I have these Teufel speakers positioned in a roughly equilateral triangle about 2.8 meters from my listening position (couch).They are only 80cm (32 inches) from the front wall. Others have not had issues with these speakers positioned close to the wall, but in my case I found that bass was a little muddy.
I don't feel like moving those speakers every time I want to listen to them. So I filled the rear ports with some PET felt. Bass is now tighter and the sound overall is more balanced and pleasing, with better clarity in the mids.
I spend the evening listening to some Count Basie from various eras. I have no problems listening to these speakers for an extended period of time. They are relaxing to listen to.
I listen to them usually between a volume setting of 10 and 15 out of 24 on my powerDAC. I can listen to them pretty loud if I want to, maybe not "party level" but plenty loud... They are rated 87 dB (2.83 V / 1 m).
Quick and dirty solution to hold felt in the ports:
I don't expect all would share my taste for these speakers were they to listen to them. When it comes time to make compromises, we all make different choices. There are naturally compromises at this price point.
Somewhat related... I saw this Video that Darko just released, entitled "The Music First Audiophile Manifesto".
He's having his Jerry Maguire moment...
My personal perspective is that we simply constantly navigate between sound and music. Music is why we are all here in the first place, but we all have in parallel the curiosity to improve sound quality.
A friend who is a professional pianist has "absolute pitch". He explains that it's a bit of a curse sometimes! The same goes for us with our "awareness" of sound quality?
Back to work on my open baffle speakers
I feel that the use of simple first order crossovers on these Teufel speakers have benefits and I will try adding woofers and tweeters to my open baffle. Four Tang Bands drivers on an open baffle provide an excellent midrange, in my opinion, but you can't produce much bass, even with much wider baffles. The high frequencies are quite variable depending on small changes to the listening position, and tweeters can help there, providing also some added sparkle and refinement to the sound. First order filters may have disadvantages, but they seem to preserve some sound attributes that I appreciate, and I don't want to add powered subs. It would be cool to use my open baffle at times in conjonction with the Teufel for bass support (with some kind of switch to deactivate the mid/tweeter and use a specific coil for the low-pass filter). A single high quality capacitor would provide the high pass filter on the Tang Bands drivers. Perhaps the midrange of the Tang Bands would even further improve by not having to produce low frequencies. Anyway, that's the route I want to explore now. I'll see where it leads!
