@ebm They make fine church bells.
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"It depends on the wires which should be copper and the electronics, it took me years to get them to sound my best." You're a lot more patient than most folks here and probably a perfectionist. I would give it a month and then move on to something else. For me, any component I buy must sound better than what it replaced, right out of the box. |
I agree with Baltic Birch , Lois speaker designer from omega speakers , sold me the rs8 supercone made with Baltic Birch it so beautiful and sound really good, then I have this Norh speaker made with synthetic marble , made in Thailand design by Michael Barnes, The Andra they do have granite in it... |
Which ever material is lower mass would be better. High mass materials have a low resonance point. Very difficult to deal with low frequencies. Aluminum has never seemed viable as a musical speaker cabinet material. I don't think it will stand the test of time. Plywood is by its nature a composite material that has self dampening properties. When used properly this can sound excellent. I think some old violins are made with plywood. Not sure. |
WATT uses inert cabinets. Yet,*internal bracing* with all the wood combinations mentioned, will drastically cut down on resonance and vibration. Keep in mind, drum sets consist of wood plies or solid wood, and they get their unique tone from the choice of the various wood used. Different wood types resonate at different points. MDF would make for a very dead sounding drum because it resists resonating. Who knows? I would think the drivers and the quality of the crossover would make the big difference. |
If we read with an open mind - "Why wood sounds good": http://www.mother-of-tone.com/mother.htm Very interesting indeed. |
^By that argument, speaker cones should be made of doped skin, like an Ed Gein lampshade. Speakers are not musical instruments. Their purpose is to create a perfect replication of the recording through air movement, with minimal influence on the signal from the cabinet or diaphragm materials. Anything that resonates during this process is a coloration, an alteration of the original sound. If you use a spruce horn to project the sound of a recorded violin, essentially what you’ll get is the sound of a violin that’s been altered by further wood resonance. One might as well encapsule the violin within another violin. It will no longer sound like a Stradivari, but will sound like a violin made of that cheap, new-growth spruce that the builder got from their local lumber yard. This still might be pleasing to the ear, but if it resonates more (or at a higher frequency where our ears are more sensitive) vs the plastic horn, it is a greater alteration of the recording. This is why speaker manufacturers tend to use self-damping materials: plastic/ paper/ceramic cones, fabric tweeters and MDF cabinets. Their resonance tends to be of lower amplitude for a given SPL and therefore, they have less of an impact on the original signal. The perfect speaker would be one that produces sound waves while imparting absolutely zero resonance of its own. A solid wood enclosure won’t get anywhere close to that ideal, because it’s highly resonant by nature - great for instruments, not for speakers. |
My DIY JBL-4350 has two 15" woofers, each in a 5 cu. ft. enclosure, for their enclosure I used two layers, 3/4" birch plywood on the outside glued to 3/4" particle board on the inside, that is 1 1/2" total thickness, it is heavy but as solid and resonant free that is practically possible, this enclosure does not require any internal bracing. |
I would say that because MDF is heavier then Plywood it is going to have a lower resonance point, meaning the MDF will store vibrations longer, much like a heat sink, and release it slowly causing a smearing of the imaging. Then by bracing in an effort to eliminate resonance mass is added, which again lowered the resonance point. Imaging ringing the bell in the tower of London as compared to the bell on a bicycle. Lots of energy off the back of the driver is headed to the cabinet. Harbeth still takes the light approach with success. Not sure about their 40 series however, that may be to big a woofer. |
I would say that because MDF is heavier then Plywood it is going to have a lower resonance point, meaning the MDF will store vibrations longer, much like a heat sink, and release it slowly causing a smearing of the imaging. Then by bracing in an effort to eliminate resonance mass is added, which again lowered the resonance point. Imaging ringing the bell in the tower of London as compared to the bell on a bicycle. Lots of energy off the back of the driver is headed to the cabinet. Another illogical argument based on lack of knowelege of material resonance. Thick and highly braced MDF cabinets have a higher resonance point than thin walled designs like a Harbeth - usually in the >400Hz range. This is what happens with very stiff enclosures. The bell analogy falls apart because each would have to be struck with the same size clapper. You'd be striking the London bell with a bicycle clapper. You're basically referring to the Gandy argument of how materials store energy, problem is, he too has a misunderstanding of materials science. Put a stethoscope on any of his plinths and you'll hear rumble galore compared to a high mass design. |
Slightly off topic - but Martin Logan CLX have no cabinets and they certainly sound fine - i think HDF makes the most sense if you are looking for consistency - eapecially when cut and prepared with CNC machinery - i dont see how they can match the left and right cabinet properties if you are using plywood or natural wood regardless of the wood type or mumber of layers - it is impossible to build two cabinets with identical sound absorbtion / reflection properties with anything other than MDF or HDF. PMC speakers - widely used in most recording studios use nothing but HDF or MDF - although they baffle the cabinets with a proprietary insulation material - but i would think natural wood would be the worste choice for cabinets because of the tendency to change properties with the climate and humidity - as well as the impossible task of trying to have two cabinets with exactly the same charactiristics |
@soundsrealaudio Harbeth seeks to control resonance by lowering its frequency to levels below the midband where our hearing is less sensitive. The difference is they’re not trying to reduce the amplitude as many manufacturers attempt (yet fail to do). Your argument was that plywood is a superior material to MDF, well won’t you be surprised to learn that Harbeth uses thin MDF panels combined with bitumen sheets. You assumed that heavier MDF cabinets will have a lower resonance frequency. The reality is that it’s stiffer and will have a higher resonant frequency - toward the midband and often above 400Hz - not the best approach IMO as this is closer to a "ringing" as you might find in metal cabinets. I happen to prefer the BBC/Harbeth/Spendor/Stirling Broadcast/Graham approach - whether it’s MDF or birch plywood, they all make excellent speakers. However, all alse being equal, for a given mass, MDF is less prone to resonance than solid wood and plywood. |
In the late 1970's we made some stands (solid red oak) for the Mark Levinson HQD system in our factory. He then asked us to make a couple of woofer cabs for the Hartely 24" woofers he recommended for this system. They were made from 1" particle board rather than MDF, glued and splined, I believe. It was so long ago I kind of forget, but I believe I remember the looser composition of the particle board when viewed on end. All internal corners were braced with 4x4 fence posts using glue. They were then covered with a light wood-grain Formica for looks--remember, it was the 1970's (!). The cabs (@ 5'H x 3'W x 3'D I think) weighed enough that a fork lift was needed to lift them once the woofer and hook-ups were installed. I remember we went to 4" casters so we could move them around the shop. I would guess the casters came off once they were in place in the listening room. In this instance, the spec was for particle board as I remember. Anyone remember these? As for speakers, sorry to be grinch, but there is no way a cone speaker (except possibly these woofers) in any cabinet made from any material sounds as accurate as speakers that don't use cabinets regardless of the materials or design parameters. Do not take my word for it. Put speakers in cabs side-by-side with non-cab speakers and see for yourself, please. Cheers! |
As for speakers, sorry to be grinch, but there is no way a cone speaker (except possibly these woofers) in any cabinet made from any material sounds as accurate as speakers that don’t use cabinets regardless of the materials or design parameters. Do not take my word for it. Put speakers in cabs side-by-side with non-cab speakers and see for yourself, please. I was under the impression that the purpose of the cabinet was to add to the richness of the sound, versus just the speaker itself. Just as the body of violin or bass fiddle adds to the richness of the sound it produces. Is this not true? |
As for speakers, sorry to be grinch, but there is no way a cone speaker (except possibly these woofers) in any cabinet made from any material sounds as accurate as speakers that don’t use cabinets regardless of the materials or design parameters. Do not take my word for it. Put speakers in cabs side-by-side with non-cab speakers and see for yourself, please.Been there, done that. For example, the Stirling Broadcast LS3/6 sounds far more accurate and neutral than Magnepan 1.7is, and with more transparency. It’s no contest, those wide baffle monkey coffins are simply better speakers, but don’t take my word for it. I was under the impression that the purpose of the cabinet was to add to the richness of the sound, versus just the speaker itself. Just as the body of violin or bass fiddle adds to the richness of the sound it produces. Is this not true? Not true. The box is meant to load the woofer and prevent the speaker from acting as a dipole, which creates diffuse sound and excessive woofer excursion. Dipoles are typically less efficient than box speakers for a given diaphragm size. If what you guessed was true, speaker boxes would most often be made of thin tonewoods, which is obviously not the case. And no, it’s not due to expense. A thin mahogany box is fairly cheap to manufacture. One can get a brand new mahogany guitar for $200. Most modern speaker manufacturers have a pretty good understanding of speaker physics, believe it or not. That so many here are questioning their use of boxes and MDF is baffling to me (no pun intended). |
I’ve oft wondered why no one has come out with speaked cabinets made of Smart Metal. Head tennis racquets used “smart” materials in their tennis racquets many years ago, that change stiffness characteristics in proportion to how hard the tennis ball is hit. Seems like it might be appropriate for cabinets. |
All speaker manufactures attempt to raise the resonance of their cabinets since low frequencies are extremely difficult to dissipate. Those bass busters deal more with the cabinet resonance from poorly designed speakers then from the waves off the front of the driver. Energy can not be destroyed. There is the challenge. |
All speaker manufactures attempt to raise the resonance of their cabinets since low frequencies are extremely difficult to dissipate. False. The thin wall, BBC-derived approach is to lower the resonance frequencies to the bass region. Since you like to reference Harbeth, read up on their philosophy. Energy can not be destroyed. There is the challengeTrue, but it can be altered, as into heat. |
Lively Harbeth cabinets color the sound. Not the way I would build. Best materials are composite polymers. And this is not debatable. As far as I'm concerned, Wilson has this nailed. Goldmund used to use composite methacrylate in the Dialogues. Anyone building DIY cabinets can use Corian at the very least. It's not too expensive. Or anything from McMaster's catalogue. |
Well the Harbeth " model " is the exception. The resonance of MDF is low but their cabinets are thin and " loose " which raises the resonance, so they have chosen to lower it. In most speakers low resonance excite the cabinet creating a very large driver. We can all relate to the example of a car with the stereo turned up load. The bass gets amplified buy the body of the car, the doors which essential are the back of the cabinet become a huge " driver ". The area of the door, perhaps 20 times larger then the driver in the door when excited will sound 20 times louder the the driver itself. |
@helomech Thanks for the comment. I am sorry the 1.7s did not meet your requirements. I might suggest some agonizing reappraisal, to quote a '70s 7-UP commercial. As you clearly understand, your ROOM is the most important element in any sound reproduction evaluation. Possibly your room was not set-up correctly for the 1.7 experiment? I will admit that this is a real chore and may not ever be right depending upon the room. I have years of experience doing this and can state that there are some rooms that simply do not sound right with dipole speakers. So be it! HOWEVER, you seem to be an open-minded individual, so might I suggest that you give it another go at a dealer who knows what they are doing in their shop and listen again to a comparable model of non-box and box speakers in the shop where they are all set-up correctly? You might be surprised at the quality of the sound, or not. The objective, of course, is to make sure YOUR chosen system sounds the way YOU want it to in YOUR ROOM! Cheers! |
Anyone building DIY cabinets can use Corian at the very least: Best materials are composite polymers. And this is not debatable. Even though Corian would work, I want anyone to be careful that might plan a diy project, you can't grab any material because it looks dense. Corian is an acrylic mineral. As long as the cabinet is thick enough, it will do a very good job And I'm sorry to say that composite polymers are debatable, They can be excellent, but It very much depends on which polymer and hardening agents are used and again, how thick the material is to absorb or repel bass frequencies from within the box. Phenolic resins or some epoxy's could work also. Some of these materials sandwiched with a softer material could be excellent. Its not that this is wrong info, but in itself if not used properly can end in some pretty poor results. I hope this helps. |
@richopp, @helomech Thanks for the comment. I am sorry the 1.7s did not meet your requirements. I might suggest some agonizing reappraisal, to quote a ’70s 7-UP commercial. I owned a pair of Maggie 1.7is for about 4 months - after a year long stint with Monitor Audio Silver 8s. I had the Maggies in a dedicated and treated 16x26x8’ room, so they had plenty of breathing space. Power was from a Parasound Halo Integrated. When I first auditioned them, they were being driven by $30K Devialet Monoblocks. I subsequently auditioned them with my own amp and while they were better than the MAs, they didn’t exactly bowl me over. However, I liked them over other speakers I heard that day (in their price range) and took a pair home. Unfortunately, I began experiencing fatigue from their treble. I did an absurd amount of experimenting with placement to alleviate it, but the only thing that worked was resistors in the jumper terminals. That limited their transparency to below that of the MA Silver 8s. A couple months later I heard a pair of Spendor SP100s at Acoustic Sounds. It was a revelation. This was before I began going to audio shows, but even so, I still consider them some of the best speakers I’ve heard anywhere. I subsequently auditioned Harbeths, Spendors and the Stirling Broadcast LS3/6s in my home. Each was better than the Magnepans and by a significant margin, even their imaging. What really struck me was how they produced greater detail, despite being less fatiguing. I settled on the Spendors because they were the most "musical" of the bunch to my ears, however, the LS3/6s were the most impressive regarding typical audiophile terms. To say they were merely better than the 1.7s is an understatement. Knowing what these monkey coffins can do, I simply don’t understand the hype surrounding panel speakers. As for value, I found both the KEF LS50s and Vandersteen 1Cis offered more bang for the buck, even in my large room. I think I gave the Maggies a fair shake. I respect that others like them (they’re not terrible speakers by any means) but I also suspect that some of their devoted fans haven’t heard some of the best that box speakers have to offer. If I’m wrong, then I suppose it’s simply a matter of personal perception - a matter of Laurel vs Yannie. |
Back to the car at the stoplight with the music blaring. What I hear is this horrible distorted bass, a result from the back of the drivers getting the whole car excited and actually increasing the volume because the car now becomes a huge driver. This happens in speakers as well, get the cabinets excited and the room goes crazy and out come the bass busters. With monitor speakers due to the smaller cabinet size there is far less resonance of the box. Big speakers big problems. Cabinet materials that have a low resonance are slow to eliminate them. So they store them and release them slowly thereby smearing the image. This is a fact and widely recognized. |
Big speakers big problems. Cabinet materials that have a low resonanceGive it up dude, you obviously have not the slightest understanding of speaker physics. I'll await your reply with a claim of BS credentials. |
@helomech Thanks for the informative reply. Clearly you have found the items that work best for you in your room and for your musical taste. As a former dealer, THAT WAS JOB 1 for us! I suggest the boxless speakers only because we had much success with them and when A-B comparisons were made in our shop, they came out best. Remember, this was in the '70s-'80's, so life and speaker technology has improved dramatically since then. I have seen $200,000 speakers for sale for homes...no comment. Interestingly, I have noticed that many manufacturers are either raising their speakers on stands or designing them to be 6' tall. I wonder where they got that idea??? Finally, a listener is NEVER WRONG!!! You like a, I like b. If we all liked a, life would be boring and only one company would make speakers, not over 300 at any given time. I love the hobby for many reasons...some because I am retired from the business!...and respect everyone who is involved from any perspective. It is a great hobby with music at its core. All I can suggest is that you find a super-high-end dealer in your area who has the latest 30.7's running in a proper set-up and give them a listen. Of course they are ridiculously (to me) expensive, but seeking the best and then buying what you can afford that gets you as close as possible is what the hobby is all about, IMO. I hear you loud and clear that you found better than the 1.7 units. Possibly the company has heard you as well and has figured out how to fix that--at an outrageous price. Then again, that is the way of the world. Race cars pretending to be daily drivers cost a bundle but don't do any better getting you from a to b than cheap cars. But a prancing horse on your car costs a ton more than a bow tie! Enjoy the music... Cheers! |
There are a ton of excellent speakers made of many types of materials. In the end, as long as a cabinet is well designed with the cabinet included in the design, the drivers and crossovers are still more important to the overall design than the cabinet material itself. Again, well thought out, well designed speakers that include the cabinet material in the design. |
As to the question of the OP: the heck if I know. But just from user experience: I've had tons of speakers of all sorts of designs, from the "we let the specially selected wood resonate with the music" (Shun Mook speakers), to Harbeth (Super HL5Plus), to many MDF boxes (Hales, Audio Physic, Meadowlark, others), to Quad 63, MBL radialstrahler with their carbon fibre petals, to Waveform (currently Mach MCs -which are almost a solid giant egg of layered MDF), to my current Thiel 3.7 and 2.7 speakers which use curved plywood cabinets. They all sounded great! I'm a "tone first" guy, and the MBLs have gorgeous realistic tone and presence, so do the Waveform speakers, so do my Thiels. And I've been listening to Devore speakers quite a bit recently the O series made of plywood. I'd say that a common thread among the "let the box resonate" speakers is a rich, full warm tone. Though it can be hard to untangle that somewhat from the fact most of them have wide baffles, so presumably they are sending more direct sound towards you which may account for that added size and presence as much as any box resonances. But one common characteristic among the singing box designs is that I seem to hear the box a bit more, sometimes overt, sometimes really subtle. They rarely totally disappear as much as the more inert speakers. I found a comparison between my Harbeth SuperHL5plus speakers and my Thiels quite interesting. Both have beautiful organic tone. The Harbeths being known for this. And the Harbeths sounded rich and full - yet really open and seemed to "disappear" quite well, much better than one would expect looking at them. But compared to the Thiels, the Harbeths had a sort of texture that ran through and behind everything, even in the space between instruments. It didn't stick out as obvious box ringing, but when I played the same material on the Thiels, for instance an acoustic guitar quartet, the sound seemed to clean up of any blur on the Thiels. Instrument tone was essentially as rich, but became even more distinct because of the higher precision in the sound. All the instruments and their character that much easier to hear. My feeling after that (and selling the Harbeths) was that the singing box method certainly can work, but it seems to me that the most likely path to advancement in realism lies in reducing the influence from the speaker cabinet, as most designers are trying to do. That's not to say that I automatically prefer the super dead cabinet sound. I've fallen for the Devore O series somewhat for their richness and dynamics and they are not of the dead-box variety. But I am also a bit more aware of the speaker than I am with speakers like my Thiels which can really be "invisible" as sound sources. |
“Give it up dude, you obviously have not the slightest understanding of speaker physics. I'll await your reply with a claim of BS credentials” I know this was targeted at someone else but if you don’t have anything productive to add to the conversation you should just skip this thread and move on. If you feel real strongly about your speaker design knowledge/skills, write a paper and send us the link. Personal insults are not welcomed here. |
@kalali, I know this was targeted at someone else but if you don’t have anything productive to add to the conversation you should just skip this thread and move on. If you feel real strongly about your speaker design knowledge/skills, write a paper and send us the link. Personal insults are not welcomed here.That poster is spreading misinformation. He clearly confuses amplitude with frequency - rather basic principles in audio. Even though I pointed this out to him, he continued to spout nonsense as though it is fact. I make no apologies for the ignorance of others. There's far too much of that going on in our culture these days. Peace. |
@geoffkait Well actually you are correct, I really should have thought through my words better... it is low density, because it is lightweight, but I guess we could compare carbon steel or you could call coal a carbon as well as diamond a carbon, but no, I meant carbon fiber, more like an epoxy. I thought you were part of the forum, its called chiming in, not butting in. So, I stand corrected, but still contend that this could be a very nice material combined with another. Tim |
After reading all these technical comments just realized how deep and elaborate speaker cabinet construction can be. Its a science unto itself. I remember they have thick books on enclosure and cabinet building. Might need to take a couple year college course to understand the concept down to the finer details. The brits seem to understand the science of speakers very well. |
