Unbelievable

@djones512
Paint can affect sound in various ways but not S/N ratio.

Those who can swallow this kind of nonsense from Yamaha marketing people can go and buy  Machina Dynamica's Teleportation Tweak, it ranks the same :)
http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina60.htm

Oh no, you didn't.

DS

On a totally unrelated subject, nitrocellulose finishes on guitars are sought after as opposed to poly finishes, and are preferred by some artists for the idea that they let the wood "breathe".  So some finishes can have certain characteristics attributed to them, but for a speaker where the cabinet is supposed to be sonically transparent, I think they're reaching a bit with their claims.

bikerbw,

Yes, tone and decay are one reason what makes old guitars and violins so sought after. You sometimes see guitars used which have had most of their lacquer scratched off.

In a loudspeaker, the cabinet also contributes to tone and decay - despite the best efforts of most designers to stop it (ok possibly barring exotic designs such as the $165,000 Arrakis reviewed by Robert Harley or the KEF Blade).

It would be interesting for tuning purposes if you could somehow separate the drive unit sound from the cabinet sound.

In a poorly designed cabinet the walls can even effectively become transparent at certain frequencies due to resonance. So you might actually hear more of the box sound than the drivers sound! Definitely not good.

On the other hand a few designers have decided that since you can’t beat it, you might as well join it. So they have attempted to actually incorporate the cabinet sound with the drive unit sound. I think Bosendorfer tried this previously and UK designer Russell Kauffman does currently.

http://www.russellk.co.uk/index.php#