Likewise. 
I can't honestly see what Quiet Fish (sorry, you haven't given us leave to call you familar) is driving at. I designed these boxes with a high quality / count plywood in mind (BB or any equivalent thereof) to minimise panel resonance in their operative BW as far as possible, and thereby, colouration. As Dave has pointed out above. It's not perfect, they will all have minor differences -if you wanted to completely avoid the problem, you'd need to go to something like 12ga CRS. But the point is that any of these high quality / count plys can be recommened as far superior to MDF or other sheet wood products of equivalent thickness.
FWIW, to the best of my knoweldge, BB ply (the proper stuff, mostly from Finland), apple plys and bamboo ply all have the highest average MOE specs. of wood based sheet material products. Standard birch ply, maple plys etc. come next. Marine grade ply used to be good, but is no longer sold as void free. MDF, particleboard etc. are all structurally far weaker. Essentially, the stiffer & more consistant the material the better. No deep & profound artistic reasons here, just basic science / common sense.
I can't honestly see what Quiet Fish (sorry, you haven't given us leave to call you familar) is driving at. I designed these boxes with a high quality / count plywood in mind (BB or any equivalent thereof) to minimise panel resonance in their operative BW as far as possible, and thereby, colouration. As Dave has pointed out above. It's not perfect, they will all have minor differences -if you wanted to completely avoid the problem, you'd need to go to something like 12ga CRS. But the point is that any of these high quality / count plys can be recommened as far superior to MDF or other sheet wood products of equivalent thickness.
FWIW, to the best of my knoweldge, BB ply (the proper stuff, mostly from Finland), apple plys and bamboo ply all have the highest average MOE specs. of wood based sheet material products. Standard birch ply, maple plys etc. come next. Marine grade ply used to be good, but is no longer sold as void free. MDF, particleboard etc. are all structurally far weaker. Essentially, the stiffer & more consistant the material the better. No deep & profound artistic reasons here, just basic science / common sense.
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what's 12ga CRS?
o.k. so more ply's are better then for the hiro's two 72'' x 18" side panels am i better off using the 4x8 birch ply at lowes with multi layers rather than the more expensive maple ply at home depot which looks to be almost void free but has fewer ply's? in other words what's best, more ply's some voids or fewer ply's no voids?
The birch plywood at the big box stores is really not anything like true Baltic Birch sourced from places that professional cabinet makers go to buy their wood. Top of the line Baltic Birch in my area is only $15 more a sheet than big box store birch that is often times has flaws and is most definitely not void free.
If you get crazy ideas now, please don´t tell I made you think gaga...Laminating materials with different resonance properties is the way to go.
It was, iirc, GM who had excellent results using two layers of ply with one layer of aluminium in between; my fav for front panels is ply/lead foil (kiss a rooflayer every day)/chipboard; Thomas Ahlersmeyer ran a few tests and swears on ply/MDF.
BBC did exhaustive tests decades ago and vote for two 3/8" layers of ply with 3/4" of sand in between.
Doing any of these you´re better off if you can quote our late friend TC:
"I´m allowed to use the best tools after hours. I own the firm."
And with something Sachiko sized, I wouldn´t want to go the BBC way.
I heard a mates Sachikos and know how many hours are involved in building them correctly.
Don't risk a buzzing panel spoiling the HUGE scale magic these things are capable of. It would be a waste to put so many hours of your life into them and not really hear what they are capable of. "Effortless" is the only description I can offer of the sound.
John
Don't risk a buzzing panel spoiling the HUGE scale magic these things are capable of. It would be a waste to put so many hours of your life into them and not really hear what they are capable of. "Effortless" is the only description I can offer of the sound.
John
problem is i can only get the void free baltic birch in 5'x5' sheets. one of the wholesalers told me of a construction grade birch ply in 4'x8' sheets but said it's "almost" void free so i don't think it'll be any better than the best of what i'm finding at the big box category busters which is better than what they usually have. i wanted to believe the bad economy had lumber yards selling them the better stuff to move extra inventory. the maple ply i'm seeing at home depot is a new item for them.
i'd hate to ruin the speakers because of two inferior 72"x18" side panels.
i'd hate to ruin the speakers because of two inferior 72"x18" side panels.
I finished my sachiko's 4 weeks ago and used 7 ply Baltic Birch from a larger chain store. The wood probably had some voids in it but the price was right, $39 4x8 sheet. Long story short I think they sound wonderful!!!! If i would have had the money i might have gone for the 13plyBB but i"m very happy with how things turned out regardless.
using the fe206feN, Thanks Dave
using the fe206feN, Thanks Dave
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