Birch plywood is a common choice for speaker cabinet or turntable plinth building these days, but I was eyeing some maple ply at Lowes last and wondering if it wouldn't be fun to try for my upcoming speaker build.
Anyone have experience with maple plywood vs. birch? I know both are used in nice drum kits--each with it's relative advantages.
Anyone have experience with maple plywood vs. birch? I know both are used in nice drum kits--each with it's relative advantages.
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Well, it depends. Some picky people want "baltic birch" ply, which is made from all birch veneers. The stuff at Lowes and HD have poplar core veneers, however, poplar has far better damping behavior than birch or maple, as far as I know, so I think it's just fine for a speaker cabinet. I laminate it with MDF sheets though.
True void free 13 ply BB is quite a bit different than Maple ply. I've used the maple ply before, and honestly, it's not that nice of a veneer. Very basic flat grain veneer. If you wanna just have a decent finish without buying veneer, it's ok. But then here's the problem, it has voids. And sometimes those voids are right at the side. And you'll have to mitre all your corners.
Oh, there aren't very many voids in the Lowes and HD ply in my experience. They are insignificant in my experience. I don't understand why the corners have to be mitred, since edge banding is readily available. The veneer on BB isn't always that nice either, but I would go through the stack at Lowes or HD to find the good stuff anyway. I've found exceptional birch veneer ply at HD, but their supplier seems to be random since most of the stuff is crap.
Ply comes in many flavours. IME the number of plies in the plywood is what is important. Typical 5x5 BB has 13 plies in 18mm. We have almost completely switched to a Murphy Ply product (made in Oregon) that has 15 plies in 18mm and Maple face veneers. Overall quality is better than the BB. I could only guess what the inner plies are.
The big exception to more plies is better is the 3 ply bamboo plywoods (the stranded in particular) which is even better (quite a bit different construction and much pricier)
dave
The big exception to more plies is better is the 3 ply bamboo plywoods (the stranded in particular) which is even better (quite a bit different construction and much pricier)
dave
...true but you have to sort thru allot of firewood to find it!
I found the 2'x4' panels from time to time have a few good stuff mixed in. Couldn't resist snapping up a birch 2'x4' 20mm thick/18 ply's of consistent layering.
Grabbed another nice 17mm/15 ply sheet from the same 3/4" bin. The 1/2" bin had 11.7mm sheets with 7 thicker ply's sandwiched between the thin birch veneer faces which were ok, i took one thinking it may be good for making the "holey" braces.
Didn't actually need them. Figured i'll be more inclined to try different cabinet designs if i have more affordable half decent plywood in the lumber stash, lol.
The performance of less expensive plywood for speaker cabinets depends on the speaker size, and how it is being used.
I built my Frugal Horn 3's from Lowe's maple ply. It is really just 5 plies with 2 paper thin maple veneers on it. It worked for me because;
1, I used 3/4 " thick plywood in a cabinet where the there is no large unsupported panel spans,
2, They are not being played extremely loud (more volume, more chance for resonance).
These were less expensive "test" speakers for me to see if I liked single driver speakers. They use stock Mark Audio CHR-70's. If I were building larger boxes for more expensive drivers, or making a cabinets for home theater speakers which will be played very loudly, I would use better plywood and bracing to control resonance. For my application, the home store plywood was an acceptable choice.
I built my Frugal Horn 3's from Lowe's maple ply. It is really just 5 plies with 2 paper thin maple veneers on it. It worked for me because;
1, I used 3/4 " thick plywood in a cabinet where the there is no large unsupported panel spans,
2, They are not being played extremely loud (more volume, more chance for resonance).
These were less expensive "test" speakers for me to see if I liked single driver speakers. They use stock Mark Audio CHR-70's. If I were building larger boxes for more expensive drivers, or making a cabinets for home theater speakers which will be played very loudly, I would use better plywood and bracing to control resonance. For my application, the home store plywood was an acceptable choice.
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The difference is number of plys and void content. Veneer faces of either Birch or Maple from Lowes and HD aren't very appealing from any perspective.
The big virtue of true Baltic Birch ply is that it is void free. "damping" factors of different internal plys doesn't really mean jack in a cabinet that should be braced.
Baltic Birch ply can usually be counted on to be flat. This is not a general rule for ply from the big box stores. One has to dig through the pile to get something useful.
The big virtue of true Baltic Birch ply is that it is void free. "damping" factors of different internal plys doesn't really mean jack in a cabinet that should be braced.
Baltic Birch ply can usually be counted on to be flat. This is not a general rule for ply from the big box stores. One has to dig through the pile to get something useful.
It's just appearance for me. I always laminate the ply with mdf (yes, I'm crazy), so voids, etc. don't really matter to me.
It is indeed a pain the buttocks to sort through a stack of 3/4" 4x8 sheets of birch ply only to find that almost all of it is junk. I have to bring those sticky rubber work gloves to grip the edges of the sheets. I wind up pulling out just about the entire stack right there in the store, then I have to put it back... sigh. It's a pretty good workout just doing that.
I do have a vacuum veneer press and a bunch of veneer, but have never done large projects and my veneering skills aren't that high. Buying veneer can be addictive...
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