Incredibly open sounding Speakers - Tri-art OPEN 3 Open Baffle Speaker Review

This is my Tri-art Open 3 Open Baffle Speaker review. Simple one of the best designs that screams elegance in its own right.
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#speakers #openbafflespeakers #audiophile

[@Jayiyagi]

Due to popular requests, our written reviews will always include pricing going forward. please check our website articles if no price is mentioned in the videos.

[@williamsantiago6548]

Some time people want hear the item you review. The explain is cool but complement with sound.

[@The-Spotlight-Kid]

For a single speaker-pair demo to be useful, i reckon you'd have to be very intimately familiar with the domo'ers room's sound-signature. With > 3 (& pref' 5'ish) well-rated =priced pairs & done properly, the 'playing' review method can work in a very (& surprising to me) useful way that ultimately, better helps hear to negate the differences betweeen the room's sound signature & those of the playing speaker itself, with more in the speaker mix, you learn more about you're prefered speaker's potential differences i.m.o. When a reviewer is showing the sonic differences in multiple pairs of similar priced & generally well-rated speakers, doing it well!, he'll play the same =/> 5 mins of a test-worthy piece of music on each pair, level-matched & in his own or some priority listening room fitted with room-accoustic treatments. It's insightful but Ive only once & recently heard this done very well indeed (with the boring re-wiring & replacing etc edited out) it was on "New Record Day" tube-site where he uses (an uber-costly) bimonaural mike'd, stereo-reproducing Neuman Recording-Head placed in the sweet spot (at head-hight obviously, if you know what they are) for demo'ing the Klipchs Cornwall, Spatial Audio X5's, Revel (supremes, or similar), Q-Accoustics (ultimates, or summin) Spatial Saphires & a tall cellestion t.o.t.r, & it really gave me good insight in the speakers fundamental differences (even just through the TV speakers but) especially so when i play'd it through the TV's surround-sound reciever. With already dwindling dealerships, new & s/h hi-fi shops now practically covid'ed out of existence (along with the middle-classes l8r) here in the u.k, & worldwide (i only assume but deff' in the u.k.) i'd certainly put a lot of credence in that type of demo (try that particular N.R.D vid & see how well it works with 5'ish speaker pair demo) The 2 Saphire OB models i heard there gave gr8 insight & i now want OBs even more than before. A thoughtfully expressed & well articulated verbal review from someone who youve got used to in their terms & style of expression & who you've come to know their preferences & ways of description ...is a very valuable & an increasingly neccesssry way to shortlist one's equipment choices in these days & times.

[@hi-fihaven2257]

Just send those speakers my way! Love the wood used for the baffle, great driver array. As always great commentary.

[@steelydan5501]

I have owned ob speakers and they can sound amazing, many use compression drivers but these look very nice and probably sound amazing due to the soft dome/ super tweeter design.Very nice!

[@mpv1608]

Agree,knowing the price would be great

[@Jayiyagi]

thank you for the feedback, your feedback has helped us improve our articles and reviews - thank you.

[@orwhat24]

Interesting contrast between these and the very simple Betsy. I’d love to A/B these two strategies!

[@l.b.stringfellow2413]

Good review ! New subscriber. Like your approach and the fact more and more young people are reviewing and appealing to the market and appreciating REAL hiFi !!

[@mytubbie67]

Hi, so end 2022 now. I just got a set of dealer demos. This speaker has evolved since the video. It now comes with external crossovers in their own bamboo boxes. The crossovers support bi-amping with a set of inputs for the full range plus tweeter and supper tweeter and second input just for the woofer. The attenuator is on the crossover box and adjusts the the drivers with respect to the woofer. There are 4 feet now each with adjustable spikes. I’m using a 300b SET full range so i bridged the two crossover inputs and it sounds great. I think the Tri-Art website needs updating on the 3 Open. I don’t think that with the new crossovers the 97db spec is accurate anymore but the rest seems right. Wonderful. I had home made open baffles using a vintage EV driver but now this is more refined at the top and lower open baffle bass. If you ever heard open baffles and especially open baffle bass you know what this is about.

[@latheofheaven]

Yep, although my system which my good friend and stereo design guru helped me design is much simpler, it is based on the exact same principles. Two tall completely open baffle multi-driver line-arrays. And, YES! you are quite right! The positioning is *EXTREMELY* critical and very touchy with the open dipole line-arrays. BUT... when you get them set just right, then as you said, the imaging and soundstage are amazing! I really don't think I will ever after 40+ years of doing 'this' ever go back to box speakers of any kind, regardless of how many different kinds there are. It also is a tri-amped system with dual mono vintage (read: ancient) amps running the two line arrays and a Crown 2502 400/side running the 2-15" open dipole woofers. So, YES, I'm also thinking that a tube amp/integrated would be lovely for the high end, and the Crown has plenty of power for the lows. I will try to post a link to pictures of my system and collection in the next post, but Google's AI usually immediately deletes the post. Absolutely LOVELY speakers Jay!

[@chrisvinicombe9947]

Very cool speakers. I like all the little details. Don't think I've ever seen steel basket resonance being controlled before. Usually they just go cast basket. The word your looking for when describing driver integration is seamless not seemingly 😉👊

[@AudioElectronicsChicago]

someone got creative and made these speakers, nice wood work

[@The-Spotlight-Kid]

As much as i miss well implemented coaxial compression drivers, silk dome tweeters were my favourite type. Never harsh unless it"s fed harshness. And larger paper mids sound great & a fave when ive heard them & esp' paper bass cones beat all other materials i.m.o. however treated. The best thing about all the e/stats ive owned was the boxless sound with the lack of box colouration even with good bracing, boxes sing along to some degree or other (probably depending on cost normally. I missed the dynamics & deep bass with all my e/stat speakers & was 100% ignorant of open baffle designs even existing when i went through nearly 2 decades of various e/stats, loving the detail & boxless sound but never the whole deal which open baffle may well give & be my final speaker (i'm getting on & would like to reach my ideal speaker & align future equipment to them. I liked what i heard here & relate to your discription, sounds like i'd love what you described. The signs are that i'll be happy, like the best of both worlds without e/stat's shortfall. Perhaos I must hear maggies before i spend my last wad on speakers but ive heard many reviews & descriptions and still think O.B. is where it's at, for me, test & time will tell. PS i'd be pulling O.B.s away from the wall & lifting, pushing, sliding them on castors whatever (anything as needs must)

[@hushpuppykl]

My friend took the parts for the Harbeth M30.1 and made a open baffle set up. Sounded absolutely wonderful but lacking in the bass department too. So be built a pair of passive subs.

[@denniswade6727]

Good review! I have been interested in open baffle speakers in general and would like to see more being reviewed. Unfortunately nowhere in this video or in the written review did I hear a price being mentioned. When I went to Tri-art's website there were no prices mentioned. This lack of price is becoming very common on websites now and often results in having to dig all over the internet trying to find out what the cost of the item is. It would be very helpful to us if you could remember to mention the price of the gear being reviewed as this would eliminate such irritating internet searches!

[@Jayiyagi]

thank you for the feedback, your feedback has helped us improve our articles and reviews - thank you.

[@e.kent.d9561]

I totally agree. often have to search far and wide and follow clues to find a price. Wish the companies would just give their price.

[@peterborelli3877]

@@Jayiyagi You thank the poster for his feedback saying that it has (already?) helped you to improve your reviews. But you refuse to answer the question which is... ''how much do these speaker cost?'' Why are you avoiding the question? (another question that you can avoid if you want to).

[@pauldow1648]

In general not offering price for what is being showcased to the average tuber means it's overpriced or out of reach most of us.

[@peronnikbeijer213]

To me it's amazing this speaker sounds so great to your ears. All speakers are room dependent, in general open baffle speakers are more forgiving, because they load the room both front to back even. And although all speakers need room to breath, open baffle speakers often need more space from the back wall. This design has a lot of problems, namely: 1 - Three drivers share frequency range, which causes a lot of cancelation interference 2 - The drivers are spaced out pretty far, because of the extra tweeter, which again causes cancelation interference in the vertical domain 3 - Because of the form of the baffle, al lot of baffle step cancelation will occur 4 - The small balfe around the bass driver, will cause a very high roll-off in the lower bass region 5 - By not using a filter, all the problems above are not corrected 5 - The holes in the brace on the back of the speaker will only degrease the structural rigidity 6 - The 'internal' cabling look pretty high gauge I would be amazed if this speaker would measure within +-6 dB. And although measurements not always determine the quality of the sound of a speaker, most of the time they do.

[@deangale4496]

So there's only one cap on the bass presumably ?

[@prismaticsky5460]

While what you initially wrote as a general overview of open baffle designs is agreeable, I am of an opposing opinion regarding all six of your points that are specific to this particular design. 1. -- Actually the overlapping frequencies of the top the drivers is fairly minimal... Plus the transition occurs naturally, without a need for a crossover -- this is a huge attribute and the result of deliberate and careful design. Full range drivers fall off on the top and bottom frequencies, but excel at natural coherency and imaging within the frequency range that most music resides 95% of the time. This design preserves those beautiful attributes with an 8" full range driver. 8" also happens to be a great size for a FR driver as well, balancing the lightness and speed of smaller drivers with the 'naturalness and image size' that comes with bigger drivers. Then, to 'fill in' the remaining ~5% that the FR doesn't cover (the low bass and sparkling highs), the designers used a couple great tweeters that naturally excel in different ranges, while also gracefully and naturally falling off when frequencies drop below their physically reproducible range. Likewise for the bass driver, which is the only place that we find one simple 1st order crossover. With this, the FR driver is saved from all the excursion of the frequencies below 90hz, while at the same time keeping superfluous and heat generating high frequency energy out of the woofer. Quite smart all around, I'd say. 2. -- Are they spaced out pretty far? That's weird, because on my screen they look really close... Basically almost as close as they could be to each other (except for the bass driver, but that's a different story, and is set further down for very good reasons). Additionally, echoing what I wrote in point 1, the frequencies don't have a large overlap range anyways. Remember, even though an equal frequency signal may be arriving simultaneously at each of the three upper drivers, this doesn't mean they are all going to reproduce that frequency throughout it's full range. Some overlap is necessary, of course, as the alternative is actually having a gap in the frequency response spectrum, which would be the drastically worse of two evils. Also, it's worth noting that the limited frequencies where the overlap does occur, and where there may be some comb filtering, is on fairly high frequencies, which we normally hear in small bursts and as accents to the bulk mid-range sound... This renders any comb filtering much less noticable in 'real world' listening, within the already narrow frequency bands where it may occur in this case. 3. -- I doubt you can accurately remotely assess this given varying design materials, individual driver performance, how the four divers interact with each other, etc. 4. -- Echo of what I wrote for "3", but also adding that it may be beneficial in this particular design in ways that elude you. 5. -- Oh, no, no... Those holes will in no meaningful way degrade structural integrity -- you're really reaching with this one. And, again, there is always the possibility that someone figured something out that you don't yet understand. 6. -- Often times a higher guage is desirable for signal leads, and all high end audio circuitry in general... While books have been and could be written explaining 'why', a fitting one word summary would be "voicing".

[@jorgebacani1901]

You can not just bi-amp speakers with different types amplifier. You have to make sure that they have the same output gain. Otherwise there will be an unbalance in sound reproduction.

[@The-Spotlight-Kid]

Speaker boxes are audio-crutches for the limitations of the physical laws of accoustics. When you first hear good sounding well- implemented speaker without boxes, it's a shock.

[@dilbyjones]

Now this is wat I’m talking

[@cliffordcostley9798]

How about the Tekton OB Sigma's?

[@thesupergamermario3701]

I would love to see a review on these

[@fidobite3798]

@@thesupergamermario3701 I've had the Sigmas for 2 yrs now...replaced Apogee Duettas that I had had for over 20 yrs. I LOVE open baffle and these with a pair of 10" Hsu subs are very impressive.

[@The-Spotlight-Kid]

I would have thought, rather I guess an O.B. speaker would be less room dependent because dipole speakers have a figure of 8 shaped output with little to zero side-wall interaction but still retaining a rear-wall interaction. (as for cieling & floor interaction, maybe less so?) The best aspects of e-stat &/or planar mag' panel speakers & the best aspects of coned box speakers should theoretically come together in this Open Baffle design of speaker, while avoiding the worst aspects of both those panel & box speakers. Like panel speakers lack a high degree of real bass dynamics, grunt & slam, which box speakers need not suffer, combined with a panel speakers boxless sound ...Open Baffle should be ideal for combining the best of both worlds, I guess they may be my ideal speaker

[@sjhorton1184]

I second this. The lower frequencies that have long wavelengths become omni-directional in standard bos speakers - BUT - in an open baffle speaker, as the wavelength begins to become long enough to wrap around/cycle past the baffle width, the fron meets the back wave but out of phase and therefore cancels. This cancellation effect keeps the lows lobing to the front and to the rear which makes it a bit easier as there is at least 1 less room mode to become a standing wave problem. Conversely, the higher frequencies will reflect off of the re wall behind the speakers (front wall) so diffision on the front wall is very important.

[@The-Spotlight-Kid]

@@sjhorton1184 yeah, that sounds right, i intend to implement some way of easily moving my next speaker-purchase (almost definitely an OB of some sort) at various distances from the rear wall to find the best place for the best sound, & push them back after listening sessions. (So not to cause domestic nagging as did with all my e/stats as i'd need 3 or 4 feet out) No matter what theoretical principles you / one can apply to a potential speaker purchase, ive still found it impossible... (after 3+ decades since earning a wage) ...to find that 'ideal' speaker, it don't exist & it seems a matter of which compromises you can live with best. (at least with my budget & a smaller than desired living-space due to a lack of a huge bank account ...but even then, i bet it's all about compromises still, only much smaller ones, which may appear just as big if you're really loaded or if you can't just enjoy your music instead of owning a a few CDs/L.P.'s to listen to your hi-fi equipment with🤪) But after owning a good few types of different speaker technologies, many boxes, a handful of e/stats & a hybrid (but no O.B. or Maggies) I intend OB's of some sort to be my next & hopefully final speaker, since i recently heard one of my vintage Tannoy 15" m/golds throwing in the towl with a new fulltime farty-sounding magnet-rubbing cocophony! Its totally about the music & i'm now very much fully enjoying still-unheard charity-shop classical L.P. buys via a pair of Celestion 3000 ribbon hybrids i'd stashed & not heard for 15 years (gr8 but def' need a sub or 2) good luck

[@tiazzicat]

Next please review the high end Reflector Audio, Eden Acoustics and Kyron Audio!

[@Lemurdansface]

nice setup man

[@nostro1001]

Very interesting review - thank you. 🔊 I see they are available in New Zealand, but not out here. I've only had a brief look at their website....much of the gear looks very diy, but haven't had a chance to read (late here). Of course looks can be very deceiving, esp just a quick glance. Would love to listen to a pair. I'll put out my feelers and see if there's any plans for them to land out here. Cheers😊

[@jimleveille8132]

Any questions feel free to reach out on the contact page!

[@rango_unchained]

I know what you mean nostro 1001, I see they are not available out here either. I understand why they're not available where you're at, because, let's face it, you're so far from here. They should be readily available where I'm at though because, you'll agree, I'm so much closer. I'll put my feelers out as well seeing as how it's legal here too. Cheers.

[@jackryder6732]

Your reviews have you talking and explaining which good. To go next level up, you have set a good system with very mic for us to listen and understand what you saying. Think about it. Creativity and interaction is important

[@MrShanyboy25]

Can you tell what drivers they're using? Or are they custom/labels taken off? Great vid btw!

[@MilGrip76]

Eminence, Vifa-Peerless, Visaton or some-such...

[@rango_unchained]

What is this "back wall" you speak of? If I place a speaker in front of me close to the wall, wouldn't that be the "front wall"? Wouldn't it be simpler to just say "the wall" since "the wall" is immediately recognizable as "the wall" you will be placing the speaker close to or perhaps a little farther from? Let me know if the "back wall" still makes more sense to you.

[@markceci9896]

When I look at these speakers there's a lot to wonder about. Doesn't seem like the driver quality is that great. I'm not quite understanding the elaborate use of multiple tweeters all of which are way off in driver spacing than the full range driver. They definitely have to deal with comb filtering in some fashion. As for the bass, an open baffle it's easier to integrate into most rooms, not harder. If you really want to go low just add another woofer. The woofers have to be the correct type, obviously, with the right QTS. This also allows EQ on the woofers better than other alignments.

[@Dave_____]

I bet that they are limiting the upper range of the full range (or limiting the low range of the dome tweater) to minimize comb filtering.

[@tomgerken5778]

The screws...I can't take my eyes off of them.

[@josepharagon108]

For speakers at 4 ohm's do you set your receiver to this or leave it on 8 ohm's?

[@golfnutintib1]

Price? Essential fact for any speaker review, no?

[@spencexxx]

1.75 speed and he is listenable.

[@johnholmes912]

uneven phase cancellation is a problem wiyh open baffle

[@bujoun76]

One should always have a subwoofer. You can't claim to have a "full range" system and deliberately leave out an important part of the audio spectrum. That would be like claiming to have "full range" with the tweeter(s) removed...

[@MilGrip76]

Not an even comparison. No sub only means a single octave of LF, which the ear can generally fill in psychoacoustically, no tweeter means 3-4 octaves, design dependant of course.

[@bujoun76]

Matthew Bolstad All true but I think you missed my point.

[@hocheye]

About $5000 Canadian.

[@jimleveille8132]

Please note they are actually $2600 Canadian MSRP

[@hocheye]

Yes, open baffle speakers are room dependant, I had to sell mine because the room was very hard with compression drivers in a coaxial design (Hawthorne) speakers they sounded amazing but the room was to hard, soft dome tweeter much better.Most ob speakers are very efficient and tubes work very well.I used a sub with them it was fantastic big open soundstage the midrange was a little to much which takes away from some of the details in the music and many of today's speakers are like this.

[@lucacorso_audiosystem]

hocheye kzbin.info/www/bejne/a53MZ3igq7VgqKc

[@joelrunyan1608]

Open baffles are actually LESS room dependant

[@RonLykins]

Why don’t you start with the price!

[@jimleveille8132]

$,2640.00 MSRP

[@duroxkilo]

"the sound field is absolutely holographic and 3d like" ok buddy, cool story

[@Jayiyagi]

want me to tell it again?

[@duroxkilo]

@@Jayiyagi :} nah, but thanks..

[@gges1605]

sounds like someone should do some research

[@obudaifourty9]

Place your speaker WAY more forward. They need to be IN the room NOT at the wall. This type of design NEED to breathe.

[@shalal8746]

I am fed up with guys making Audio components reviews depending on talk. This is a video not a magazine, so you have to back up your blah blah blah with a demonstration that we can listen to and judge for ourselves. Other than that it just not more than what you think. Should I believe it? I doubt it, I would rather believe my own ears.

[@RumblestripDotNet]

Any audio that you would here from KZbin is going to be very different from what you would hear live. First, it's recorded so it will be different, then it's compressed in the video production, then KZbin crushes it even more with its compression, and then finally the headphones or speakers you listen to will further change the sound. This doesn't even cover the fact that any music played for sound demos will either get the video pulled, or demonetized. So, if you think you can do it better, then do it, otherwise, keep your ignorance to yourself.

[@martinfred9015]

Im fed up with dumbasses like you who thinks they can demo through a youtube video. Listen and respect to the reviewer or move on if you have trust issues. This aint place for therapy

[@sdads7531]

🤦

[@horse_god]

@@RumblestripDotNet would a Dropbox link in the description be worth a try or can microphones still not that can capture a decent amount of the experience?

[@Dave_____]

I agree. See New Record Day videos. He uses music he pays for that allows him to share the music on KZbin. He also uses a Binaural mic on a human-ish head. Yes, KZbin compresses the audio, yes, it is not like being there. However, it is pretty good and can also allow you to hear differences of different speakers through a good set of headphones hooked up to whatever device you are watching KZbin on.

[@garbagemanify]

P.O.S.