MDF....what the hell is that? My speakers are made bespoke birch plywood cabinetry. The timeless beauty of the oiled walnut, hand selected burr walnut inlays....not to mention well engineered Variable Distributed Port system allowing low-frequency output to be tuned to suit any room dimensions -:)
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.
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.
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- 143 posts total
Here is what Focal says about using MDF cabinets. It makes sense to me. Because the surface area of a loudspeaker cabinet is many times greater than that of the drive unit diaphragms, it is all too easy for the enclosure to radiate sound at a level similar to that of the drivers, sound that is coloured by resonances within the cabinet structure. This muddies the speaker’s sound and blurs the stereo image. To prevent this, it is vital that the loudspeaker cabinet be as inert as possible. At Focal, we use MDF (medium-density fibreboard) to achieve this. It may seem a "low-tech" solution compared to some cabinet materials employed today but MDF has inherent advantages that we believe make it the optimum material from which to construct a loudspeaker. https://www.focal.com/en/focal-teach/gamma-structure |
And what are these better materials that we consumers have all been denied? Magico Wilson and others use materials like aluminium or concrete or composite materials. If you are going to put out a new speaker everything needs to be fully upgraded. The drivers, crossovers and cabinet. Speaker companies do not do this. They deserve to be blamed for this. At the end of the day it’s up to you the consumer to decide if it’s good enough for your particular needs. It's up to the speaker companies to stop making MDF speakers that all sound like MDF boxes. Do you really think audiophiles want that? Audiophiles want more transparent sound quality not less. MDF does not provide that. |
My speakers are made of bespoke birch plywood cabinetry.The B&W 607 are not. Neither are most speakers made by Dynaudio, B&W, Elac, Kef, revel, PMC, Focal, ATC. Audiophiles want better sound and you cant achieve that with MDF. Why do speaker companies keep producing newer models when in reality they use the same cabinets which adds the same coloration? How do you justify this? Do you want to hear the music on your cd or the coloration of the speaker cabinet? |
kenjit OP975 posts Your right, plane and simple, MDF is the least expensive for what it does, and the most expensive for what it cost to make. It is the cheapest solution to the speaker making, world. Is it better than plywood? It is better than most. why? The voids in most of todays plywood has way to may other problems. GOOD speaker A/B plywood is well over 100.00 a 4 x 8 sheet, and cost a LOT more to make than any compressed composet, like MDF. I bet MDFs profit margin is twice that of any plywood. Things like Corian, or HDF. WOW, cost to machine, cost of material, look out.. My cabinets have HDF front baffles, they start with a 10" x 14" x 72" solid block and machine the tapered baffle and cut the 7 openings. That is attached to a 2 1/4" thick X 72" tall 8 CF MDF 3 x cabinet. What does 3 layers of MDF mean? That means there are 6 very dense layers of HDF, and 3 sandwiched layers of MDF. EXCELLENT cabinets.. They sound like green concrete. They make NO NOISE...and disappear with the tapered baffle design. VMPS RMx Elixirs. less than 8 pairs left in the world...only 16 pairs ever made... Mine weigh over 400 lbs each, with drivers loaded. Yup, K, they were made right. The guy’s name was Dorn (sp) Dibble a cabinet maker in El Sobrante CA. 7 layers of acrylic black lacquer. Yup they are something, to behold... Even 15 years after they were made. Not a single added blemish, from the factory, well there is one, But no one could find it... :-) Regards |
- 143 posts total