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Baltic VS MDF


Dave A

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43 minutes ago, moray james said:

if you were to take any two identical cabinet designs one in MDF the other in Baltic Birch and give them the knuckle wrap test and you or anyone standing within ear shot can hear the difference between the two materials. For that matter wrap in a scrap piece of each material you will hear the same difference. Yet people wonder if they will sound different. If you don't want to believe your ears then you won't hear a difference I guess or you will convince yourself that it does not exist. Only you can determine if you prefer one to the other or what the differences are to you. These materials are physically different and if you want similar performance then you will need to build accordingly at which point differences will me minimized. Your ear will always be the judge. However if you cannot tell the difference then that just makes life easier for you.

I had some chinese birch plywood here and it was 2/3 the weight of the Baltic and when you rapped on loose cut pieces   the sound was completely different. Regular plywood sounds different too as does MDF.

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1 hour ago, Edgar said:

I am in the process of putting 25mm Baltic on a pair of La Scalas and when you stop the cabinet resonance you would swear you found much deeper bass. What has happened though is the bass that is there is now good clean bass that was masked before and what the author states as his experience is precisely what I experience when I do this. I have heard two  1" thick MDF La Scala cabinets and while not side by side for an immediate comparison to La Scalas I have covered with 25mm Baltic I prefer the Baltic.

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I'm not sure how much difference is due to material and how much is due to thickness. I just built a subwoofer cabinet out of 19mm Baltic Birch (internally braced). For the front panel I laminated some 12mm Baltic Birch, for a total of 31mm. The "knuckle" test on the 19mm sides produces an audible ring. Same thing on the 31mm front panel is like knocking on concrete.

 

I think that my next build will be at least 25mm all around, maybe even thicker.

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On 4/2/2020 at 7:14 AM, Dave A said:

Those old glue joints break out pretty easy and I have done maybe four of these now with no issues.

  I have one I am going to do this to in the shop right now. Maybe I will do a thread on this with pictures. I have also contemplated a rebuild so the top section would have enough space to let me use an LMAHL rather than an SMAHL. Then again I just might make it a two piece if I go that far. Decisions decisions.

We love build demolition threads with pictures:)

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1 hour ago, moray james said:

if you were to take any two identical cabinet designs one in MDF the other in Baltic Birch and give them the knuckle wrap test and you or anyone standing within ear shot can hear the difference between the two materials. For that matter wrap in a scrap piece of each material you will hear the same difference. Yet people wonder if they will sound different. If you don't want to believe your ears then you won't hear a difference I guess or you will convince yourself that it does not exist. Only you can determine if you prefer one to the other or what the differences are to you. These materials are physically different and if you want similar performance then you will need to build accordingly at which point differences will me minimized. Your ear will always be the judge. However if you cannot tell the difference then that just makes life easier for you.

Just laminate both together with contact cement and get the best of both worlds, I say. Compromise is the key to a good marriage! Even for materials............

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1 hour ago, richieb said:

I believe the English describe the BBC replica cabinets and many Harbeth models as “loosey”  -

If that's the case, then they should also be "goosey."  They should also be named Lucy, but BB King beat us speaker guys to the punch.

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2 hours ago, DizRotus said:

I would not describe a LS3/5a enclosure as live.  Claude @ClaudeJ1 would you describe those enclosures as “live.”

I used the word live in term of flex. The LS35A is designed to have panels which resonate at lowish frequencies to augment the bass weight of the speaker. MDF has far higher internal loss compared to BB ply hence my reference as BB being live compared to MDF which is dead in comparison.

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39 minutes ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

If that's the case, then they should also be "goosey."  They should also be named Lucy, but BB King beat us speaker guys to the punch.


My mistake, it’s actually spelled “lossy” cabinet design - thin cabinet walls as used by Harbeth and other English brands looking for the “British” and/or BBC sound in monitor type speakers - Harbeth, Rogers, KEF, Spendor —

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5 hours ago, Edgar said:

I'm not sure how much difference is due to material and how much is due to thickness. I just built a subwoofer cabinet out of 19mm Baltic Birch (internally braced). For the front panel I laminated some 12mm Baltic Birch, for a total of 31mm. The "knuckle" test on the 19mm sides produces an audible ring. Same thing on the 31mm front panel is like knocking on concrete.

 

I think that my next build will be at least 25mm all around, maybe even thicker.

25mm is awesome and I use it for any heavy duty cabinet I build.

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11 hours ago, Dave A said:

25mm is awesome and I use it for any heavy duty cabinet I build.

   In 2010, I built these clones from a craigslist buy of 12 and 15 mm Baltic birch. I laminated a number of sheets, sides, top, bottom back were all 12mm and a 15mm sheet. The doghouse (sides and roof), and hatch were a double 12mm. The motorboard was 3/4. It was a fair amount of work to laminate all off the panels but I think I paid $10 a sheet and then needed 4 or 5 gallons of Titebond II to do the job.   I would guess that the empty cabinet is 160 lbs.

 

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24 minutes ago, garyeanderson said:

 I would guess that the empty cabinet is 160 lbs.

 

From https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/97742-pwk-quotes-from-1980-interview/&do=findComment&comment=1067760, quote from PWK:

On Horn Design -"Simple. A horn is just a reasonably rigid boundary for an air column. Now all you have to do is figure what shape to make it."

 

Evidently that boundary needs to be a lot more rigid than was originally thought. :ohmy:

 

Nice work.

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1 hour ago, Edgar said:

 

From https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/97742-pwk-quotes-from-1980-interview/&do=findComment&comment=1067760, quote from PWK:

On Horn Design -"Simple. A horn is just a reasonably rigid boundary for an air column. Now all you have to do is figure what shape to make it."

 

Evidently that boundary needs to be a lot more rigid than was originally thought. :ohmy:

 

Nice work.

 

I recall PWK saying that when discussing Speakerlab’s comments about its Klipschorn knock-off in its catalog.  It struck me as confusing at the time, as  Speakerlab originally used a fiberglass squawker horn, which they eventually replaced with an aluminum copy of a K-400.

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