Best Wood for Speakers Box?

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In this video, I build identical speakers using plywood, maple, and MDF to find out which performs best. Then I tested each wood type for weight, water resistance, volume level, and spectrum analysis. Find out which wood emerges as the best choice for speakers!
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0:01 Intro About Speakers & Speaker Cabinets
05:30 Explaining the Wood Test & Materials Used
08:02 Building 3 Identical Speakers
11:30 Weight Test
13:42 Water-Soaking Test
18:18 Volume Level Test
21:50 Spectrum Level Test
29:15 Ending Notes & Conclusion
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[@sawinery-woodworking]

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[@TheThirsty38]

I’ve been looking for info on making a bass cabinet for a band. Your explanation was excellent and I learned a lot. Thank you.

[@sawinery-woodworking]

I'm glad to hear that! Making a bass cabinet is a cool project, and I'm happy to have played a small part in helping you with it. ☺

[@eileendechon9647]

That was great! Thanks for teaching me so much about building a speaker box and what to consider.

[@sawinery-woodworking]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!

[@miket2120]

I used to work in home and car audio and made a number of speakers for each. I also "drove" a 32 ch mixer for my worship team for over 15 years, so I'm *ahem* tuned into the sound of home, car and live audio. "Garage band" speakers typically use plywood not for sound quality, but for road durability and relative lightness. Plywood is tough, can handle the rain, takes hardware well and even large speakers can be lifted onto speaker stands without the need for back therapy afterwards. Home and car are more concerned with audio quality and less about weight, so MDF is the preferred enclosure material. While maple can be used for smaller speakers (3-4" woofers) rather well, once you get to larger enclosures and panel sizes, the wood's variable density will begin to impact the sound. Certain notes will stand out thanks to vibrations from the panel, coloring the sound. The density of the wood impacts the output. Plywood had the lowest output, followed by maple. This is because the wood is transmitting a vibration that is out of phase as compared to the output of the driver, canceling out the sound. a big garage band speaker is going to have a lot of out of phase signal coming from the flexing side panels, so it's output will be lower. But it's a tradeoff: output vs weight. The slight loss of output is a reasonable trade-off for the fact that it can be carried. MDF absorbs the internal sound from the speaker, thus less transmission of out of phase vibration from the panel. A good test on what a good enclosure sounds like: knock on the enclosure with your knuckles. Plywood has a hollow sound, maple less so and MDF sounds like you're hitting a concrete wall. As to bass response, it's more of a matter of proper enclosure internal volume. These look like car speakers, specifically 2-way coaxial. They're normally used in doors and rear decks of cars, so they expect a enclosure volume of about 3500 cu in. The test enclosures look to be about 6x6x6 internal, so 216 cu in. The air inside is compressing very quickly, reducing the overall bass response.

[@VWonder737]

I'm a noob haven't made many speakers, but have been using pine shelving from the start. It just spoke to me.

[@monteglover4133]

Very great information as usual. The very best speakers I’ve owned were 1/2” plywood (Klipsch corner, horns) my current (Advent, and AR) very good speakers are 1/2” and 3/4” particleboard. I was taught on a closed box the denser the better, that was 50 years ago.