best wood for speaker cabinets ? oak,cherry, balti

Lou Hinkley of Daedalus Audio undoubtedly possesses one of the best combinations of knowledge about woodworking and speaker building around. His speaker cabinets are made from renewable solid hardwoods, except (I believe) for the front and rear baffles, which I believe are birch ply covered with solid wood.

The wood choices he offers are shown here. As a Daedalus owner, I have never encountered any indication that the selection among those choices is sonically significant.

Lou emphasizes the importance of heavy internal bracing, btw.

Good luck!

-- Al

Most speaker cabinets are made from particle board. Usually a medium to high density particle board. You should not make speakers with a real hardwood cabinet. Real wood has a resonate frequency depending on type of breed of wood that can adversely color the sound. I have only heard one speakers made with real wood that sounded good to my ears. It was the Magico Mini II. It is made out of stacked marine grade Baltic Burch plywood. Plywood has lots of glue, resins and is very dense like medium to high density particle board. Even some of the most expensive speakers use particle board with extreme bracing and usually with very expensive veneer work.

Having been a cabinet maker for 15 years before I changed careers I would say that If you're serious about building speakers and are relatively efficient why not try building a pair of them from one of the solid woods you mention AND a pair from baltic birch and see which you like better? Or build
the Baltic-birch first and if you feel they can be improved upon, then build one from a solid wood you find appealing.
There's a very informative book by R.Bruce Hoadley titled "Understanding Wood" that gets into scientific/mathematical
formulae for calculating engineering data for various wood species, including specific gravity,stress loading under tension/compression etc.
Another factor to consider is that the regional characteristics for hardwoods do vary somewhat; Claro walnut is quite different in density than the black walnut that I used to buy in Mi. Red Oak differs somewhat from white oak, and southern cherry (from say, Tenn.) will likely differ in weight per board ft. compared to cherry from New York or Penn. I'm thinking you probably want the stiffest varieties of these species to minimize cabinet resonance- but I don't really know.
Let us know how it works out!

Al's example, whom does give serious thought/research in choices, makes me ponder further. His example in Daedalus chooses a different material as baffle for a reason, I'd assume. Violins and high end Archtop guitars also use spruce tops as a soundboard, with differing material, in this case maple backs and sides. Musical Affairs Grand Crescendo's are designed loosely as a resonating violin or guitar body. The plot thickens....

BTW, I was opportuned to listen/enjoy MAGC's and was quite smitten!