best wood for speaker cabinets ? oak,cherry, balti

As an aside, I believe that some of the older, original Sonus Faber speakers designs are made from solid wood. They used multiple small pieces, rather than large boards and just the sides are wood. The staves, as they call them, are carefully dried before assembly. It is a complicated process, more akin to furniture making than typically speaker making. I do not believe they have continued that tradition with some of the newer models - my guess is that they have moved away from that process for economic reasons.

I'm with GSM as well.

Always fun to experiment though I suppose. That's worth something....

I'd keep an eye on re-sale value though were I to tinker with an already well received and not inexpensive design, like the Audio Notes.

But I suppose, as long as you have the ability to take it apart and start over again as needed, or that you are open to living with the results whatever that may be, there is no harm with tinkering in the long term.

why not guitar wood? THe electric guitar world (some of it anyway) is obsessed with tone sustain. Strum a chord or a note and it just keeps ringing one forever. Now very nearly everyone feel that several factors contribute to this but the body wood is one of them. That said there have been claims about "basswood" "mahogany" and "swamp ash". likely others. sort of a back to front speaker wood approach but what the heck. another possible item of interest is that many guitar builders swear that the finish can inhibit the "breathing" of wood and a thin nitrocellulose finish is frequently most prized. the cedar and spruce tops that kijanki mentions sound like acoustic guitars and +1 on his thought that they would vibrate. I'm thinking solid body electrics with wood that does not bleed off string energy. At least thats the thought. different anyway.

"why not guitar wood? THe electric guitar world (some of it anyway) is obsessed with tone sustain. Strum a chord or a note and it just keeps ringing one forever."

My understanding that is in line with why AN uses Baltic Birch cut to their specs these days to help deliver the unique appeal of their speakers, but I could be wrong.

There might be different reasons why manufacturers use birch. One of them is perception of quality - hardwood vs. MDF. People often choose kitchen cabinets with plywood shelves not knowing that MDF works much better (less sagging). The other reason might be ease of working with (cutting, sanding, drilling) and finally weight. I have small bass cabinet made by Carvin built of light hardwood advertized as very light. Weight is important for people who play out and have to carry it. As for light bracing - I'm not an expert on speaker construction but it is definitely not a violin. Resonating walls add coloration to sound and 99% percent of manufacturers do anything possible to reduce it. Revel uses laser reflectometr to design for minimum vibration, Dali uses layers etc. Do you really believe that kit speaker was designed to have sound of it's own especially when before same box was called to be made of MDF?

Mapman - not every guitar is designed for long sustain. Flamenco guitar for instance isn't. Guitar has presence, projection, sustain, separation and tone. Some guitars have great presence but poor projection. Flamenco guitar has huge projection but poor presence and sustain, but good separation. If you design speaker cabinet to interact with guitar then how much of presence, projection, sustain, separation and tone it should have? Would it be the same if you listen to Flamenco?