The best cabinet material !!!!

MDF is also prone to absorbing moisture as I bet HDF is but not as much. I think after building anything with MDF it should be sealed someway before any other process takes place.

I made some mobile disco speaker boxes from veneered mdf and got caught in a shower one night carrying them into a gig.
They swelled up badly.

I now use 18mm plywood as that is less prone to damp.
Its easy to work with. Its not the best finish but I cover my boxes with thin carpet which is hard wearing.
 
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I'd be surprised if laminated HDF wasn't a good cabinet material. Put some curves in it and it could be real nice. I hope to do so in the near future.

Dave and I have both used the bamboo ply and love it. Alas, it's $300 a sheet here. :(
 
The ideal cabinet material really depends on your school of thought; there are a ton of commercial brands using CNC aluminum and simply trying to make the cabinet as inert as possible, with little and even sometimes no damping material. On the other hand, you have those people who believe in a cabinet that damps (i.e. stores) a significant amount of the driver's energy and then releasing that energy. Technically, the correct answer would be the former. Many would say that technical is not musical, and depending on the speaker in question, I don't disagree but in my personnal experince speakers built around the "stiffness and little stored energy" concept tend to do the little things right. The imaging tends to be tighter, dynamic contrast and even tonal differences are usually better defined in speakers like this. The reason for this, I assume, is the fact that stiffer cabinets tend to release the energy they store faster, so therefore the brain is processing the original signal produced by the actual driver and nit the cabinet. I believe this is called the Precedence Effect, this would explain it, I believe.
 
I find the internal dampening of 18mm industrial grade particle board, laminated with yellow glue to 5.5mm plywood to be a very cost effective cabinet material for boxes up to about 5 cu foot or so. Bulkhead braces on the larger boxes of course.

I prefer this to MDF or HDF.
 
The ideal cabinet material really depends on your school of thought; there are a ton of commercial brands using CNC aluminum and simply trying to make the cabinet as inert as possible, with little and even sometimes no damping material. On the other hand, you have those people who believe in a cabinet that damps (i.e. stores) a significant amount of the driver's energy and then releasing that energy. Technically, the correct answer would be the former. Many would say that technical is not musical, and depending on the speaker in question, I don't disagree but in my personnal experince speakers built around the "stiffness and little stored energy" concept tend to do the little things right. The imaging tends to be tighter, dynamic contrast and even tonal differences are usually better defined in speakers like this. The reason for this, I assume, is the fact that stiffer cabinets tend to release the energy they store faster, so therefore the brain is processing the original signal produced by the actual driver and nit the cabinet. I believe this is called the Precedence Effect, this would explain it, I believe.
I think you're messing up things here. Actually, the former constructions tend to store energy and 'release' it in another way, radiating sound that is not coherent with the original signal. The latter constructions tend to lose or convert movement energy into heat, by friction losses in the material. That energy will not be radiated as sound into the air around the speaker.
 
Best Material ? anyone use this before ?

I am actually researching various ideas and ran across this and found it to be interesting. They make some pretty bold claims, I checked and it is NOT made by "Ronco" ...lol

Anyone tried this glue ?



Steve -


greenglue . com
 

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The latter constructions tend to lose or convert movement energy into heat, by friction losses in the material. That energy will not be radiated as sound into the air around the speaker.
That's been my experience. The very best cabinets I have (not) heard where made with extremely dense plywood, with a layer of sand between. No box talk at all, which is amazing when you don't hear it.

Not all of us can do 3 inch thick sand filled cabinets walls, tho. Thus the search for a more practical method. :)
 
In my opinion - having used almost everything mention here - HOW the enclosure is damped is more important than the material. Damped cross bracing and damped CLD layers on the largest panels works wonders. Then one can use a lighter material like Polyurethane and not have to deal with loudspeakers that weigh as much as a safe.