I like the idea of building my new speaker boxes from hard wood. I think the handcut dovetails will look great and given that I only have hand tools, I can mill the wood and cut the joinery without making a purchase. I have read that MDF is a better material to use because of it’s superior stability. My question is this: how much of a difference is it really going to make. The largest speaker is 24″x14″x13″.
From what I have read, MDF is the way to go but before I give up on hardwood, I wanted to see what this group had to say.
Chris
Replies
MDF or a good quality birch plywood is the most desired materials for speakers. One thing you good do is build an inner box out of mdf and the make an outer box out of hardwoods with the detail you want. That would add more mass making the speakers better. Also rectangals and squares are the worst shapes for speakers because the sound bounces back more. A trapezoid or a box with angles is better. Do a search online for speaker building, theres much more detail than I went into here.
Steve
Birch plywood isn't dense enough for speaker boxes. You want something that will be basically inert when the air is trying to move it. Dense is great, dense and stiff is best. If the boxes are vented, you can get by with 3/4" MDF if they're not particularly large but the bigger they are, the more likely it is that internal bracing will be needed. Think about it this way- if the panels of a speaker box are moving, they're dissipating energy at specific frequencies, known as 'coloring' the sound. In a properly designed box, there won't be any frequencies that are appreciably louder than adjacent frequencies. There will always be variations but you don't want the frequwncy response to look like a collection of fence posts that are different lengths. You want a smooth response, not totally flat. Humans don't perceive sound in a linear response, our ears are more sensitive in the mid-range because our voices are in this range and so are the sounds made by things that are dangerous to us. It's an evolutionary thing- if our ears wasted sensitivity in areas that really don't matter, perception of other sounds would be less noticeable and we as a species would have died out already. Also, female humans perceive high frequencies better than males, right out of the womb, on average. There are a bunch of sources for speaker building- Speaker Builder, Madisound, Parts Express and others have books, software and other resources. If you're building from scratch, that's one thing. If you're changing the look of your existing speakers, use veneer. The speaker company did a lot of research into the sound of each model they make and changing the materials of the boxes will change the sound. If you want to calculate the internal volume for the boxes, based on the drivers, the acoustical environment and the sound you want, you'll save a huge amount of time by buying box design software. If you do it the hard way (on paper and/or by deriving all of the formulae, we'll still be discussing this thread next year.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Thank you both for the replies.
No, I am definitely not starting from scratch. In fact, I am using speaker kits from Madisound. I just need to build the boxes according to the specs provided by them. I originally wanted to use hardwood, but you, along with everyone else I have spoken with, have convinced me that MDF will be superior. Thanks for all the help and the thoughtful responses.
Chris
Did Madisound give you the cut list for the material? I think they can do that, too. Did you talk to Larry Hitch?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
No, I did not get a cut list - I was planning on making one this weekend. But I would rather have them send me one. They did not mention it - I wonder why? I will call.
Thanks
My hardwood store carries MDF veneered with any number of different woods. Ash, Cherry, Oak, Mahogany, etc. That might be just the ticket for enclosures. You would still have to edge band, but the combination of wood look with MDF density should do the trick.
Bill in N. CA
They may not say anything about cut lists because they might wait till the customer asks ot they may assume you can do your own. If they gave you box dimensions, use them- proportions do make a difference.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Thank you both for the replies.
No, I am definitely not starting from scratch. In fact, I am using speaker kits from Madisound. I just need to build the boxes according to the specs provided by them. I originally wanted to use hardwood, but you, along with everyone else I have spoken with, have convinced me that MDF will be superior. Thanks for all the help and the thoughtful responses.
Chris
Are these speakers going to be fixtures for a stereo system, or transported around as part of a PA system? If the latter, I wonder whether MDF can take the oblique-angle beating to which PA systems are typically subjected during transport, set-up, and tear-down...To the man with a hammer, all the world is a nail.
I have a book on guitar gear, and they show the construction of "amps" from Mesa-Boogie, dovetailed walnut (from early 80's I think) - sweet looking. Don't give up on the hardwood.
Donkey
Thanks for the reply! There was a time when MDF didn't exist and they had to use hardwood.
Plywood was used before MDF. Remember, speaker systems in boxes haven't even existed for 100 years yet. First, they used segmented wooden horns and rolled sheet metal. Then, cone speakers were invented (in the 1920s), which needed to be in an enclosure and we got some bass. In an open backed enclosure (also called "infinite baffle"), the enclosure is only there to isolate the front of the pressure wave from the back to avoid cancellation. In a sealed enclosure, the air volume acts as a spring and controls the motion of the cone and the internal volume of the box, coupled with the physical characteristics of the speaker motor assembly, determines the system's frequency response and power handling. A vented box is more efficient because a vent really does just one frequency well and this augments the speaker's bass response if the tuning frequency is placed correctly in relation to the speaker/box's freqency response. Since there is no such thing as an infinitely steep slope determined by physical means, the vent will reproduce frequencies above and below the tuned frequency but their volume level drops off rapidly (12db/octave). Vented boxes also contribute more distortion than sealed boxes. A vent (port) operated on teh same principle as blowing air over the top of a bottle. It will reproduce one frequency unless there's some way to change the internal volume of the bottle.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
So, your screen name has meaning!You are either courageous or foolish to take on the task of explaining loudspeaker enclosure design on this forum, but my hat is off to you. I would like to know where you get the information that ported enclosures contribute more distortion and are more efficient. Considering all the other sources of distortion as well as the technical definition of distortion, I suspect that the statement is not necessarily true or is insignificant. The second statement is an oversimplification, at best.I suspect that building the enclosures as Madisound instructs will yield a fine result. (They designed my crossover using their computer program. It is excellent.) The enclosure material should be something as stiff as possible with as much mass as possible. MDF pretty well fits the bill, affordable wood does not. There may be some species that does, but I couldn't afford it.Cadiddlehopper
Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, by Vance Dickason, The Handbook of Acoustics by F. Alton Everest, 28 years of speaker manufacturer training seminars/multi-day training, MECP certification, Cedia certification, designing speakers using Term Pro (sold and used by Rockford-Fosgate, written by Wayne Harris), IASCA (International Auto Sound Challenge Association) judging- sound quality and reading a lot of trade/technical mags and books over the years is where I have gotten the information. Also, using RTA (real time analyser) for various systems (auto, home and live music) tells me that vented boxes are more efficient. The difference is not insignificant, it's close to 3db in a lot of cases and if you know anything about audio, you know that increasing the volume by 3db is very noticeable- you get the same increase by doubling the power output from an amplifier. When you can use the energy from the back of the pressure wave in addition to the energy from the front, you have higher net output. You don't have this with a sealed box. Also, because of the phase cancellations and augmentation (actually, it's called "comb filtering"), the frequency response of and the sound from, vented speakers is distorted in the pure sense of the word. If you were to send a pure tone through an amp with negligible distortion and use one of the highest quality microphones, and then viewed the waveform on an oscilloscope, the waveform from the sealed box would be more true to the original. When a standing wave inside of the box is allowed to affect the cone with less damping than a sealed box, the original motion of the cone will be modulated by the additional energy and it's the intermodulation distortion that makes it sound really grungy.Unelss the system is driven to high percentages of distortion, the speakers will provide the most (usually in the 1%-2% range under the best conditions. Fortunately, human ears can't hear distortion specs this low. I was there during the late-'70s spec race by Pioneer, Sansui, Kenwood, etc. It was a total PITA because 95% of the people coming in and asking about the specs they read about in Audio, Stereo Review, etc, didn't know what the heck they were asking about. I stopped reading Audio when they ran an ad from someone who was selling a special green magic marker, which was to be used for marking the outer permiter of CDs. The ad said that light from the laser was scattered by the lands and pits on the surface and was lost, but if the CDs were marked with this green pen, the bass was tighter, the overall sound was better and it was very noticeable. BS! It's DATA! If it comes in slightly later, it's ignored as errors.Re: Madisound- I agree. I have bought drivers and crossover components from them and except for some info I recently got from one of their people, they have been great. They are a great resource for building speakers, whether from a kit, buying them pre-assembled or if someone wants to design their own. "I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Edited 10/12/2006 12:16 am by highfigh
Interested to see the real meaning of your moniker. I'll disagree with you a bit about ported enclosures. A good combination of enclosure and drivers can make an acoustic suspension speaker as responsive as a ported enclosure. On the other hand, nothing beats a transmission line for accurate, balanced reproduction.Are you a multichannel advocate or interested in vintage gear?Edit: deficencies in material stiffness and deadness can be accomodated with sufficent internal bracing. Also, hardwood can't be bad. Someone is selling maple knobs guaranteed to improve the sound of your equipment on ebay in the $100 range.
Edited 10/12/2006 12:20 am by observer
A driver/box combination designed for sealed CAN be efficient but you can't use this driver in a vented enclosure unless the Qts is in the .37-.47 range or low power is applied. Even then, it's not the best way to design a speaker system- using a speaker that's made specifically for a sealed OR vented driver is best. The wrong vent/enclosure seriously decreases the power handling of a driver. The electromechanical characteristics of the driver determine the type of enclosure. When one driver that is designed to be "borderline" goes into a sealed enclosure and then a vented enclosure, the output from the vented enclosure is higher. I like tighter bass but not totally constricted. Qts of .707 is very nice to listen to. I hate bass that rings. The speakers I built were originally going to be used in my basement workshop, so I designed them with 6.5" drivers in a vented enclosure. I designed the boxes and analysed them with pink noise in a reverberant field before designing the crossovers (made more sense than trying to make them do what I wanted them to, even though they could only do what they were physically able to). I eventually changed the tweeters to Vifa and that was years ago. They never made it to the basement. Human voice is a great test of a speaker and these are really natural sounding. A bit of luck helps, too. A T-line is a great thing but if extremely high output is needed, they aren't the best way to go. For sound quality, it doesn't get much better, though. Are you trying to plug Bose here?Maple knobs for better sound-ya gotta love it! I prefer rosewood, myself. I like multi-channel if the system is set up correctly and the source material is mixed for that kind of system. Pseudo-surround is like the current equivalent of Quad. Nothing real sounding about it. I would like to hear the Talking Heads music that Jerry remixed for 5.1 some time. I like his production values and the remixes should be really good. My system is stereo now, I plan to get an AV receiver eventually but I'm not in a particular hurry to use it for music that was recorded in stereo. I haven't decided on which model yet but I would like to be able to use my Conrad Johnson amp again (now that I figured out that the bright light and puff of smoke was just a tube losing it's envelope and not a major problem). I don't generalize much with this stuff, I listen to each piece and decide. I worked for a system integrator and we installed a theater display space at the office, about $100K at our cost. I left before it was done (actually, it's a year later and it's still not done) but it was pretty nice.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I bow to your vastly superior expertise, and am very much enjoying your comments.Bose? Nope. After trying many speakers, I settled on 1970's Kirksaeter monitors (3 way acoustic suspension with long throw woofer and mid) powered by an early 70s Sony STR6200F MOSFET receiver in my shop. In the house I use the TA3200F, TA2000F and ST5000FW MOSFET seperates that Sony used to try and crack the McIntosh market. They drive a set of Burt Webb designed Lentek Monitors, TLs that use KEF and Celestion drivers and utilize a nine foot line. Perhaps not efficent enough for institutional applications but easily enough for home use. And the music....oh my!Any comments on TQWPs? I've been playing around with the concept and plan on building a set over the winter.
I sold a lot of 3200F's. Pretty bulletproof and put out WAY more than they were rated for. I haven't actively looked into any speaker designs in quite a while. Too much going on during summer.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Highfigh,
Have enjoyed your comments and explanations; learned quite a bit from this thread.
Purely out of curiosity, what is your opinion of this old stuff: Klipsch classic speakers (Klipschhorns, La Scalas, etc), original Phase Linear amps (Bob Carver designed and sold -- not the later Pioneer-manufactured versions), and Quad electrostatic speakers? While we're at it, what do you think of the current Bob Carver stuff (Sunfire)?Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
In the right size of room with good acoustics (there it is again), the big Klipsch sound very real. The problem with most of the ones I have heard is that they were in really reflective or small rooms. I was never a big fan of the Heresy, though. Those little EV horns kill me. The Phase Linear amps sounded nice but were pretty touchy. They don't like difficult loads at all. When they blow up, they go big time. I don't have much experience with the Sunfire stuff, other than hearing one of the small subs, maybe a few times and that was in a stereo shop so it doesn't count. Too big of a space, not the same equipment as I have, etc. I like the Quads, especially the big ones. Any chance that you have an Empire turntable with a Shure/Pickering?Stanton/Empire/Astatic cartridge or were you more into the AR mystique with a Grado?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Highfigh,
<<Any chance that you have an Empire turntable with a Shure/Pickering?Stanton/Empire/Astatic cartridge or were you more into the AR mystique with a Grado?>>
My turntable is a 1986 vintage Denon with a Shure V-15 Type 4 cartridge. Running them through a mid-80s vintage Carver tuner/pre-amp and 1976 vintage PL 400 into a pair of La Scalas.
Some friends of mine had an old, old AR turntable -- very nice piece of equipment -- but they weren't running Grado or anything like that for a cartridge.
At one time, I had seriously considered buying one of the old Thorens TTs and one of the Studer Revox straight line tracking TTs, but never did (couldn't afford a Linn and a SME tonearm....). The other main part of my (pre-digital) system is an old Teac A-7300 1/4 track reel to reel, running through a dbx 224 NR system.
One time at an audio club in Germany, I got to hear a dbx-encoded tape of a drum solo recorded live in a Mannheim jazz club. They were running it on a 1/2 track A-7300 thru a dbx 224, a Crown DC 150 pre- and power amp, and a pair of fibreglass industrial La Scalas. The sound stage and the dynamics, along with the tone coloring, convinced you, if you closed your eyes, that the drummer was right there in the same room going to town on the drums...absolutely fantastic.
A different friend of mine -- the guy who introduced me to my La Scalas -- traded his La Scalas in for a pair of the large late-70s vintage Quad electrostatics. Superb sound but not capable of very much volume.
These days, my ears are not as sensitive as they used to be, but they still make me cringe at low-quality sound. I'm still of the opinion that the vast majority of CDs sound harsh and "electronic" compared to LPs, but such is the way of the world..... I won't even get started on mp3s, etc....
<<In the right size of room with good acoustics (there it is again), the big Klipsch sound very real. The problem with most of the ones I have heard is that they were in really reflective or small rooms. I was never a big fan of the Heresy, though. Those little EV horns kill me. >>
I have to agree with you. They do sound best in a large, moderately dampened room. It drives my wife nuts to this day, but whenever we move, we (read I) build the living room around the speakers; l can't complain, though, because she does indulge me on that. She still tells people that she married the speakers along with me.... I also have a pair of Heresy speakers, but they are for a secondary system; all I can say is that the La Scalas spoil you.
Happy listening!Tschüß!
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus dem Land der Rio Grande!!
James
If all of your CDs sound harsh, try different cables. If you're using cheap ones, go to a good home theater store and get some Liberty cables made up or if they have Stinger, from AAMP of America, get those. I have Stinger cables on my DVD player, which I added after my original CD player started acting up (still works and it's from 1990). I had hte cables on the CD player and hooked the DVD to whatever was in the Video 1 jacks. Man, was I disappointed in the sound! Then, I remembered what the CD went through and it made a huge dfference. Still not as warm as an LP but I can listen to it. It'll be better when I get some new tubes for my Conrad-Johnson.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Someone is selling maple knobs guaranteed to improve the sound of your equipment on ebay in the $100 range.
I can go one better than that. I ran across this site several years ago. It's awfully well done. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
OK, you win. That's the kind of BS that keeps me from wanting to sell audio in a store. Did you look at the amp link? MDF chassis? That's ridiculous!
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Yeah, I combed through the site pretty thoroughly, years ago, mostly to figure out if they were putting on a grand spoof, or trying to snare suckers.
I ended up convinced it was tongue in cheek, but done amazingly well. I particularly like the Granito finish.
There are similar items at a motorcycle supply place I buy from. Aerostich is best known as the maker of a well-regarded riding suit. It's not made of leather, so they sell Leather Smell in a Bottle for $509. Of course, you can't really order it (or any of the other gag items, like the EMP Cell Phone Eliminator). I like their sense of humor. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
"Considering all the other sources of distortion as well as the technical definition of distortion, I suspect that the statement is not necessarily true or is insignificant."The electronics contribute very little distortion these days. Bad acoustics is one of the biggest problems that nobody wants to address and can easily make great equipment sound terrible. Which technical definition are you using? Can you show it? Distortion is just altering, whether good or bad. High Fidelity basically means 'highly truthful" (fidelis= truth in Latin). "The second statement is an oversimplification, at best."Is that a bad thing?
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
"Distortion is just altering..."If I remember: harmonic distortion is the unintended production of power at frequencies which are multiples of those deliberately generated; intermodulation distortion is the unintended production of power due to the interaction of power produced at two or more frequencies.As you state, poor acoustics are an admitted problem. The audio room makes a huge difference in unexpected ways. I believe it was Julian Hirsch who once stated that lack of smooth frequency response was what made loudspeakers (& other components) sound most different. From my 40 years of dabbling with audio, I tend to agree with his judgment. During that time great improvements have been made as well as our ability to engineer equipment, especially speaker systems. Our rooms haven't improved that much. I don't pretend to be the expert here, but I find that audio can be enjoyed without too much worry about distortion these days.""The second statement is an oversimplification, at best." Is that a bad thing?"IMHO, it is. Having a tendency to be a reductionist, it bothers me. Many are the problems that were never understood until reduced to their fundamentals which, in turn, are understood in the overall scheme. For instance, the function of an enclosure port is not simply a matter of efficiency.Out of curiosity, have you spotted some obvious errors in Dickason's books? I consult them also, but have been frustrated on occasions. BTW, how about crossovers as distortion sources, using your definition?Maintain a dubious attitude = keep an open mind.Cadiddlehopper
Well, you guys are way beyond me in both knowledge and appreciation of speaker design and performance. Sounds like I made a good decision to go with Madisound - I don't have any plans to become an electrical engineer and am happy to have the speakers designed for me. Your conversations, however, have been informative and interesting - so thanks for that.
I have additional questions. I have conceded and will use MDF.
Can this material be worked with hand tools at all; e.g., can I cut it with a saw and use handplanes to straighten and square?
When building the boxes, should I veneer the entire box or do I need to rabbit the corners and glue in hardwood. For example, I could build the 4 sides and front, veneer the box corner to corner, cut the speaker holes, mount the speaker and close the back. This is what I am leaning towards. Suggestions on construction techniques will be very helpful. Also, where is the best place to see a selection of veneers.
I plan to use the exact specs provided by Madisound for the boxes.
Thanks for all the help.
Chris
And do THD and IM not alter the signal? I didn't think it was necessary to distinguish between the types because they are just making changes to the signal but if you acoustically modulate a sound source, is it still pure? No, it's not. THD and TIM specs are in the range where they're basically inaudible now. Once they get back into more than a couple of whole numbers of %, they'll be relevant again. There are other forms of distortion though, and I'm going to jump ahead to the question about crossovers. Any time you send a signal through an electrical component, there is some kind of loss, either due to resistance or phase shift. Resistors do what they do but there is no practical room temperature superconductor, therefore, loss is inevitable. When AC is sent through a cap or coil, the phase shifts 90°. A 1st order x-over (6db/octave) will produce 90° of phase shift, a 2nd order, 180°, and so on. This is the reason a midrange needs to be wired "out of phase" in a 12db/octave x-over. Is it distortion, yes. Does it hurt the sound, maybe- if the listener can hear the difference. It can definitely be seen on a spectrum analyser as deep notches in the response. Bad x-overs cause a lot of distortion, good ones are designed and tested so it's not as noticeable and are application-specific. Using a Butterworth alignment doesn't work when you're off-axis but a Linkwitz-Reilly or Chebychev sounds better because they're asymmetrical and the phase shift isn't as noticeable.Talk or whistle through a fan that's on and listen to the sound. It's an extreme but valid example of modulation. The IM (or T.I.M.) and Harmonic distortion you're referring to are usually caused by the electronics but it's very easy to distort the sound acoustically. An example of acoustical variable phase shift is heard by listening to yourself exhaling while doing pushups on a hard surface. If you don't want to do pushups (this is how I first noticed this phenomenon), move your hand toward your face and away, listening to the sound of your exhaling. Why go into a Phd, level discussion when the OP asked whether MDF or solid wood should be used for a pair of speaker boxes? It's like being asked for teh time and telling the person how to make a watch. The port is to augment bass response when a sealed box is lacking in that area, due to space constraints or an inherent inability to produce deep bass. If the driver can deal with what amounts to a big leak in the enclosure, it may sound good. Otherwise, a driver that is designed for this application must be used to get good results. As I said, a vent reproduces one frequency and the response attenuates at the rate of 12db/octave above and below this tuning frequency. Blending this tuning is the part that affects the overall sound and power handling of the speaker system one way or the other. If you have heard live music, were the speakers sealed or vented? Vented. Why? Because a vented system can produce more SPL than a sealed system. That's the reason vented cabinets are used in sound reinforcement- they produce high SPL and the drivers can be designed around this need. I never said a vented box has to be inherently louder but if a driver is mounted in a baffle for acquiring the Theil-Small parameters and a driver designed for sealed use and one for vented use produce the same SPL with the same input voltage, the vented system will be louder. Yes, I noticed some inconsistencies in the Cookbook, as well as some things that are just plain wrong in the Handbook of Acoustics. Everest said that humans have bad memory for sounds and if that were so, how would we recognise each other's voices or identify the sound of anything? How is perfect pitch possible, whether absolute or relative? I haven't read whether of these books in a long time but I know where they are if I need them. It's a lot easier to look it up online and chances are, the info it more accurate now. Certainly more up-to-date.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
"Why go into a Phd, level discussion when the OP asked whether MDF or solid wood should be used for a pair of speaker boxes?"Well, why did you do that?Cadiddlehopper
I couldn't go to Phd level if I tried.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I am moving along on my speaker project, using MDF, but I am not sure about one aspect. The directions do not seem to be consistent about where, how much and what type of insulation to use. The kit came with 1" foam and bags of pillow-like stuff.
I am building 5 speakers: The surrounds are approximately 12x9x9 with a 61/2" woofer and a tweeter. The right and left are approximately 20x12x10 with two 61/2" woofers and a tweeter; it has an internal baffle wall. The center is approximately 24x 13x10 with two 61/2" woofers, a 5" mid and a tweeter. It has an internal baffle that surrounds the tweeter and the mid.
Thanks,
Chris
Just a guess: the foam is probably intended to line the box walls; the fluffy stuff (maybe polyester) is probably intended to fill each woofer box. Don't live by my words. You should contact Madisound for instructions as to what to do with it.The baffles most likely isolate the tweeters from the woofers. The woofers can create a high air pressure. If that pressure is applied to a midrange or tweeter, it can do damage to its diaphragm or voice coil. The things you are calling baffles probably should create sealed boxes over the midranges and/or tweeters. Most of the time tweeters are built in such a way that they are themselves sealed. Occasionally a midrange unit will have its own seal.Cadiddlehopper
Thank you for your reply - I have the same question up on the forum at Madisound - If I don't get any responses today, I will go directly to Madisound.
Chris
First of all, most guitar speakers aren't in closed boxes and this makes a huge difference. Second, Mesa-Boogie has always charged a premium for the Walnut or other fancy wood and the opinion as to whether it sounds better is up to the person who buys one. The old classic amps were generally made of finger-jointed pine and they sounded good enough to be copied and/or reissued later. A guitar amp that doesn't 'color' the sound will sound terrible. It's the emphasis that makes it sound different/better in a lot of cases. Stereo speakers shouldn't 'color' the sound much because the goal is, or was, to hear the music sound the way it does when/where it was mixed or to make the instruments sound the way they do in real life. Having said that, unless someone is willing and able to make their system and listening room sound like a studio's control room, it's not going to be the same unless they get there accidentally. Most people can't afford to do this and the goal becomes having a system that sounds good to the owner. Also, completely accurate sounding recordings are irritating to listen to, IMO. Guitar, bass and a lot of other instruments can be recorded pretty well but if anyone has stood or sat next to a drum set, they don't sound like a recording. To each, their own, but I can't think of a single speaker manufacturer that uses solid wood for their boxes and I've been selling audio/video for almost 30 years. Some use composites, most use MDF and veneer with wood, vinyl or some paper garbage that simulates wood. With the most expensive speaker systems retailing at over $100K, I seriously doubt solid wood is out of the budget. I know Infinity used oak and Rosewood, hand-carved by a shipwright, for the IRS system but that was only for the midrange/tweeter panels. The woofers were in an MDF box with matching rosewood on the outside.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
What wood there was in the earlier Bose 901's was solid hardwood!
Sorry just could'nt resist!
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Did you ever see the equalization curve from the matching equalizer? It's like taking a 12 band equalizer, increasing the +/- range, dipping the midrange almost completely down, then raising the high and lows to their maximum and making a straight line from mid to highs and lows, like a big V. There's is nothing about the 901s that approaches normal speaker design. When such a high % of a panel is removed (the faces with 4 mids in each), stiffness in what remains is the best quality. The only two reasons they produce any bass at all is the somewhat larger wave front cause by four adjacent drivers and through equalization. When I replaced drivers on 901s, they had particle board boxes.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
I did say earlier models! The ones in my living room are solid walnut. I agree completely the design of 901's is best described as abnormal. I have seen the curve from the eq and it is indeed a steep V.
What matters in the end is the reproduction of music and to my ears the 901's are still unsurpassed.
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
I did see 'earlier model', I was referring to the later ones, but they did change to particle board pretty early on. No offense.As I said, to each, their own. Ultimately, if someone likes the sound of their system, that's the goal. Sometimes, what they have is the best they have heard, period. Sometimes, they just haven't been exposed to a truly great sounding system. Also, everyone's hearing is different and we all need a different curve to hear things equally. Throw in the fact that all speaker companies have their own idea of how a speaker should sound and what do you have? Consumer Electronics at its finest! Garbage marketed as if it were gold, great equipment that will never hit the market, etc. About 25 years ago, a couple of friends and I got gooned one night and were talking about some of the ridiculous things that were being marketed. I said "Hey- we should gold plate some fuses! They'll buy 'em for $5 apiece!". Too bad we didn't have the money to do it.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
No offense taken, the newest ones I've seen apart are series II.
I had the good fortune to be exposed to a lot of exceptional gear and a lot of crap too. My hearing unfortunately is not what it used to be. I have two curves plotted for my 20 band eq, one that measures flat in my room and one that matches the curve of my present hearing, unfortunately the two curves differ greatly. It's a bitch getting old!
I always favored discrete transistors over tubes (no offense) and I really dislike the integrated circuitry. I sold most of my gear when I moved aboard a boat and never did replace it when I moved back ashore into this poorly built boat that is fast aground (house). I make do these days with my 901's an Mcintosh MC2105 amp C32 preamp and MR78 tuner and a Audio Control eq/analyser. Oldie's but good solid stuff for a fart with aging ears! The computer does CD and mp3 duty through the preamp.
Do you remember the Dahlquist plasma speakers with their tank of argon?
Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. ~Italian Proverb
Nobody's hearing is what it used to be- it's just a matter of exposing the ears to things that will speed the process along too fast. I carry ear plugs wherever I go and if I'm going to be exposed to loud or constant noise or music, they go in and I don't care if I get weird looks. I just bought a set of Hearos, which have a filter that limits the intensity to a set attenuation but doesn't muffle the highs as much as my silicone rubber plugs. So far, so good.Old discreet transistors (germanium) generally sounded pretty bad when they were driven hard (think of '60s rock songs with FuzzFace distortion box) but once they came up with V-FET and MOS-FET, it was a lot better. I had a couple of Sony V-FET amps that were pretty good but not great. Also had a pair and a single Mac 75 that were in good enough condition but really didn't sound great, either. Most tube amps, even the ones that were supposed to be really good, were limited by their output transformers and power supplies but the high-end market brought changes there, too. I recapped my Conrad-Johnson supply and added some capacitance and had the frequency response checked and it was about 22- 23KHz +/- 2db. Most of the tube amp specs I have seen (unless it was an amp in the extreme high end) were in the 30- 15KHz +/- 3db range. I like some solid-state amps but there are a lot that have a shrill top end, which irritates me a lot. I still have pretty good hearing (although a bit of threshold shift) and can hear TV transformers squealing (~17.5KHz). I wouldn't worry if the curves differ greatly. If you have ever seen the Fletcher-Munson Equal Loudness curve, you'll see why the high and low ends need boosting. That's why so many people use the "Happy Face" EQ curve on their equalizers- it sounds good. Until the volume gets to the point where the ears perceive a somewhat flatter response. I would worry about EQ-ing the room first. That gets you close to what was heard (within reason) when it was mixed. As I said before, it's not likely that anyone will hear any recording the way it sounded in the mixing room so we may as well just get what sounds good to us. I remember the plasma speakers, I don't remember if the ones I heard were Dahlquist or not. My dad went to an Audio/Hi-Fi Show in Chicago in the '50s and they had Voice of Music Plasma speakers at that one.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Last year I installed a pair of Rumplestiltskins in an open air enclosure. Probably would have been good enough, but for my tastes I tweaked them to 20% of the USRDA while maintaining a very low TQM in a quasi metaphysical state (within .0000003 of the rated specs for the AN/SQS-26CX). Next I charged the particle relays with hyperactive xenon gas for even dispersion across all frequencies. Of course, I should have gone with the argon beam phytoplankton in a tertiary micro-burst emitter array but that was too cumbersome. As well, I wired the whole assembly with close-coupled RNA micro-threads terminated in closed-loop cellular switches. This alone created a sensory environment completely devoid of mirror effect THD. The power dissipation is minimal with only .0021 KWH when driving the entire array to a SPL of 117db per second. I was a little concerned about the asynchronous phase distortion produced by tuning the system so tightly (within 20% of the USRDA) but fortunately, the silver-oxide protean NAND gates maintained the harmonic balance at a nicely attenuated 80 joules. At some point, I plan to install a bank of octal generators to convert the hexadecimal wave form to binary thereby buffering the signal for input to the sigmoid process. It's been a lot of work and expense, but its worth it: I haven't heard of any other system under 500k that matches the specs that NAVOPCENTCOM established as the normalized ideal. Mine does that!
For anyone interested in building a similar system, use the following equation as a baseline function for all input/output parameters. It is very important that whatever system you build balances angular momentum with magnetic flux.
View ImageView Image
The only remaing issue that I need to resolve is keeping the constant velocity transformer to less than 12 mFarads per parsec. I'm sure I'll figure it out...
Edited 11/10/2006 10:27 am ET by pzaxtl
What I would do is use MDF, but put a soild lipping around all the edges of the MDF boards. Making sure that the lipping is wide enough to cut your dovetails is. Then veneer over the hardwood lipped MDF boards, and then cut your dovetails. So everything lookks like solid hardwood, but the core of the box is MDF.
Kaleo
http://www.kalafinefurniture.blogspot.com
My son builds competition stereos in vehicles. The louder and better sounding the better. For quality of sound MDF is your best choice. You are right MDF is more stable but hardwood is more pleasing to the eye. Maybe you could have the best of both worlds. Build it out of MDF and put a hardwood veneer over.
I did a lot of competition car audio systems too and all we ever used was MDF although to get a really strong box for the zipperheads who wanted to go deaf ASAP, we would coat it with a few layers of polyester resin and/or fiberglass. If we needed 1" thickness, sometimes we would make the box from 1/2" and coat it with poly/glass and basically "glue" the outer 1/2" layer on and screw it together. I specialized in systems that would do well in the SPL contests as well as sound quality and RTA test, but actually sounded good at normal levels, too. Nothing more useless than a system that cranks but sounds like garbage at low levels.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Thanks, Dan. That's pretty much what I have decided to do.
Chris
END OF "DISCUSSION" OK
Of all the self-agrandizing techno-dazzle in this thread, the only two statements making any sense are found in the last three entries:
(1) For quality of sound MDF is your best choice.
(2) Thanks, Dan.Ê That's pretty much what I have decided to do.
Sheeeeesh!
Hi Chris, I'm not sure if you're still watching this thread, but in my mind it is a tough decision. It's actually what I do for a living, I make hardwood guitar speaker cabinets, http://www.kwcabs.com The argument is a sound one that one is more appealing that the other, and here is what I can say. MDF is most certainly the most popular choice for home audio and car audio, and the reason is two fold, firstly it machines extremely well and is very stable, both of these things mean it is easy to work with, is predictable, and won't have many problems. The second reason is one in the music community, that people who are really serious about their tone shun, and that is that being it is so predictable it is very easy to tune. Because of this lack of resonance MDF is the choice for these areas because they tend to fine tune their sound with cabinet dimensions and speaker drivers. However, the tone is lifeless in the fact that it had no inherent character. In the guitar world, tonewoods make a world of difference, and it is no different with the speaker cabinet. There are a relatively few number of popular speaker drivers for guitar (there are a lot, but about 6 are probably found in 90% of equipment) and the main material choice is void free Baltic Birch ply (another consideration for you) however, the sound is very generic in most of them, and that is where the short comings are. If you use different hardwoods you can tailor your tone to your liking. Now, while this is great in the guitar world, in terms of audio reproduction you're most interested with accuracy, and the fine tuning abilities of MDF and ply really tilt the balance in their favor. You can build two cabinets the exact same size, one from Walnut, the other from Pine and I can tell you they will sound very different. Maybe not extremely so to the person without an ear for sound, but they will be different. In some cases you make like it more, but the unpredictability of it all is what can make it very frustrating. If I were you, and you are in fact using these for home audio, my suggestion would be to go with MDF and veneer it if you like the look of hardwoods, or use a very good void free plywood if you must have the true woodiness. Best of luck, and sorry to make this such a long winded message.
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