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Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ??

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Has there ever been a scientific study of the various wood materials available to the speaker builder and how they sound ? Materials such as mdf , hdf , particle board , void free plywood . Do these different materials have their own signature sound once drivers are placed in the cabinets ? What's your favorite wood based material for building loudspeaker cabinets and why . Comments and sources for further info greatly appreciated .

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RE: Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ?? - pictureguy 09:34:27 11/09/12 (4)
I'd suggest that once you have an inert enclosure, it won't matter much what it is made from.

Too much is never enough
- RE: Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ?? - Yvaninventorgallant 17:54:22 07/26/13 (0)
  Hi, i am new on the forum and to me if you use plywood it should be 3/4 inch. Around 19mm marine plywood birch is good,me my speaker are big old speaker 42inchx18inchx17inch deep made from presswood 3/4 cover with Formica very good as damper no vibration but the most important they have to be brace very Well inside from back to front baffle and side to side with dowel or square peg 3/4x3/4 Well glue to remove vibration like on the larger section of panel like it happens. My speakers go down to 16 Hz transmission line and i put my hand on the baffle and on the side when i listen heavy music and i can almost not feel vibration so this is very good. Yvan
- RE: Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ?? - Klassenfahrt 17:37:00 11/18/12 (2)
  Inert isn't always the solution and you need A LOT of really STIFF material to create an inert enclosure.
  The last speakers I built are 22mm at the thinnest spot and 90mm at the thickest with the 22mm areas in the minority. A change from the test MDF box to birch plywood made a huge difference for the better. When going for the resonating approach of enclosure building or open baffles the type of wood used plays an even bigger role. I go for sitka spruce or pine plywood here.
  
  MDF sucks at everything. Speakers, turntable plinth, you name it.
  - RE: Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ?? - pictureguy 18:24:59 11/18/12 (1)
    resonating and inert are, of course, two opposites.
    
    I'd agree, in general, about MDF being awful stuff. Everyone who reframes their panels with real wood reports improvement over the MDF which comes stock.
    IMO, clever design trumps sheer mass. By that I mean....Sure, you could use 90mm of birch ply or whatever floats your boat. However, I'm reasonably certain I could design and execute a panel of equal stiffness with far less material and weight.
    
    I'm also personally not a fan of resonating box enclosures. At least when the box itself resonates...not the contained volume. It would seem to impart a coloration at the resonant frequency. For a one-off? Maybe...just maybe, you could get away with it. For a production speaker? Problematic.
    Too much is never enough
    - RE: Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ?? - Klassenfahrt 15:02:00 11/19/12 (0)
      Hi, I am absolutely with you. Just using mass to cure everything is plain stupid and a game of luck. I didn't use the 90mm parts for rigidity. I did some "acoustic room tuning" to the inside of the enclosure that works much better with my speakers than furious attacks of wadding. With stacking of wood sheets in some areas a wall thickness got to 90mm.
      
      If I want the ultimate stiff, non-resonant enclosure I'd use an engineering trick and tension the cabinet walls. Say use 32mm ply, drill some holes through parallel walls, stick a threaded rod through and tighten the rods. Tight.
      For a shelf speaker I'd use 2 10mm rods through the sidewalls and one 10mm rod through top/bottom.
RE: Loudspeaker cabinet material and sound of each . Cabinet builder ?? - lokie 06:29:08 10/31/12 (0)
If I had to state a consensus then I would say Baltic Birch (and maybe MDF??).

I know a speaker builder who says different wood sounds different. His take was that they sound different, not necessarily better and ultimately a personal choice.

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