The SC2 hasn't been officially released yet, but the price will be around $1200-$1300.
As far as the soffit baffle goes, it should always be reflective below the "baffle step" frequency. This frequency, however, is a moving target depending on how far away from the speaker you get.
You can see the effect of flush mounting a nearfield with my
Wall Bounce Calculator. Set D=0, L=any value, W=25, and F3=1. Notice the +6dB step in the low end response. This occurs because low frequency energy, that would have otherwise wrapped around and radiated toward the back of the speaker cabinet in a freestanding situation, is now forced towards the front the soffit baffle. We use the baffle step decompensation filter to flatten this response out. But this new response depends on the fact that the baffle is reflective.
However, we can see for our W=25cm example, if the soffit baffle is absorptive above about 4kHz, it will make little difference in the response. This is because the speaker baffle itself is doing all the work at those short wavelengths and the soffit has little impact. Now, let's image that the soffit baffle is just an extension of the speaker baffle (which it is). If we make W=50cm, we see that soffit baffle absorption above 2kHz will have little effect on the response. If we make W=100cm, we see that soffit baffle absorption above 1kHz will have little effect. And so on.
So the soffit baffle can get more absorptive at lower frequencies the further you radiate out from the center of the speaker; because the areas closer to the speaker have already done their job of forcing the bulk of the shorter wavelengths to radiate in the forward hemisphere. Make sense?
Having said all this, I still like John's design with a reflective soffit and high frequency absorption underneath to reduce secondary reflections from the desk.
Thomas
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