Wood selection for loudspeaker cabinets - higher grades

Exploring material suitable for higher quality loudspeaker cabinets - the ones that can be used for live cabinets, which do not require heavy damping. In addition, if you want to go the fully inert road, the high grade thick ply makes a much better inert cabinet than MDF.
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[@HansJonsson1235]

Highly speculative and actually most accurate if we are looking at resonance speakers of Ocellia and some speakers Auditorium 23. Bracing is also very intricate.
You can use a speaker transducer and experiment with thickness, material, transducer placement and so on. Highly educational.

[@realworldaudio]

Thank you Hans! Indeed, experimentation is at the heart of the matter. ; Janos

[@TitofBee]

I'm sure we can use composites in a new way for violon making and the cabinets

[@asadabbasmirza9519]

Yellow pine for voight pipe with coral 10 inch full range

[@ryanerickson764]

Awesome series! I learned a lot from this one. Is there some specialized versions of ply with ultra thin tightly packed layers?

[@realworldaudio]

Sadly it seems that the 11-13 ply (per inch) uses the thinnest plies. I suspect it is not possible to make thinner plies, as a large enough sheet of the thin wafer has to be produced (without breaking) apart to make a 5x10ft (or 4x8ft) large sheet.

[@TitofBee]

the problem is to know how to manage resonnance on the total concept. localy, any resonnance can be useful or punishing the sound by saturation Janos, are you deep inyerested in violin making? there is locally a certain interst to conduct or cancel some vibations (frequency) So we must know the needs perfectly and also study the sound phasis connection between the outside and the inside of thz speaker😮 although, if we can compensate a driver character by applying some resonnance attenuations or amplificatiins, we can create a nice instrument" with the minimum of elecrronics... what a wwonderful challenge that's my conception of nice speaker unic craftmanship.... that could defently add value to some works and add value to DIY intetests; Janos, have you tried any kind of beam / soul wood piece to let the two thin faces communicate and enter in phase?

[@vincentliu5]

You just can't have your speaker cabinet resonate like crazy and at the same time you speaker driver moving together not to have cancellation and resonance that is not what is in the original music. The end result may be 2-3db louder but highly colored sound unless that is what you want from your speakers.

[@realworldaudio]

I agree 100%, cabinet must not be allowed to ring uncontrolledly. As I said, resonances must be controlled. Sadly, for 90+% of commercial live cabinets, it is not happening. Engineers think of electrical aspects, marketing constraints, instead of differentiating load bearing and resonant surface duties.

[@raoulselten9480]

JBL used to have 18cm (¾) (or was it 21cm? ⅞) birch plywood for all of their speaker enclosures except for the baffles. baffles were usually 12cm (½). this is true even for their most highly acclaimed loudspeakers, for example the 4343 or 4345. those speakers used 45cm (18") bass transducers with 2,5cm (1") of cone extension, weighing 10kg (22lbs) each. some speakers even had two of those drivers per unit. intuitively you'd say that the baffle would need to be very rigid in order to withstand such intense bass vibrations. but no, 12cm (½) plywood was used on purpose. that was braced only at the sides i believe. the rest of the cabinet was thoroughly braced. those speakers are hard to get by and are renowned for their musical qualities

[@realworldaudio]

Hi Raoul, thank you! Indeed, their strategy of separating load bearing thick frame and thin resonator front baffle is a recipe for success. This can be also used as hardwood side & light resonating front baffle... (that's what I did to my AO speakers: mahogany sides and pine front).