Baltic ply has overall good characteristics. It's fairly light, relatively stiff and can take a beating.
Regular ply is just "less perfect", it'll work without a doubt but there'll always be the nagging feeling that birch ply would be better. With small monitors I doubt it'll matter much, especially if you brace them internally. Just see that you get the void free kind and avoid the stuff with excessive amounts of knots on the outside.
Regular ply is just "less perfect", it'll work without a doubt but there'll always be the nagging feeling that birch ply would be better. With small monitors I doubt it'll matter much, especially if you brace them internally. Just see that you get the void free kind and avoid the stuff with excessive amounts of knots on the outside.
Birch ply?
Is that not Birch veneer over a softwood core?
I made my kitchen cabinets out of 3/4"(19mm) Maple plywood from Home Depot.
Agree plywood is way easier to work with but for speakers it is not the best.
MDF is the way to go for speakers. This the way my Dynaudio Gemini's that I bought from Manisound are made. Old speakers(Altec lansing Model 3's) used particle board but it is not nearly as dense a MDF.
You can also use MDF with veneer on it. 19mm MDF is the best to use, since it is readily available. You can also use just regular MDF and then put a skin/veneer over top, in what ever material you desire.
This one?
The Madisound Speaker Store
Box suggestions:
0.15 cubic foot sealed box with 20% filling for an F3 of 90Hz
0.35 cubic foot box with 1.5" diameter vent by 6" long for an F3 of 50Hz
An expensive speaker needs a nice box!!
OT, I bought some Morel MDT32S(104mm flange) and put into an old set of Altec Lansing Model 3's ($10 yard sale), boy did they improve the sound. Morel makes great speakers.
Is that not Birch veneer over a softwood core?
I made my kitchen cabinets out of 3/4"(19mm) Maple plywood from Home Depot.
Agree plywood is way easier to work with but for speakers it is not the best.
MDF is the way to go for speakers. This the way my Dynaudio Gemini's that I bought from Manisound are made. Old speakers(Altec lansing Model 3's) used particle board but it is not nearly as dense a MDF.
You can also use MDF with veneer on it. 19mm MDF is the best to use, since it is readily available. You can also use just regular MDF and then put a skin/veneer over top, in what ever material you desire.
This one?
The Madisound Speaker Store
Box suggestions:
0.15 cubic foot sealed box with 20% filling for an F3 of 90Hz
0.35 cubic foot box with 1.5" diameter vent by 6" long for an F3 of 50Hz
An expensive speaker needs a nice box!!
OT, I bought some Morel MDT32S(104mm flange) and put into an old set of Altec Lansing Model 3's ($10 yard sale), boy did they improve the sound. Morel makes great speakers.
People seem to burn more birch than anything in this country. Stupid it seems.
Price sequence is birch,oak,maple, walnut ...
My bro worked in a pulp mill, said when birch got into the process it was a PITA.
MDF & ply veneered stuff goes from $50/sheet(4'x8') and up. All you need is good one side stuff.
I recall the maple ply I used was from Columbia. Sorted through it all looking for the bird-eye and curly stuff
Columbia Forest Products : North America's largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood and veneer
Good info for a N/A supplier.
I see you can even buy it by the log
Check out this page
http://columbiaforestproducts.com/VeneerGuide
I'll take mine in Burl Walnut Please. My old Avant Model 6A have this veneer
Price sequence is birch,oak,maple, walnut ...
My bro worked in a pulp mill, said when birch got into the process it was a PITA.
MDF & ply veneered stuff goes from $50/sheet(4'x8') and up. All you need is good one side stuff.
I recall the maple ply I used was from Columbia. Sorted through it all looking for the bird-eye and curly stuff
Columbia Forest Products : North America's largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood and veneer
Good info for a N/A supplier.
I see you can even buy it by the log
Check out this page
http://columbiaforestproducts.com/VeneerGuide
I'll take mine in Burl Walnut Please. My old Avant Model 6A have this veneer
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You got that backwards. You can build a much better enclosure with quality plywoods than MDF. The best plywoods (stranded bamboo) are too expensive (and harder to work) than most people are willing to expend. Good particle board is generally accepted to by sonically superior to MDF, but has workability issues.
High density on its own is not an asset. You only put up with it if it is the price you pay for higher stiffness (damping etc)
dave
If your enclosure is only gonna be .25 cu ft, indoors and not portable you don't have to worry so much about what you use as far as structure goes, most wood will be adequate if the right thickness, built right/braced etc. MDF has great density/machines well and is cheap which makes it so popular. Birch has good strength to weight and takes a beating which makes it so popular. Pine has a lightness and flex which makes it popular with certain guitar people. At 50lbs per cu ft there are heavier woods out there than MDF but it is mostly a cost/availability factor which keeps them from being popular. If good looks along with ease of work is a big priority "as it usually is with a nice indoor cabinet that will be seen" but so is cost I would use some nice veneered plywood or solid planks "etc if the widths will work for you" from LLY or Lowes if that is the only place around. Anything will work from birch to oak, poplar to pine, even those decorative pressed and glued plank plywood panels would work/look nice. If cost isn't to much of a factor I would either find a good local yard or online dealer and get the wood you think looks and matches best in you home, there are an unbelievable amount of woods out there that are extremely beautiful and rare, solid and plys, even melamines, composites, core plys. There's MDF cored veneered ply out there too which is the best of all three worlds: dense/exotic looking and reasonable priced but it isn't the most commonly available. Something to think about.
frangus,
bruynzeel in sydney or plyco in melbourne sells euro WISA birch its the best ply available in OZ
cheers
henry
Hi frangus
I've bought from Plyco and the Birch is excellent .The boards are flat enough to use on a CNC bench .
For my tapped horns I used their film covered birch formply .
There are a number of references. I won't look them up for you. One is an AES paper by Juha Backman.
dave
Hi,
FWIW every man and his dog seems to have an opinion on
the subject, but hardly any of the opinions are well informed.
Aircraft ply is light, first and foremost, strong and will bend a lot
before giving up the ghost. Marine ply is similar except weight
/ density matters much less, strength and resilience does.
Both are not needed for speaker boxes, but can be used.
Constrained layer damping is more complex than it first appears
which is why its much less common than restrained layer damping.
It complicates all the joints in a box, for it to be able to work well,
whilst restrained layer damping doesn't.
Thick walls and damping do not go together. Thin wall + damping
works in the old school manner, modern practice is to eschew
any damping and built like a brick well braced MDF cabinets.
I'm not one for dogma, and claiming ply is better than MDF
very much depends on the context, cost and application.
Same with particleboard.
If your talking say 9mm walls loaded with bitumen, MDF
is as good or better than any plywood in the application.
Though I've got no problem with ply is much nicer to work with.
rgds, sreten.
FWIW every man and his dog seems to have an opinion on
the subject, but hardly any of the opinions are well informed.
Aircraft ply is light, first and foremost, strong and will bend a lot
before giving up the ghost. Marine ply is similar except weight
/ density matters much less, strength and resilience does.
Both are not needed for speaker boxes, but can be used.
Constrained layer damping is more complex than it first appears
which is why its much less common than restrained layer damping.
It complicates all the joints in a box, for it to be able to work well,
whilst restrained layer damping doesn't.
Thick walls and damping do not go together. Thin wall + damping
works in the old school manner, modern practice is to eschew
any damping and built like a brick well braced MDF cabinets.
I'm not one for dogma, and claiming ply is better than MDF
very much depends on the context, cost and application.
Same with particleboard.
If your talking say 9mm walls loaded with bitumen, MDF
is as good or better than any plywood in the application.
Though I've got no problem with ply is much nicer to work with.
rgds, sreten.
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This is my local supplier one of the few sources of 1" hardwood veneered plywood and exoitic sizes (at one time they had single sheet queen and king size bed pieces, even 4'x16' sheets!). A nice family owned business, don't know about internet orders. BoulterPlywood.com....
In the end you have to make up your mind about what you believe is the best solution. Personally I see a lot of logic behind lightweight and stiff box with damping added. Constrained layer damping seem hard to get done right, especially if you want rounded edges on your speaker.
This would have me steer clear of MDF, it being heavy and all. Then again the Heavy, "built like a tank" box appears to be working too so you can probably get a well sounding speaker regardless of the route you choose.
Structural integrity seems universal though, you don't want a box that is ballooning.
This would have me steer clear of MDF, it being heavy and all. Then again the Heavy, "built like a tank" box appears to be working too so you can probably get a well sounding speaker regardless of the route you choose.
Structural integrity seems universal though, you don't want a box that is ballooning.
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