Or a bad lip reading of Citizen Kane. |
|
Or as Gilda or Baba Wa Wa would pronounce it?
|
And many times, what a manufacturer states as "rosewood" is not rosewood. Probably 3/4s of Rosewood veneers are actually Pau Ferro, or some other quasi-rosewood.
But really, what does it matter if the customer likes the look? As long as I like the grain pattern and color, and it's not a faux wood vinyl, I could care less. |
I paid over $300 for quality Rosewood veneer- just the sheet, the actual wood, nothing more- barely enough to cover 4 subs or maybe a pair of floor standers. $300 just for the raw material. Even given better pricing and incredibly efficient manufacture that still equates to at least $200, more like $300 or more by the time its on a finished speaker. Which then gets marked up at least 100% from wholesale to retail.
Rosewood by the way is not a color, its a species of wood with its own distinctive patterns of color and grain, depending on how it was selected and sawn. Not that the average customer has even the slightest clue. Wood is like leather- most "leather" is bits of leather ground up and reconstituted and pressed and cut until it has more in common with paper than the hide of any animal.
Some of which matters if like me you're building something. Or paying someone to build some for you. If you hire a guy to build you some Rosewood speakers and he tries to trick you with stained walnut I can see where you'd be steamed. I fail however to see how it matters if you're just shopping for speakers. Don't you just buy the ones that look and sound nice? Does it really matter what they call it?
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Right? |
It was a sled along along!
(Whoops...misread title...)
|
Guitar players "have a clue." I've owned a lot of solid rosewood (backs and sides) guitars, both Indian and the now protected Brazilian, and also have a newer guitar made of rosewood-ish looking (redder) cocobolo which is both fun to say and poisonous (look it up). I have an Indian rosewood Martin 000-28 that still smells like roses as it was unused and trapped in a case by the previous owner for 5 years before I bought it. That amazing smell is fading but I like it...it's good...I once picked up and examined a solid rosewood (body and neck) Fender Telecaster belonging to Delaney Bramlett when I was a stage hand for a Delaney and Bonnie show, finding out later that it was given to him by George Harrison who used it on "Let it Be"...Harrison's estate now owns it again. This concludes my rosewood trivia comments. |
Rosewood that smells like roses? Weird |
That's where the name "rosewood" came from...what? You thought it was the thorns? |
There are many species of rosewood. Rosewoods as a group have a very high specific gravity, much higher than walnut. They are tough woods with a very tight grain and make excellent veneers. Very few woods are as good in this regard. As cabinet woods they are a royal PITA. They are so hard that you can not use standard hand tools to work the stuff. You can shape rosewood with rasps like Fred Maloof who in his own immutable style made rocking chairs out of the stuff. He made one for President Regan. The point being that real rosewoods are much more durable than most other veneers so one would certainly not be doing the customer a service by faking the stuff. Oh and rosewoods got the name because a fresh cut surface smells like roses, except for cocobolo which smells like crap. Only Zebra wood smells worse.
|
@wolf_garcia +1 on the rosewood trivia coming from a fellow guitar player. As a tonewood used mainly in backs and sides of acoustic guitars, rosewood has a much different sound in terms of shimmer, attack, and decay compared to other commonly used woods like mahogany which has a "drier" sound typically. I know after 1969 Martin guitars switched from the protected Brazilian to the Indian rosewood. There is definitely a difference between the two. Visually is most striking as the Brazilian rosewood has much more figuring and the grain is generally straight on the Indian. I'm fortunate also to have an early 1960s Arne Vodder designed credenza made with Brazilian. It sits next to my audio rack. |
My stepmother owned a Brazilian rosewood Steinway grand...sort of a mind blowing waste but still...kind of like the rooms filled with solid Hawaiian koa wood furniture I'd seen in Hawaii. Note that Martin has been quietly buying those older Brazilian rosewood guitars like D28s, taking them apart and making fancier guitars out of them to sell for large bucks. I think a guitar can sound amazing regardless of the sides and back woods, and at a recent seminar with Santa Cruz's Richard Hoover (my cocobolo hide glue OM is a Santa Cruz) he said he prefers the sound of mahogany bodied guitars. Take that, big spenders! |
I know this thread is a year old, but as a woodworker there are a few things I'd like to clear up. It is true that Brazilian Rosewood is hard and tough, but not to the point of being unworkable with hand tools. If your tools are sharp, it will cut just fine. Macassar Ebony is harder and more dense.
Finishing rosewood can be a challenge due to the high oil content. A seal coat such as dewaxed shellac should be applied prior to lacquer or polyurethane. Other woods I've worked with have the same problem (Padauk, Bubinga, to name a few).
As for B&W speakers, the veneer looks to be walnut with a red tinted oil finish applied. The Prestige finish on 802 D3 and 805 D3 is called Santos Rosewood (other names are Bolivian Rosewood and Pau Ferro) with a gloss lacquer finish. |
Now i'm paranoid that my rosewood veneers that were a $600 upcharge are just stained run of the mill crap. I think i'll buff out a section on the back to sniff for the scent of roses. could be a class action lawsuit here. |
Now i'm paranoid that my rosewood veneers that were a $600 upcharge are just stained run of the mill crap. I think i'll buff out a section on the back to sniff for the scent of roses. could be a class action lawsuit here. Post a picture. It can be next to impossible to distinguish some of the Dalbergia species from each other, but so called run of the mill crap can be spotted. |
Great thread:-)
even my lowly Lyle has real Rosewood sides.
i grew up in indentured servitude to a gunsmith and cabinet maker. His mentor Earl Mcrillis of Norwalk OH had one of the largest wood block sample collections in the world. My dad had his as well and often before dinner we had to ID samples . Earl’s collection went to the Smithsonian on his passing as I recall.
market prices certainly drive speaker pricing, just helped a buddy choose veneer for his Vandersteen Quattro. Fun |
Also for those interested you can see a slab live edge Walnut amp stand project in my Casa Pacifica system pictures. Local firm has specialized equipment to plane and sand massive table tops - this was scrap to a job. Isolation on this stand is all HRS ( Harmonic Resolution ).
also some Ambrosia Maple projects in pics also...
fun |
I still have my Clearwave Duet 6 monitors with a lovely Indian Rosewood veneer that looks as beautiful as the day I got them. It's a great looking wood.
All the best,
Nonoise |
