2. speakers
  3. 159021-17271

Why are there so many wooden speakers?

I have noticed a problem within the speaker industry. 99% of speakers that come onto the marketplace are wooden, i.e MDF.
 
This is true of old speakers and new speakers. This is true of Dynaudio, B&W, Elac, Kef, revel, PMC, Focal, ATC the list goes on and on. This is a longstanding problem that has been deceiving audiophiles for decades and it requires a solution. 

The problem with a wooden box is that no matter what crossover or drivers you use, it will still sound like a wooden box. 
There is a limit to the sound you can get out of a wooden box so it is not possible to improve the sound just by using different drivers. Despite this, every year or two, the aforementioned companies put new speakers on the market claiming that they sound even better than what came before. In conclusion, we are being misled. 

I have no problem with MDF boxes per se. MDF is a good material to use. But if you want to make an even better speaker then you obviously need to use a better material. You cant use the same material and say you have made a better speaker. Thats false. 

Let's take the B&W 600 series for example. This is a series that has been going on for decades. 

Here is the latest speaker from their current series

https://www.bowerswilkins.com/home-audio/607

There is no mention of what wood is used but I'm pretty sure its MDF. All they talk about is their continuum woofer and dome tweeter that goes up to 38khz. No mention of even improvements to the crossover let alone the cabinet.

I believe that this has gone on for long enough and audiophiles deserve better treatment. I don't know if a class action lawsuit is the answer but something needs to change.
kenjit
tk21
238 posts
 
MDF isn't exactly "wood". It is an engineered wood product.
AFAIK, violins and other string instruments continue to be made (exclusively?) with "real" wood such as maple.  But which if any company offers HiFi speakers with "real" wood cabinets? There'd be serious issues not only with raw material costs but even more with labor costs and quality control.  How would you even make a large box dense and stiff enough for the application, yet still allow for wood movement so it does not crack?  Traditional cabinet boxes typically are made with panels that float in a face frame.

IIRC, MDF did not become widely available until fairly recently (1980s-1990s). 
Before then, weren't most speaker boxes made from some other engineered wood product (such as plywood or "beaver barf" chipboard)? I suspect I'd prefer the sound that comes out of an engineered-wood box to the sound that comes out of a plastic/metal/concrete/fiberglass box (all else being equal ... which they probably wouldn't be.)  Anybody using bamboo, maybe?  It makes nice wind chimes. Couldn't somebody build a 2-way bass reflex cabinet from a big whomping cylinder of giant bamboo?
dave_b's avatar
dave_b
3,159 posts
 
Been to the mountain top and find my bliss with good old fashioned 3 way box speakers...they just sound right!
ihor
88 posts
 
Actually, Yo-Yo Ma only uses the carbon fiber cello for outdoor concerts.  His principal cello is a 1733 Montagnana from Venice, valued at $2.5 million.  He also plays a 1712 Stradavarius, the Davidov Stradivarius (likely worth $10+ mill) which was owned by the great cellist Jacqueline du Pre, who played it in the late 1960s and upon her death in 1987 made it available to Yo-Yo Ma. 
phd
1,320 posts
 
Yea, finally got rid of my wooden cabinets and now hang raw drivers from the ceiling , less confining and the sound is much more open. LOL
sounds_real_audio
1,018 posts
 
Great post. MDF does make bass notes sound muddy. Sounds waves from the back of the driver have the same output as the waves from the front. They reach the MDF and their energy is transformed into massive vibrations. Remember that energy can not be destroyed. Now the MDF is vibrating and dissipating that energy out into the room. The surface area of the exterior of the cabinet is often quite large so even a small amount of energy that reaches the cabinet walls is capable of producing a large amount of distorted sounds. No surprise that monitor speakers with their small cabinets sound clean.
More to discover