Which material sounds better for speakers construction? Wood, Ply or MDF?

@ebm 

The A1 is a much much better value and realistic speaker to live with than the S1 Mk II , so I'm not surprised. 

Important to note, that it's easy to make fewer speakers than you think you will sell, so you can later announce you are sold out! Generates great hype. 

Having said that, while I do think Magico's are overpriced in general, they at least have some of the smoothest frequency responses, with consistently great dispersion in a "high end" speaker I've heard. They are one of the most consistent sounding "high end" speaker brands. I think they tune a little bright, and that the prices are astronomic, but otherwise not bad speakers.

Best,

E

Most materials can be made non-resonant/acoustically inert, when(as mentioned above) implementation, bracing, and thickness/layering are given proper attention.  Fiberboard also comes in a variety of densities(not just MDF).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiberboard

You've got to wonder about the motivation of a high percentage of those buyers.  They're people impressed by the Magico aura, who until now couldn't afford to own the brand.  But that's the point: they're buying the brand, not the sound.

Love aluminum Magico already sold out the first run of A1 speaker at $9800.00 pair so there are many people that love aluminum.It also depends on drivers and crossover in concert with  aluminum and yes Wilson speakers are also wonderfully made.

MDF and plywood are okay. HDF is better. Wilson uses variants of quartz and Corian countertop material. 

All sorts of composites and plastics can be ordered in sheet form from McMaster in various thickness. Methacrylate acrylic and phenol works great.

Bracing is very important. Isodamp is amazing stuff.

I would stay away from aluminum. Goldmund, Magico, and YG lost their minds. It's the worst material for a speaker enclosure.

I am quite keen on Panzerholz, a very dense, very dead German beech plywood with elastic properties. Costly to experiment with, though - $1000 sheet.

+1 peter.
I've wanted to play with composite sandwiches, as well as using layers of the same materials with different cut-outs to prevent panel length resonances.

Baltic Birch ply -Russian birch ply 1-1.5inches thick on the front baffle 
1inches everywhere else, 2inches on the platform braces acoustic glues 
and real wool felt on top drivers , back baffle ,sides
acoustical foam on Bass. The Balticvariety ply like a laminate absorbs sound well ,and Baltic Birch from a colder variety climate the wood is denser . And like a wood instrument sounds even more musical when done right , time consuming ,and more expensive 
but worth it .Justgo to his site he builds  customspeakers around the world well into the $$ 1,000s.

i have made my own and worked with great speaker builders such as Tony Gee, who does all themajor Capacitor Xover reviews
under Humble home made Hifi . I learned a lot from Tony
10 years ago when I ran a Audiostore in Europe.

Material "X" and material "Z". Wilson Audio.

A combination of materials are good - on most of our speakers we use a solid hardwood front up to 2” thick depending on model - with a heavily braced rear enclosure typically made from 1” thick MDF 

As with anything implementation is equally important

Good Listening

Peter

Building a PROPER cabinet for speakers is more complex and costly than dipoles, and dipoles tend to throw a more realistic sound stage. I know this from owning Genesis V loudspeakers (to its credit, it did have a rear firing tweeter) Usher 6371s, First Gen  Reference 3A DeCapos, a short stint with Nearfield Acoustics entry level Pipedream 6 ft prototype, then moved on to Accoustat 2 + 2s, Magnepan 3.5Rs (and even though they had their own magic, both physically dominated my room. for the last couple years, I have been enjoying Emerald Physics KCIIs, which are as light and fast as the 2 previous dipoles, but the KCIIs bring better bass and more focused imaging, AND, they're super efficient. The amount of wood and the simplicity of assembly is something a DIYer should consider. 

My Audio Note speakers are built of baltic birch ply and sound fantastic. They seemed faster then other speakers I listened to at the time maybe the cabinet material came into play.

I built a pair of back-load horn single driver speakers last summer using the Madisound BK-16 kit design but modified it a bit and doubled up on the baltic birch side and top/bottom panels in the enclosure. The back panel and the front baffle were already double sheets. They came out great and sound real good with decent bottom end but took weeks to break in. I would have put some damping sheets between the panels but I learned about them after it was all done. May be next time. I may be old school or an amateur but I never warmed up to MDF except for shelving in my closet.

There is no absolute.  
MDF is more dense than plywood or wood.  Wood on its own depending on type has all kinds of problems with expansion and contraction.  Plywood works, but still is a softer less dense material... However, if you are after an effect,  plywood can be more giving than MDF.. Also, the is no problem with gluing MDF & Plywood together, this works.  Way back when,  we built a cabinet out of concrete & ground up Styrofoam, worked great.  Also a few decades ago, I believe Definitive made some concrete enclosures.  

we made some speakers from   Bamboo 1 ply, 
the very solid material  ,and good acoustic performance 

Try Magico they use aircraft grade aluminum as it sounds much better and is neutral.Mdf is history for state of the art speakers.

I think it's close between ply and MDF. Construction matters however.
The best MDF I have seen use 1" thick layers to build up the case, with each layer using a different bracing topology. This yields an incredibly stiff and inert cabinet. but is very expensive and produces tons of dust.

Best left for those with access to CNC machines. Still, it's a lot cheaper than billet aluminum. :)

Best,
E

MDF first then veneer, not plywood. Almost all plywood has core voids, even pricey Baltic Birch. Unless you specify all B grade veneer, but even those will have defects in the veneer faces.
B&W uses wood veneer sheets to build their enclosures, probably 1/10" or less, maybe even 1.5mm sheets, so yes using 12-13 sheets will get you 19mm or 3/4" close. Using veneer sheets allow them to bend the form to create their desired shape.

MDF is homogeneous, same density from face to back, all throughout, no core voids. Can be moulded and shaped easily, painted and or overlaid with wood veneer and stained for a super high end finish. The boxes using MDF are perfectly matched meaning both speakers will be identical to within set tolerances of probably +/- .03125".

Amongst hardcore DIY speaker builders, "Baltic Birch" is considered the best plywood. It is void-free, 13-layer 3/4", often in 5' x 5' sheets, though sometimes 4' x 8'. A great enclosure can be made of an inner box of Baltic Birch (with cross-braces also made of BB), surrounded by an outer layer of MDF, with a thin layer of constrained layer damping material (such as E-A-R Isodamp) between them.

Possibily marine grade plywood?

Plywood is superior to solid wood and MDF. It has superior resistance to bending forces and a better strength-to-weight ratio. That is why it was used for aircraft during the "wooden plane" era! My vintage JBL C35 and C38 cabinets used plywood, along with my Altec Valencia's, Klipsch Heresy's and Rogers LS3/5A's.