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Dick Pierce
 
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Default Question on the Type of Wood Used in Speaker Construction and Effect on Sound

Stewart Pinkerton wrote in message . ..
On 1 Jun 2004 17:53:03 -0700, (Detector195)
wrote:

(Sam Byrams) wrote in message . com...
For whatever reason, MDF is actually not a good sounding speaker
material and cabs from multi-ply laminated wood, such as piano pin
block stock, offer many of the theoretical benefits of MDF while
providing better mechanical ruggedness, repairability, appearance and
they "seem to sound better"-no A/B/X proof, just seems to. Maybe it's
my imagination.

duPont Corian is a cool and underutilized material as well. The
Japanese use it in some of their nifty, but too heavy to
cost-effectively import, cabs for classic coax drivers such as the
Altec 604, which I consider to be the "Marilyn Monroe of speakers".


What, you mean fat, slow and liable to die suddenly? :-)


No, glitzy, flashy but completely lacking in depth and substance.

Well, I can say one thing. MDF is a disaster waiting to happen with
portable speakers -- it swells up when it gets rained on. I always got
satisfactory results with homemade cabs when I used the regular 3/4
birch plywood from Home Depot, though I felt compelled to steer around
the voids.


Agreed, and marine plywood is even more impervious to abuse,
especially if heavily varnished.


Actually, there is a specific product called "void-free" thin-layer
birch plywood, part of the generic "baltic birch" family of products.
It has no internal voids and uses a better glue. It's used a lot in
making windchests in pipe organs, where you don't want air finding
it's way into places it shouldn't be going.