and as for those little speakers, those are some little Tang Band drivers right? I think I have some of those on a shelf someplace. I bet a line array using those wouldn't sound too bad and if it's floor to ceiling it could play pretty loud.

No boxy sound and no standing note coloration! So clean and precise!

It's strange I have a factory stereo system in my 98 Toyota Avalon and it has a 40 w free air 8-in subwoofer in the back and the sound quality of the bass is absolutely phenomenal that I'm having a very hard time throwing in my subwoofer and amp from previous car. Sad part is I'm having a heck of a time finding a upgrade higher quality 8-in freer woofer on the market. That I would invest in and add an amplifier to it. The low base is just,, cinematic

I wana hear the bass amp the player is using or the upright . The fingertips scrapeing the strings ect .

Is GR Research going to display at RMAF?

Now this is real music. Very good job for doing this. Most music used every time to audition is just so boring and useless.

I have been looking for a fast sub to match the speed of my Klipsch LaScala. Sounds like open baffle sub (like the Gr Research) may be the ticket?

Sounds excellent, love your choice of music. Sold a pair of huge 4 foot by 4 foot by 2 foot "W" boxes loaded with JBL's. Just couldn't feel them. Now using a pair of Peavey SP-218's. I know, a whole different venue. Okay, define freaking. And why are we freaking all the time? Is freaking really necessary? I didn't think so.

Totally agree. Transient snap. Toothpicks that shake the room when they hit the floor isn't bass.

Cool video! How does the open baffle bass work for movies? Can it get the low rumbles, thunder and explosions? Just curious. Do you ever listen to classical music? Thanks.

Great vid!! I just subscribed lol

So, let me make sure I understand and forgive me if my questions seem.....dumb... open baffle speakers. H shaped... Open baffle how do you keep the front waves and rear waves from interfering with one another..? Also what does direct servo mean?

Hi Ron , I want to buy this speaker , can you get this built for me pls , I was amazed with the sound

I dunno buddy I listened to it over my Bluetooth speaker lightbulb while I was on the toilet and well Mr your speakers ain so great they sound exactly like my speaker light bulb! I even heard a flush at the end! Oh wait nevermind that wasnt over the speaker...🤪😝. Juuuust kidding

How about Open Baffle Front Loaded horn bass?

So does your bass feelings stay the same for home theater when you have a monster explosion that hits the depth of 20hz?

Nothing like the speed of 4 12 inch woofers for home use, vented or sealed, depending! Group delay is BOSS in design, so for all of you novices, as the great designer Bill Dudleston has stated" you can empty a pool faster with a bucket than a spoon" In other words, 4-12 inch woofers need much less movement to achieve the desired bass amplitude response over a single 10, 12 or 15 inch resulting in way faster (tighter) bass response. Thats assuming driver and build integrity. For example: Have you ever seen open bass woofer cabinets at a concert ??? So, put that Upright Bass in a room and compare it to an open woofer system! Even the upright bass has a back blocking the back wave from phase cancellation. Perhaps people that loose music clarity with powered subs have an issue with either their powered subs, or the frequency response of the mains. Yes, open back woofers are fine, but you'll need to compensate!

Here we go

You could make some DIY OB reviews such as the OBL15 by Troels or Orion 5 by Linkwitz Riley those are some serious systems.

When a subwoofer has a lot of efficiency it has to resonate like a drum. The more efficient it is the more it has to resonate, and the slower it will be. I like loud bass but even so I design my subwoofer to just have moderate efficiency and pick a subwoofer that can extend to ~200hz to get those "textures."

Did I miss the speaker brand at the end?

What's this about servo? How do you have realtime feedback and correction in an audio system?

So here I am, four years later, thinkin' to myself, "man Tekton always been a certain way huh?"

Are open baffle dipole subs 2 X drivers. Are they in phase or out of phase?

From what ive read recently the best base would be open baffle plus a swarm of 4 sealed subs correctly positioned. Has anyone done this?

Which one of y’all kicked me 😂

What effect does humidity have on paper cone drivers? Thanks!

links to the music?

Hey new record day how many watts was going through d me sapphires

i don't get it.... don't pressure vessel style sealed subwoofers do the same thing? isn't that the entire point? with a sealed sub you get zero box resonance and the back wave is completely canceled but what you're left with is just the tightest front wave that stops on a dime due to the vacuum pressure of the box... how would an open baffle design ever be faster? it might sounds more "expansive" but I doubt it's tighter

On the 1 hand clean dynamic range is important but on the other hand feeling everything is just as important so those little speakers can't compare to a night club

A decent subject

What amp was driving this open sub?

Bass and boom are two different things. Some people like low frequencies that ring on for a long time. But accurate bass reproduction that doesn’t ring out, that is punchy and articulate! I’m looking for the latter. I got some very good speakers years ago and showed them to my Brother in law. These speakers are the best I’ve ever heard. But he said, where the bass. I asked him what he was talking about but he couldn’t answer me. Then he borrowed my wife’s car and when we got it back she said tres something wrong with my cars stereo. Douglas had turned the bass control all the way up and set the speakers to 0lay only 6ht left rear speaker. And he had it cranked. All it did was boom! Hmmm. There’s no account for taste. But I don’t want that type of sound out of anything, ever!

someone wanna help me understand how this works, a link to an educational piece would be great, far as I know this can not possibly work! I get infinite baffle but not open baffle on low bass frequencies. there has got to be killer cancelation in that sub!!!

once you go sealed there's no going back .

Pardon the pun but you are a very good speaker

Great cupL

i don't like compromises, so subwoofer have to go subsonic and blend in perfectly with control. i had not heard enough about open baffle subwoofers, i just assumed that they roll of at the lowest hz. sealed cabinets is the best i know of. ported and passive radiator is a joke. i use "curtain shaker" song as bass test for depth.

Low point of of electric bass is 40 hrz.I always thought it was worst of course in car systems.Huge boxes totally distorted.Give me a sealed Alpine 8" box which leave some trunk/hatch space any day.Again I suppose in HT you want to move more air but listen to and SVS sealed vs ported.Never get why folks want sound pressure level over correct pitch

Ok, so now play music that we actually listen to so we can tell how good there are. Its kinda cheating to play music that is already very clear. I'm sure those songs would make any speakers sound good if set up the right way. Play bass heavy music like some hip hop. K Camp- Free Guwap or 50K- Waka Flocka Flame are 2 songs that hit really really hard. Try them out, then we'll be able to see if they're as good as you say.

Why is he using Grado headphones for bass?

im going to dubstep now

So why dont you review Linqvitz labs speakers?

Can you still get these AMAZING puppies? The link does not work and GR does not have a search function.

Oh, its servo controlled . that changes things.

Are your subs dipole or bipola ?

in fact, dipole don't excit the room like monopole source... no one is supperior to other, depend of what you do with it and where you put it