Due the the woofers very high QT and VAS, placing it in any enclosure, or even an infinite baffle will completely change the system. And to achieve any reasonable low frequency extention, the enclosure would have to be quite large. Like 8-12 cubic feet. And the low pass crossover would be completely different.
My parts just arrived on my Manzanitas and I have them hooked up for a first listen with default xover values. Literally I have been listening for about 15 minutes and have had time to run room eq wizard over them. Initial observations:
1. Holy crap these things measure so well!
2. Even though the tweeters measure well with even a gentle slope (harman curve type of slope) the tweeters sound a little bright to me so I will increase the resistance from 4.5 ohms to something higher.
3. These things exhibit some weirdly conflicting behaviors in that they are dynamic and the transient response sounds good yet they pretty inefficient (I say this by how high I have the volume dial tuned in)
4. The bass is very tight.
I am VERY satisfied for the result for the investment of about 300 bucks. This is a ludicrous bang for the buck project. I have to get on a conference call in 3 minutes but I will resume listening and play with the resistor values over the evening after which I will proceed to hot glue the components in place and then drill the holes for my binding posts (which right now are floating around in the tray I built at the bass for them with some modest measures put in place so that they don't touch each other and short out).
1. Holy crap these things measure so well!
2. Even though the tweeters measure well with even a gentle slope (harman curve type of slope) the tweeters sound a little bright to me so I will increase the resistance from 4.5 ohms to something higher.
3. These things exhibit some weirdly conflicting behaviors in that they are dynamic and the transient response sounds good yet they pretty inefficient (I say this by how high I have the volume dial tuned in)
4. The bass is very tight.
I am VERY satisfied for the result for the investment of about 300 bucks. This is a ludicrous bang for the buck project. I have to get on a conference call in 3 minutes but I will resume listening and play with the resistor values over the evening after which I will proceed to hot glue the components in place and then drill the holes for my binding posts (which right now are floating around in the tray I built at the bass for them with some modest measures put in place so that they don't touch each other and short out).
Great! Thanks for your feedback and it's good to know that you are enjoying them. Funny what a well designed simple speaker can do, isn't it. 
Yes, you'll want to play around with the resistors to tune it to your room. Room placement also makes a difference, mostly in the mid bass. Get that right and these simple speakers really do sound right, great pitch and tonal balance.
Yes, you'll want to play around with the resistors to tune it to your room. Room placement also makes a difference, mostly in the mid bass. Get that right and these simple speakers really do sound right, great pitch and tonal balance.
Location, location & Location
The Manzanita design, like all open baffles must be out in the room to function properly. It has to breath. A lot of physics support this. Placed on a wall the Manzanita would have ZERO bass below 350 Hz. Tonal balance would be a mess and the system would sound like, begins with S and ends in T.
You can design a system that can work well up on a wall. But, the Manzanita is not one of them. J
The Manzanita design, like all open baffles must be out in the room to function properly. It has to breath. A lot of physics support this. Placed on a wall the Manzanita would have ZERO bass below 350 Hz. Tonal balance would be a mess and the system would sound like, begins with S and ends in T.
You can design a system that can work well up on a wall. But, the Manzanita is not one of them. J
Terrydaktell, the difference is that Open Baffle speakers need space behind them to develop bass. If you get to close to the wall behind them, you kill the bass. With box speakers you can sometime actually boost the bass by putting them on the wall. They just don't work the same way.
EDIT: John beat me to it.
EDIT: John beat me to it.
Great! Thanks for your feedback and it's good to know that you are enjoying them. Funny what a well designed simple speaker can do, isn't it.
Yes, you'll want to play around with the resistors to tune it to your room. Room placement also makes a difference, mostly in the mid bass. Get that right and these simple speakers really do sound right, great pitch and tonal balance.
It was in my thoughts the whole time - it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to have a great pair of speakers if they are well executed. I was more shocked at how well they measured and how flat they were. That's not always an easy thing to do. I'm not a person that is a huge advocate of requiring perfectly flat response but I am someone that does measure every design commercial or DIY that I own for the learning aspect and these measure stupidly well. I don't think that the treble level is inordinately high (certainly it doesn't graph in a peaking manner, it's all my ears and perception) but I am guessing that 1 or 2 ohms of added resistance will get it where i want it, it's not too far off.
The thing I would like to say is that I have owned or heard quite a bit at this stage...I'm not an expert but fall pretty firmly into the 'veteran' category having owned/built/rehabbed over 100 pairs of speakers at this stage and what is important to note is that these aren't 'good for $300'...they are good. Period. Regardless of price. So I don't think these should be viewed as a 'bargain' pair of speakers that happen to sound good, these are very good good speakers at any price that happen to be buildable for peanuts. Open baffle bass continues to please me....I have never had an open design with a 15" woofer. In a boxed design I have heard great bass come out of a 15 but I really can't say it was 'fast' or 'tight' as a descriptor. When in an open baffle it takes on both of these attributes. Is it a common thing for bass to scale even with large displacement drivers and remain tight when implemented without a box i.e. a known characteristic?
Also attached is a photo of my implementation in imperfect lighting. I used Movinga wood veneer. I edge banded the wings and stained them with candle light general finishes gel stain (still evening that out a bit) and the sides of the wings are painted in copper hammered finish...not showing that in the photo until I sand the filled screw holes and touch them up.
Thank you to John and Pano for helping me along and for talking me down when I got too OCD. This is a forgiving design that yields hefty dividends.
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That's a good buy for a speaker that punches way way way above it's weight. If you're looking for an easy design that is stellar this is one to do Terry. If you have never heard an open baffle there's yet another reason to try it out.
What you'll find different than the 7b having heard both (and owned most of the other polks above and below the 7b but never an actual 7):
The bass is tighter in the Manzanitas.
Manzanitas are more dynamic.
The Manzanitas have an 'airy' sound lended by the open baffle.
The Polk will likely have a greater volume of bass overall and maybe even a bit more lower extension but it will not be as well defined.
The Polks will hit higher overall volume. I found the manzanitas harder to drive to a high SPL.
Seems like you have owned a lot of speakers! Glad that you like the Mazanita and nice job on the build - looks great!
Yes, the OB bass is generally tight and non resonant. Sometimes that's simply because there is no bass but not in the case of these speakers. The trade off is loss of efficiency, as you have noticed. These are SET tube amp friendly, unless it's a minster of an amp.
When I had my 12" Peerless Manzanitas built into the corners of the cave, some of my sound engineer buddies were amazed at the bass. "The bass is so clean, no overhang or resonance." I briefly had a pair of 21" woofers that John lent me on OB in the garage. The bass was weird. Plenty there and they were flat into the 20s and would play loud, but no boom, no bloom, no speaker sound. Just not what we're used to hearing on playback.
Yes, the OB bass is generally tight and non resonant. Sometimes that's simply because there is no bass
but not in the case of these speakers. The trade off is loss of efficiency, as you have noticed. These are SET tube amp friendly, unless it's a minster of an amp.When I had my 12" Peerless Manzanitas built into the corners of the cave, some of my sound engineer buddies were amazed at the bass. "The bass is so clean, no overhang or resonance." I briefly had a pair of 21" woofers that John lent me on OB in the garage. The bass was weird. Plenty there and they were flat into the 20s and would play loud, but no boom, no bloom, no speaker sound. Just not what we're used to hearing on playback.
most speakers mounted on a wall (flat-like) probably would not do well.
as noted above the speakers are mounted on tv mounts that adjust out from the wall and can be tilted a bit. thus, the reason the tweeter is on the bottom and tipped about 10 degrees.
few audiophiles ever mount speakers in such a manner. i remember an article read many years ago about the HUGE improvement in sound by doing this, so i did it and concur.
this is why i wondered if any had tried this with the manzanitas? probably work just fine. intrigued by this speaker design and might try it when 'between projects'.
Seems like you have owned a lot of speakers! Glad that you like the Mazanita and nice job on the build - looks great!
Yes, the OB bass is generally tight and non resonant. Sometimes that's simply because there is no bass
When I had my 12" Peerless Manzanitas built into the corners of the cave, some of my sound engineer buddies were amazed at the bass. "The bass is so clean, no overhang or resonance." I briefly had a pair of 21" woofers that John lent me on OB in the garage. The bass was weird. Plenty there and they were flat into the 20s and would play loud, but no boom, no bloom, no speaker sound. Just not what we're used to hearing on playback.
It's a bad addiction, I'm either working on a DIY project or shopping for something new to try at any one time especially during COVID/cold times of year when indoor hobbies reign. Often my new DIY projects are ones that are exploring an area that I haven't delved into before extensively for learning purposes. I provided the context to illustrate that I've had a reasonably high level of exposure and that I consider these to be good - period - within that exposure.
With the low efficiency how are they driven so well by flea amps? That's one thing I've never owned, my current (and past) tube amps are of a moderately larger capacity, I think my current one is about 40 wpc but it doesn't get much use. I often hear that a lot of in-efficient speakers are 'tube friendly' but I'm unsure of the science behind what quantifies something as tube friendly. I always assumed that tube-friendly meant 'efficient' but my understanding is flawed.
I'm so glad you had the specified example, you literally had 21" woofers that weren't flabby. That underscores it. My LX521.4's have dual 10" woofers and they are extremely tight but I didn't know if that was an attribute that all open baffle bass would have or just that of that particular design. Something newly learned every day! I'm excited to apply this knowledge and experience to my next open baffle project. I'm looking at other possible designs and have some Eminence Alpha 15a's (as I mentioned in PM but I'm re-mentioning it for the broader audience) that I currently plan on putting in h-frames. I'm then going to mount l-brackets on the h-frames and use them to mount different driver configurations on top of the h-frame mounted alpha's. My first design will be partially duplicating Poultrygeist's often mentioned zenith 49czxxx alnico 12" full range driver configuration. I have a pair sourced locally and I am still looking at super tweeter candidates to take me from the rolloff point of the zenith (REW shows a steep rolloff at 10k) to something above 16khz (the limits of my 40-something year old degrading hearing as far as I can tell).
To me it's about the journey, the learning, the playing with the wood and the tangible nature of the work. I deal exclusively with concepts in my career so this allows me to really create something.
Thanks for the compliment on my build, I put a lot of time and effort into it and I'm still touching it up but overall I am enamored with the build. If I were to do it again I think I would back mount the wings and would screw them in from the front rather than in from the side. Why? Because if you have any imprecision in screwing in a wood screw into 3/4" MDF it ends up creating a bow on the MDF....even if you predrill the hole. At least with MDF this is easily dealt with by sanding it back down but it's still frustrating.
No, it won't work fine at all. It will sound terrible as John has already tried to tell you.
Pano and John, the two people behind this speaker design and the ones who know it better than anyone else, have already told you that it will not work the way you describe using it.
You apparently still do not understand the difference between how a box speaker and an open baffle speaker interact with the room. It is dramatically different. And you would do yourself a big favor by studying up on the subject before wasting time on things that are not going work well.
Your experience with the 7Bs has no relationship to the Manzanitas. None.
these are about a foot away from the wall. these are the heavy HDTV mounts that swing about 18" from the wall. not close to the wall one bit. and closer to the ceiling than the floor, with the PR on the top.
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Even at 18" you'll be losing bass. But it's better than flat up against the wall. IME, 24" form the wall is bare minimum for Open Baffle.
As you probably know, with OB speakers the bass wraps around the baffle and cancels out the front wave. If you are too close to a surface behind the speaker, that surface will bounce back a lot of energy and with a very short delay. That means massive cancellation.
Of course I don't want to stop you from building a pair, it's well worth the money and the effort, but if you can't get them >3 feet off the wall I think you'll be disappointed. But you might like them enough to put them on stands and use them that way.
As you probably know, with OB speakers the bass wraps around the baffle and cancels out the front wave. If you are too close to a surface behind the speaker, that surface will bounce back a lot of energy and with a very short delay. That means massive cancellation.
Of course I don't want to stop you from building a pair, it's well worth the money and the effort, but if you can't get them >3 feet off the wall I think you'll be disappointed. But you might like them enough to put them on stands and use them that way.