Speaker cabinet made of real wood

There are several reasons why almost no companies in the world make a solid wood speaker.

1. It's incredibly difficult. Wood moves. All fine hardwood furniture is made with joints or joinery construction, to allow the wood to move, to expand and contract. If you want to get around this, you can glue up small strips of hardwoods, which minimizes the problem of expansion/contraction (Sonus Faber) or you make a small speaker out of small staves of hardwood like the very well made Diapson speakers mentioned in this thread.

2. There is no market for hardwood speakers, as audiophiles have been fooled into accepting cheap MDF or now, the new fad for aluminum and other enclosure shells which can be inexpensively CNC built. There is no skill in that type of construction in comparison to the skill of a master furniture maker or luthier, by the way.

3. Audiophiles have no experience with hardwood speakers, so they don't know what they are missing. Not a great place to start a marketing campaign.

My company (disclaimer) is probably the only company in the world making solid hardwood joinery structure loudspeakers. If there are any which I don't know about in current production, I would certainly like to learn about them.

Jonathan Weiss
Oswaldsmill Audio

Daedalus speakers are almost entirely made of renewable hardwoods except for the birch ply front and rear baffles, the front baffle being covered with solid walnut. I believe that the internal bracing is also solid hardwoods.

I personally believe that Daedalus speakers and the Ulysses in particular, are also the most realistic speakers I've ever heard, can be driven by just about any type and power rating of amp and to my eyes, are beautiful. Of course, everything after the "internal bracing is also solid harwoods", is just my humble opinion.

Whether this has anything to do with Lou's choice of solid hardwoods as the primary cabinet material is unknown to me, but I expect it does. I feel like the cabinets are also timeless in their beauty.

By the way, Lou is a great guy and I know of 3 high end audio manufacturers that use his speakers. One is a well known high power, solid state, power amp manufacturer, one is primarily a SET amplifier company and the third uses OTL's and makes really good turntables.

I do not know of any personally other than the one pair I hand built 25 years ago but I can give you one good reason to own them. If you ding a veneer hard or it gets a deep scratch you have to replace the panel, where with solid wood you can sand them down and restain them.

I always thought the Diapason Adamantes were one of the most attractive speakers I've seen. There's a review of them on 6moons now, and they seem to put quite a bit of effort into their woodwork.

As the owner of a brand new pair of Daedalus Ulysses, just received two days ago, I second the comments offered above by Fig and Dodgealum.

Although the break-in process has barely begun, I feel that I can already say that imho their overall combination of sound quality, dynamic range, bass extension, amplifier friendliness and versatility, efficiency, imaging, elegant appearance and craftsmanship, practicable size and weight, and price, borders on the miraculous. Thanks Lou!

Regards,
-- Al