Panzerholtz source for speaker cabinets in the US?

Hi
I'm looking at a pricing exercise of 'densified' wood for a speaker build here in the US.
One manufacturer is Richlite that makes a material from recycled cardboard/paper and resin.
(I can estimate the cost per sq ft )

Panzerholtz has been around, but unobtanium in the US ... saw a video from an audio show from this year where a speaker manufacturer had Panzerholtz baffles and said he had a source in the South East due to their use in auto racing.

Does anyone know of such a source?

Would love to see a comparison between Richlite, Panzerholtz and other 'densified' materials.

Thx.
 
Did not know about PlyBoo, but that doesn't help in trying to find the US distributor of Panzerholtz.

The thing about Richlite, you also don't need to do much to the finish either. But its god awful expensive.

Its not just the ply but also the resin / glue used too.

If you have an estimate (rough numbers) for price of PlyBoo that would be great.
Lots of resellers in the US...

Also do you know of anyone who has done some sound tests of the material(s)?
I saw some old threads where people got samples of Richlite.

As to the cabinet design... yes that does matter, but once you have the design... then which material? ;-)

Another option was picawood, but very little info... see https://mockingbirddistribution.com/pyon-sound/picawood/
 
As to the cabinet design... yes that does matter, but once you have the design... then which material?

I tend to use the “least” material i can (except we use 15mm because 12mm, althou suffiient in many cases, is harder to work with.

we used Stranded Plyboo (18mm) for enclosures that we also built with 15mm quality plywood. It was prettier, and easier to finish but the plywood box was just as good. Confirmed our enginering design was good.

dave
 
Hi
I'm looking at a pricing exercise of 'densified' wood for a speaker build here in the US.
One manufacturer is Richlite that makes a material from recycled cardboard/paper and resin.
Isn't "Trespa" (TM) something like that? Tufnol also makes similar materials. Less marketing branding but good stuff.

If you like 'densified", nothing better then cast lead. But a bit less practical I guess 🙂
 
So if you read the first post, there was a guy at an audio show, I'll have to find the clip where he was selling his speakers that had baffles made from Panzerholtz. He said that he had a supplier in the South East. Associated w the Auto Racing industry.

Densified wood is interesting in that they treat the wood (chemically) then when they make their plywood, (compressed under high pressure and heated... the resin/glue/phenolic resin ?sp? is absorbed into the cell structures creating a strong bond. I'm paraphrasing and you can find some YouTube videos on people making 'bulletproof' wood.

The result is a material that is lighter and stronger... (see the link on picawood)

@Dave, there are some articles that talk about the acoustic properties of Panzerholts and someone showed the rapid decay of vibrations versus other materials. I don't know much about the acoustic properties of Richlite... or other of these materials.

There is one company making Granite OB Baffles and Panzerholtz for Baffles seems to be 'popular' in some of these high price speakers.

I agree that stiffness is important along w the price point and work-ability of the material.

Again, I don't know of what tests have been done on these materials. It would be interesting and 'expensive' to see.
I'd imagine using an accelerometer to measure the decay of a knock... or something like that.

I'd leave it to the professionals who do sound tests for a living to figure out the best way to test/compare these materials along w MDF,HDF and ply.

There are some distributors of Richlite that are willing to donate/sell scrap from projects so depending on the size of the speaker... it could work for a test box.
 
Sorry, that one is already known.
https://bkbindustrial.com/

They are the NA distributor of Delignit (Panzerholtz).

The guy in the YouTube video who was using it for the front baffles on his speakers said he had a source in the South East and made it sound like it was the US. Not Quebec.

That's why I was hoping that there was an actual reseller in the US.

There are a couple of densified wood suppliers ... which I include Richlite. which is made in the US and not imported.

Thanks though... had my hopes up... although I guess the thing about shipping is that there may be ways to reduce it...
 
@msegel

Old thread, but I reached out to a company in NC that uses and produces Panzerholz products for the Racing industry. They use in various locations of the race cars as a hardended consumable part like floor planks, splitters, etc.

I emailed them asking about purchasing pre-cut panels for a Helios TX build I am working on, and the guy responded back (same day!) asking if I wanted him to CNC the whole project out of Panzerholz! I have always built my own cabinets, but I told him I would be very interested in a quote for the CNC machining. I'll keep you posted on if the price is somewhat reasonable. I'm building these to the highest spec I can, and I'm hoping the Panzerholz is worth the effort.

https://www.precisioncompositeindustries.com/densified-wood
 
Thanks for the info.

I will have to check them out.

The interesting thing about Panzerholz is that while I know that they use sheets of ply in a resin pressed under high temp and pressure, I don't know if they are pre-treating the wood to densify it.

There are other companies here in the US that either use paper or recycled cardboard instead of wood.
 
@msegel

I got another response back from Precision Composite and the price for the Panzerholz and the CNC machining is going to be $570. That is a LOT but still acceptable for me because of the high-end nature of the build. My goal is to produce a DIY speaker that out-performs a commercial model in the $15-20K range, namely Focal Kanta or Sopra, or similar level.

This will be the first time using the material so I cannot offer any info on the construction process. I have found a video of the speaker company that utilizes it and guy demonstrates how dense this stuff is and it appears to be impressively inert! He explains the manufacturing process. Picca is the only other material that is similar (maybe better) imo.

 
@msegel

I got another response back from Precision Composite and the price for the Panzerholz and the CNC machining is going to be $570. That is a LOT but still acceptable for me because of the high-end nature of the build. My goal is to produce a DIY speaker that out-performs a commercial model in the $15-20K range, namely Focal Kanta or Sopra, or similar level.
Is that just for the machining or the material and machining for two speaker cabinets?
If its $570 for machining and material per speaker... that's still not bad.
Although depending on the size of the cabinet box... shipping could get expensive. Panzerholtz isnt light.

Would be interested to see what you're building.