Dave A

@CWelsh I can believe that and add to it the density of the wood. Northern hardwood is denser and mills better when I am cutting Black Walnut and Red Oak for instance. When you get right down to it the variables are considerable. Scientists are trying to uncover what makes Stradivarius violins special – but are they wasting their time?

I gave up trying to convince you of anything some time ago. However you asked a civil question so I gave you the courtesy of a real answer. I wonder, can you see others from the mountain top? For what it is worth BB is tougher on tooling then MDF. Ask me how I know

Yes I know that so perhaps you misunderstood I was talking about two things here. Ovations and solid body guitars.

I am aware of the Ovations and for my discussion I deliberately did not include solid body guitars. I should have been a bit more specific I suppose in regard to pro venues and state that the ones referenced are things like classical stringed chamber groups, symphonies and orchestral venues. I think everything has a tone and believe it can enhance or degrade.

I have noticed that wood selection makes a difference in many areas. After making some things out of Curly Maple it dawned on me that wood with a curly wood grain pattern was used in the sides of things like Violins. Rather then being just for looks the curly wood had a specific purpose. So does the selection of other specific woods used in acoustic instrument bodies. I have not seen any high quality acoustic stringed instruments made of man made material in any professional venue in videos where you can see what the musicians are playing. Some time ago I read a comment on how some of the speaker builders in Nashville preferred Poplar Plywood for motorboards and used 1.25" and 1" because of the tone it produced. One day I am taking apart a Chorus 1 because there was so much cat piss on it that the cabinet was not usable. 1" Poplar plywood and I thought hmmm. One day I decided to try something in my shop. I had some MDF, Chinese Baltic Birch(real trash by the way), Baltic Birch, Fir plywood and regular plywood. So I cut same size squares out and tapped them with a hammer to see what they might sound like. Not quite the same thing as drivers mounted on a board would do but I figured that the hammer tap method would be a decent indicator and easily audible by ear. The two most unappealing were MDF and that odious China BB and the most pleasing was Baltic Birch. As an observation here with speaker builders in Nashville and in talking to vendors like Nashville Plywood I asked what was the wood the high end custom speaker builders around here use. Baltic Birch was the answer for durability and sound quality as both need to be there with pro venues like touring groups. Now yes there are many bands and music centers that use JBL or other pro speakers but I found it interesting that those who really wanted a specific quality of sound and sought out custom speaker builders selected BB most often. I have found in welding and machining that there is a set of proven methods that have yielded best results. Deviation from those may yield good results but not best results. To me the selection of wood used in stringed instruments and speaker cabinets is no different and I selected artisans who use wood over CPA and MBA penny pinchers who dictate OK + economical over best and not cheap. I seek a specific end result and I rely on people who have done good things to save my time and money in not reinventing things. Good recipes if you follow them yield good results. So for better or worse this is the selection process I have made and my reasons for doing so.

Same tired line every time this comes up. However I have practical experience through actual builds and experimentation and handling both MDF and Baltic cabinets. As far as I can tell your experience is limited to only pre-built things which you can buy and then since you bought them they then become the world standard by which all other things are found lacking.

Decided it was not worth commenting on. However @Travis In Austin #3 Baltic Birch is the correct superior material for water resistance, tone and durability. Exceptional speaker cabinets are made from this. .

In the thread "Best Cornwall....?" starting on page 4 and on for a while. Page 4 is also where you basically said Roy does not know what he is doing. It was worth digging that old thread up and re-reading it was fun. Invitation accepted.

Absolutely. Somehow his what he thinks trumps what everyone else thinks and I remember his Pro Klipsch Gear is junk meant only for train stations diatribe. MDF too was quite fun.

Yup and I have a 68 year old butt I think is broken in too.

You bet they break in. Sound gritty until then.

In the for what it is worth category. Working with a fixed resistor L-Pad recently and attenuation from 9 to 9.5db clearly changed the balance of the instruments to each other and the center stage presence moved from slightly above and in front of me to right straight in front of me. It sounded more like the chamber groups I have heard in person. Going to 10db killed it and wonderful became just ho hum music. That was a really fine post on Violins @travis

Anyone here have two they would like to trade for some MAHL'S? I have a set of KP-320's I would like to restore but the woofers are shot.

Version 1 of 3.

I would like to see your favorite setup if you don't mind sharing.

No doubt Jim has a great system which I was lucky enough to hear in person. I think he himself had most to do with the results though ideas came from a number of places. Lots of work there.

There is not a heap of Klipsch floating around and pro gear is HARD to find and all Klipsch has jumped in price as much as 100% in the last year and a half. It is insane what people pay now and I remember a short time ago all the whining about $900 La Scalas that sell today for $2,000 all day long.

If you want to know where LA is headed look at Detroit today. Best view of all these big cities anymore is the one in your rear view mirror. Yeah he would fit right in at Audiogon with the highbrow hucksters. I like to go there for fun at times and see how the $30K power cable dudes are doing.

Oh yeah and Randy Savage and BoBo VS the Sheik, Pampero Firpo, Dick the Bruiser and many others. Injury list posted on Monday on the more serious grudge matches. State Fairgrounds too and those were the days. And yes Alice Cooper and the Stones

😆

More then you know. For instance I want to build a speaker using 25mm Baltic Birch. It has not been available since last August and my only alternative is 18mm which I really don't want to do. Regular plywood and especially that odious MDF are out so many months later here we are in never never land. Right now if I want to order B&C drivers just for me it takes 5 to 7 MONTHS lead time. Worker shortages, especially skilled labor ones are pervasive and right now in many cases unsolvable. So the only answer is reduce hours open for business or cut back on what you make because your staff shortfall can only go so far. Eminence regularly runs out of drivers and all the time you can go to Parts Express and see out of stock everywhere. Often it take three months to see items back in stock and you can't afford to buy gobs of every single thing you use. This means that you concentrate on your most profitable and largest selling items first and deal with the rest as you can. I can only imagine the supply chain problems Klipsch faces and they have no control over much of it.

Yes indeed and I always enjoy doing so.

You figure that is partly what the shroud around the tweeter is meant to do?

SS and it was a QSC theater amp Roy used if I remember right. I have never really looked closely at the CW3 cabinet so it is good to know they added braces. Even if the CW3 I heard had those braces in there it still sounded muffled and boomy to me compared to the CW4. To be honest after fiddling with CW1's and 2's my prejudice against CW's was large enough that I had lost all interest in them. The CW4 is more then just the plywood top which I was not aware of. New design crossover, a foam lined open backed shroud built around the tweeter which uses new drivers. New midhorn setup and I have no idea if the woofer was tweaked. It is a complete system integration different then the first three versions. The tractrix ports for instance do not add much but they do add some improvement and 5% here and there as an aggregate add up to real improvement. I think those ports were the least of the improvements though. If they have bracing as pointed out then the objectionable resonance would be stopped. I was not aware they had that until today. My prejudice against CW3's was based on what I heard in Hope against the CW4 and past experience with CW1's and 2's.

I am stating it as fact, not implying it. I see once again you are right. To the OP. Jimbo stated the improvements very well and I agree 100% with his comment. Ultimately you need to listen to both, before buying either. Big boomy box sound was a big enough problem for me that I quit looking for old CW's to fix up because I did not like the box effect. Which by the way was still there with the CW3. The CW4 has new mids and HF and has bracing from the front to back in two places which eliminates that tone killing resonance effect you get with big pieces of wood. When I want to hear the resonance of deeper bass stringed instruments for instance I want only that and not the added interference from board vibration. There will always be some I know but it needs to be muted. For my taste the CW4 is more lifelike and noticeably more so than it's forerunners.