Should speaker cabinets be dead?

Musical instruments rely on their wooden bodies for the resonance that gives them their particular sonic characteristics. So why shouldn't wooden speaker cabinets act in the same way as the musical instruments they want to emulate? Have a question you want to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/
I am getting close to publishing my memoir! It's called 99% True and it is chock full of adventures, debauchery, struggles, heartwarming stories, triumphs and failures, great belly laughs, and a peek inside the high-end audio industry you've never known before.
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[@mtnovice]

The difference is that the violin is creating the sound, while the speaker is reproducing the sound. We want the resonances from the violin because it is those resonances that define the sound of the violin. In the case of the speaker, we dont want resonances from the cabinet to color the sound of a violin.

[@ericbarnum8794]

This is how I reason it as well. As a guitar player, the speaker cabinet attached to my amplifier is a critical part of my sound chain and adds enormous color to the sound by not being dead/treated in any way. However, this is not accurate reproduction of sound. It's loaded with pleasant (to me) distortions and make the musical sound that I want to hear. Totally different application of the same concepts from a musical perspective.

[@laurentzduba1298]

Speaking of snake oil and fairy dust - does the music instrument world posses something similar? My girlfriend plays both the cello and violin well enough that it became her dayjob. She swears by those meteorite dust infused rosin as her "secret tonal weapon" and as a typical audiophile, I do concur that meteorite dust infused rosin does add clarity to her tone. Still a mystery to me why no one at Strings magazine or Musician magazine are poo-pooing meteorite dust infused rosin as the "snake oil" in the cello and violon playing world.

[@duroxkilo]

nicely put @mtnovice...

[@elishashawn3188]

i realize Im kinda off topic but does anyone know of a good place to watch newly released tv shows online?

[@ianjuelz2763]

@Elisha Shawn i watch on Flixzone. Just search on google for it =)

[@mojoneko8303]

Thanks for this. After watching this I'm installing as much "No Rez" speaker damping material as I can in the Tower Speakers I'm building from 3/4" inch Red Oak.

[@joelabbe6185]

What a terrific discussion. The "concrete speaker cabinet"- oh, I've given that more than a little thought. Many years of listening in the cellar among the concrete walls and floor when I was young allowed me to play the kit very loud, until only the floor joists and my folks protested. Beyond that, well dampened. Many lessons learned about cabinets when I was really being bit by the Hi-Fi bug about age 12. I was more than happy to take neighbors' cast off components! A guitarist neighbor gave me a pair of Jensen 12" woofers from a guitar amp. These were difficult to hang by their baskets from the ceiling, so I ended up mounting them in cardboard boxes, and VOILA!!! They began to produce bass now. I was hooked. Ideal? Heck no, but I learned something. About this same time, console stereos were being dragged to the curb almost as quickly as I could drag them home to dismantle and tinker with. I happened upon a Magnavox model and found the speakers inside were in their own, VERY thick and rigid Styrofoam cabinets. 10" woofers and horn loaded tweeters. WOW!!! THESE were something different, far beyond speakers in cardboard boxes. I'd be curious to hear them again today to see if my memory is reliable, but I remember those to sound amazing. The Styrofoam seemed to really address the resonance discussion here, and more lessons were learned. First, I discovered Styrofoam was THE solution to eliminating "self oscillation" of bass transferred from speakers, to turntable plinth to cartridge. So. I added strofoam feet under my Kenwood KD2070. Second lesson learned: the white Styrofoam speaker cabinets would be FAR more attractive painted black, so......I spray painted them. And spray painted them again, and again, until I LEARNED that spray paint and Styrofoam made "the little tinkerer" very sad indeed! Ate right through my cabinets. If not for these simple lessons, I doubt I'd enjoy this hobby as much as I do today in my 50's!

[@xdogg577]

Thanks for answering my question Paul! I've been thinking about building a set of speakers for my room and I've been kicking around which wood types to use and how robust to build them. This helps greatly an I appreciate it!

[@fullranger3435]

Believe me, it's worth it! I've built one (dead-dead one) and I don't change it with anything else! But then the colourations of the driver were to be taken care of (as they finally were). A thick cement cabinet will not be dead, Paul (it will be faint, with occasional spasms). It's far more sophisticated to build a realy dead cabinet, than merely raising its stiffness and mass.

[@hoifungcheu]

It does not have to be dead. I tried many highend models and ended up with Brodmann VC 7, which is built like an instrument - properr placement is required, however. This vibration approach requires a different kind of engineering and art to build.

[@albertkelly7129]

lol

[@fatfreesalami]

love your videos! thank you for making these!

[@RobertCookcx]

A sign of a good engineer is one that will stop and consider the input from a laymen even when it seems to be counter to their experience and knowledge. Paul does that here. Love his videos. Between you and that other guy over at GR Research, I find a lot to keep me busy in the garage.

[@bobbyneill5917]

Celestion got it bang on in the late 80s early 90s with the aerolam cabinet of the sl600 and sl 700 loudspeaker, Paul's analogy of the cement

[@Frisenette]

Speaker cabinet material should have as little inherent own sound as possible. Just like a drivers cone. Foam and cardboard can be very good materials. They mainly give off white or pink noise. Cement and concrete has a tendency to ring and while they have mass, resonate around certain frequencies and take longer to fall off and stop moving.

[@Justwantahover]

1" foam rings at a low frequency.

[@bonzainews]

The hardest working man on KZbin... Paul puts videos up on Sundays too!

[@phototristan]

He shoots like 10 in one day and then schedules them to publish later.

[@bonzainews]

@@phototristan someone still had to upload it today

[@maxb.simonsen2459]

He hardly puts as much time in making youtube videoes as other youtubers, even tho they might not put videos up as often

[@phototristan]

Nope. KZbin lets you upload videos and schedule them to go live at a later date. This is what he does.

[@scottyo64]

@@phototristan Exactly

[@jimatyeo]

The BBC tunes there cabinets to be a part of the sound. The LS 3/5a and other monitors are using very thin cabinets 9mm,11 and 13 mm plywood. They even torque the front and back panels to a certain pressure level to get the right sound. They use special beech wood battens and wool fiber for batting.

[@jonathanginofilippi]

Ported? Ok. Sealed? No.

[@thehonestman26]

Great question; Great answer.

[@jackallen6261]

It's much the same as a guitar amp vs a Hi-Fi amp. In a guitar amp distortion is your friend in a Hi-Fi amp distortion is your enemy. It all depends on what the amp is used for just like the speaker design. Some guitarists actually slash the cone of the speaker in their amps (or did at one time) to get more distortion!

[@kevinroach9380]

Let's assume that a dead box is prime for speaker building and shouldn't really matter what it looks like, then why pay thousands of dollars for what the speaker manufacture claims to be at the top of the best, then why all of the different cabinet designs? Everything creates a resonsnce in a room with sound movement, so it does in the studio. To create the perfect reproduction of the music when it was created is impossible.

[@Mikexception]

I would comment it "never say never". We live in our place and thus we are adotped to it's sounding and reflections - in such case it doestn' matter because we are never complaing the sound of own giutar in our room. I never did. Are we complaing the "muddy too much reverbed sound" of our visitors? So in my opinion we should not consider general room acoustic as interference to natural sounding. Only left is gear and speakers. If we know how to make its outcome flat in physiological sense then we nail it. In my case I consider I did it enough good- - as much as for me available because I do not go for scentific proof. My only proof is that I need to switch off music to decide if sound is coming from recording or natural around. Why more?

[@atishaysingh5114]

Harbeth does that not making it rigid... and the vibe-rations in the wood makes a contribution to the sound...

[@draganantonijevic2441]

...and they have been doing so for a long time and are one of the most renowned manufacturers of speakers...

[@bilguana11]

And they sound bad.

[@gryphongryph]

@@draganantonijevic2441 - Totally agree, I have had the Graham Audio 5/9 for this last year, simply the best speakers that I have heard, they are BBC design and the trughfulness to timber and voices are a joy to listen too, if one want the deeper tones under 50Hz too, a nice Rel sub will take care of that, people that are skeptical to the thin cabinets design, should read up un it, lot of articles on the net.

[@petergreen8101]

Harbeths do NOT sound bad. And even Paul McGowan has praised them in the past. But apparently without understanding or respecting the principles on which they work. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

[@RennieAsh]

They are probably more dead in the midrange than a rigid cabinet, but the bass is not quite as "tight". There's cabinet vibration, but there's also sound reflecting inside cabinets that will come back through the cone that we need to consider

[@melissamybubbles6139]

I'm glad someone asked this. I had the same question. In addition, I saw in ear monitors that were designed the same way but made out of different materials. The sound changed just from that. How is that different from changing the materials of a speaker cabinet? Also, is it possible to create changeable cabinet covers to make them fit with decor?

[@Mikexception]

My experiments show that it is not outer surface problem - I use often metal screws to fix togeteher enclosures walls and only tighening screws with the same material and surface makes biggest difference

[@terrywho22]

For an alternative view, here is a link to a discussion about resonant cabinets by Alan Shaw of Harbeth: www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/forum/the-science-of-audio/speaker-design/215-bbc-style-thin-wall-cabinets-why-so-special Which style cabinet is best? Let your ears decide!

[@cobar5334]

Nice to hear an engineer's prespective. Thank you.

[@Bob-us9di]

The great Spanish guitar maker Torres, in the late 19th century, tried an experiment. Instead of using fine woods for the back and ribs of a guitar he used paper mache - but kept the fine spruce tonewood (which is of course tuned by thickness and the struts). Reportedly nobody could tell the difference between this version and the traditional all-wood construction. A similar point could be made about a violin or cello - the (traditionally) maple back and sides are for strength and attractiveness - not sound. So I liken the cone of a speaker to the soundboard of a guitar/violin and a speaker cabinet to the ribs and back.

[@wyup]

I've read that too much damping inside a cabinet can make a speaker sound lean and lack bass, because you absorb the bass that goes to the reflex port, so you limit its function. I think that if the designer didn't put much stuffing it might be detrimental to add more, it could be that the reflected sound is part of the expected response, you reduce resonance but also its 'body'. Are internal reflections always undesired? They add echo or delay, don't they?

[@aaronalbores3999]

Having a musical background, being familiar with acoustic instruments, i always asumed that the purpose of the enclosure of a speaker was related to resonance. "The bigger the box, the louder the sound"... The fact is that a "naked" driver sounds less bassy than when you put it in an enclosure, but i was wrong asuming that the box is providing resonance in the lower frequencies. I was not taking into consideration phase cancellation, and it was a revelation for me. This basic knowledge is provided in some PS Audio videos, but just as complementary explanations to other questions. And i think i'm not the only one having this misconception, and maybe the person who asked the question for this video was misunderstanding these concepts in a similar way as i did. Just in case someone else had this misunderstanding, let me explain: Speakers create sound waves as they move back and forth. Air is pushed forwards and backwards. The sound waves coming from the back of the speaker are not in phase with those coming from the front. and they can interfere with the ones coming from the front, specially at the lowest frequencies (which have longer length waves), and because those waves are not in phase, they cancel each other out and you get the impression of a less bassy sound. The purpose of the cabinet is to prevent the sound waves coming from the back of the speaker to escape and interfere with the ones coming from the front. That's why the sealing, the shape, the volume, the density of materials, rigidity, bracing, stuffing of the enclosure are so important. The enclosure is a trap for the waves coming from the back of the speaker. It prevents resonance to avoid altering the sound of the driver. The characteristic sound of every instrument is already present in the recording, so we don't want the resonance of the enclosure to mess with the sound coming from the speaker. I know there's more to it, but i think this is enough for a KZbin comment...

[@fatboy19831]

If you make the same speaker design out of three different types of materials you will get 3 different sounding speakers no matter how much you attempt to deaden the enclosure. Sometimes if you over dampen an enclosure it will sound flat and not very lifelike. Speakers and enclosures will always add some color to the sound. I have listened to speakers in a maple undamped box that sounded amazing. I have listened to high quality speakers in concrete enclosures that sounded horrible. If you make an subwoofer out of the cardboard tube that they pour concrete into to build columns they sound amazing. Dampening a speaker is an artform. Add too much you ruin the sound add to little you ruin the sound. That is a huge part of what makes many speakers trully high end...often even more so than driver selection. To many companies make expensive, heavy, complex, dead as a door knob speakers that have excellent frequency response and efficiency that just do not sound very lifelike or natural.

[@needlesswords]

If we had perfect drivers I would agree 100%. I have heard speakers that had a double wall construction cabinet that was filled with plaster and they were amazing. Kef's better speakers use their substantial inner bracing twice; once for rigidity the second for setting up a maze that eliminates standing waves and the R series and Reference series sound extremely detailed. But Atishay's point the Harbeth's use their cabinets to make up for driver deficiencies by using resonant sound to create greater presence. I made some hybrids maby twenty years ago that were somewhere between open baffle and ported speakers and used solid Sitka spruce acoustic guitar face wood on some resonant surfaces, they sounded very nice and tested ok, which I was happy with for the first prototype. Unfortunately I was in a car accident and was no longer able to work in my shop, so dropped the project. I was bummed. I agree with Paul that simple boxes, sealed or ported with excellent drivers is the State of the art right now, but still,think there is something there for a new box design with a resonant panel to add the soft touch that only paper and wood can add to the sound. As for me, no box, I have Magnepan's.

[@jctrox8461]

Magnepans are amazing, I have some as well and are a different realm that engulfs you, and are glorious looking masterpieces, hard to beat, listenable all day. That being said, on the big bass crazy loud days, I open up the Polk sda models.

[@CharlesLangSamuel]

What’s going on is the same as in piano design. While the heavy cast iron plate is necessary due to the tension of the strings, it also functions, along with a heavy wooden rim, to - here is the crucial part- direct the energy to the right places. It is energy management. Physics says any action has an equal and opposite reaction. The reason the kick of a rifle is less painful than getting hit by the bullet is because the rifle has far greater mass. Similarly, a speaker cabinet with greater mass forces more detail of the signal into the speaker cone and into the air.

[@Bobbear1976]

Hi, please check out Russell k speakers, these speakers do exactly this there cabinets resonate and are designed to do so, however the cabinets are tuned to resonate with the music, they also have no wading inside the cabinets for acoustic dampening truly an amazing sound, and to be honest the best floor standing speaker at the £3000 bracket that I’ve listened to.

[@ThinkingBetter]

The best are dead speaker boxes but also rooms that aren’t adding resonances from moving objects like panels, light fixtures, decorations, utensils etc. Run a sine wave sweep at loud volume and you might get a surprise that something in your room is not so dead and starts vibrating. Often such resonance is only on a particular frequency and hard to identify unless you use an adjustable sine wave generator. You can use an app on your computer or phone for such test. E.g. Studio Six Digital for iOS.

[@TheSnoringGamer]

This drives me fucking nuts. Wherever I am, it's just not possible to listen to very loud music without some wall or object rattling.

[@jean-pierredevent970]

I hoped for a complete answer but I must look further. Now, I can add this to the discussion. My speakers vibrate when there is even moderate bass present so I worry too about this and I know there were experiments with marble speakers. However, in an instrument the vibrations of the body might color the sound a bit (although not much, a plastic trumpet sounds almost the same as a brass one) but with a speaker the conusses are in front and this is what we hear. The panels from the cabinet don't really "sing".enough to make a sound. They can perhaps be compared to the vibrations we feel in the chest when we speak. It's called chest resonans but it's now accepted that the lungs and chest vibrate along only sympathetically. These kind of vibrations seem innocent. But I don't know the answer. It seems that the movements of the conusses should be proven to be influenced not only by the signal but also by the air movements /feedback inside the speaker. The wall movements could be only sympathetic.

[@altops4490]

Maybe your Midrages isolation chamber could be made from some cool wood, but the rest of your enclosure works best with no resonance. Which is why even a $1000 pair of SVS bookshelves speakers are made of cheap MDF, and filled with fill. Now open baffle speaker's sound might be tailored by the wood used. cool question.

[@h-jg7730]

And They have some real good sounding High End speakers.

[@Justwantahover]

I put a 4" woofer into a bessa brick and no bass. Is it cos the speaker and cabinet was so small and doesn't work under a certain size, when it's "dead"?

[@bertoray5497]

Here you go Paul. Include in your upcoming speaker lineup stunningly beautiful, albeit exceedingly heavy, polished marble speaker cabinets for the win. You're welcome.

[@carbidetooth]

Most natural stone very audibly rings unless mechanically damped in some way. I assume when Paul says "cement" he means concrete, which also rings unless uber massive...like an overpass. Ringing is kinda like the sustain pedal on a piano. Better damped materials dissipate resonances more quickly. MDF and dense plywood are among a good place to start for a well damped loudspeaker cabinet.

[@radiojet1429]

Thanks, Paul. Planar, box or horn speaker? Which reproduces music best and/or which is the most accurate? The debate is eternal. :-)

[@socialite1283]

Concrete pipes about 300mm in internal diameter and 1.2m long, filled with heavy duty sound absorbing material make marvelous speaker cabinets.

[@hubbsllc]

The best point made here is what Paul says at 5:17: if you want to hear Paul's voice in this video as accurately as possible, do you want it to come from a resonant box? After all, Paul's not talking into a resonant box in his shop, is he?

[@maduakorinnocent3415]

Pls between MDF and plywood which sounds better for speaker cabinet construction.

[@mpeezy358]

so what are some of the best ways to deaden a speaker cabinet? And by speaker cabinet I mean subwoofer box. I try to apply a lot of things I learn on this channel to car audio. Some of the things I can't apply for obvious reasons. However the philosophy behind it all is pretty much the same. Thanks to anyone who may answer and Merry Christmas to everyone!

[@h-jg7730]

English Harberth speakers at build Like that. Like a guitar or violine. They have a extra thin cabinet that vibrates at special frequenz.

[@smyrnianlink]

I imagine a resonating cabinet can be OK only for (example) a piano speaker that will be attached to a digital piano. In that case it seems to me that it is perfectly OK to make the cabinet out of the same thin wood that (spruce?) an acoustic piano soundboard is made of. (could add an acoustic vibe) But of course that is not a true speaker (in the hi fi sense) because that signal has never been "sound" before.. It is functionally an extension of the instrument. The problem is that different instruments have different resonance characteristics. They use different woods of different sizes, also metal, and the most important of all is that human voice-box is not made of wood. So basically cabinets have to be dead because they have to be general purpose.

[@aaronalbores3999]

Sorry in advance if my questions sound stupid, i'm just trying to understand: If the goal is to reduce resonance as much as possible, why do we need a cabinet in the first place? Isn't a cabinet a resonance box, like the one in the guitar, or any acoustic instrument? In my mind, i understand that the driver alone is not capable of reproducing all the range of frequencies. So... we need to put it in a cabinet to boost some of those frequencies, like the lower ones. But we also need to limit the amount of resonance of the rest of the frequencies to avoid altering the original sound, and that's where the selection of materials for the cabinet, the density, the bracing, the stuffing is important. Am i too wrong? What else i'm not considering?

[@freethot333]

What is that sonic distortion @ 4:04? some cabinet resonating? ;) Microphone maybe? I heard that in the Rocky Mt. video also, had me worried that my tweeter was failing but it's audible on my headphones also.

[@daralzanachuck6874]

So, if I'm making DIY speaker concrete is the way to go? Would that need that foam filler.

[@InsideOfMyOwnMind]

That was a great question. I kind of thought that since a properly dead cabinet is mostly impractical that speaker builders would be forced to make choices about things like target musical genre and target customer to determine the resonance characteristics most suitable or least intrusive to the chosen usage profile.

[@Vazhaspa]

Personally I do not find the natural resonance of the cabinet speakers disturbing, as it is on a par with natural reflection of the room-- however, if it is a disturbing, then one might use a filler to eliminate the cabinet natural resonances or obtain a better sound. For instance, the cabinet of Vienna Acoustics Bach (floor-standing tower) speaker, can to be filled with some filler through the rear open port which can be then sealed with a foam plug (or a properly cut soft foam cylinder). Some people use "lead shot", as the filler, unaware that lead is poisonous and quite dangerous to be exposed to. On the other hand, sand might easily absorb water and damage a speaker wood cabinet etc. Cat Litter, perfectly dry playground white sand, and silica sand are also recommend, but then silica powder is toxic. Another industrial product for this purpose is Atabites that has an approximate density of 2403 KG/m^3. compared to dry sand which has a typical rating of just 1442 KG/m^3, but on the negative side: since Atabites are zinc covered little discs, one should note that zinc is also toxic and especially dangerous for little kids or pets who might accidentally swallow it. So, the most safe natural filler would be dry sand, but then the cabinet gets so heavy as very high-end speakers that one can hardly move it.

[@durchreiser6573]

What about the Harbeth cabinets?

[@TheSimonarne]

the only speaker i can say this doesnt work for is cabinets for electric guitar where some of the cool sound comes from the resonance in the cabinet

[@paulkelleway8032]

BBC designs used lossy cabinets that resonated, they sounded fantastic so sometimes distortion sounds nice. Take tubes or vinyl for example, both have distortion, but it makes the music sound nice to the human ear. I think engineers today spend too much time on perfect measurements and not enough time listening.

[@nealmycin7783]

Lining the speaker cabinet with durock cement board :)

[@BlueSpirit.]

I would like to see you play air guitar more often.

[@denniswaske8705]

cause it's the difference between production & reproduction of sound.

[@pauldutcher9105]

This was a great video.... Ive often used the analogy of lead though... yeah lead would be a lot harder to fabricate though. lol For me if i was going to make speakers i wanted to have a long time and was sure of what i wanted in them ect. I would use 3/4 MDF for the initial cabinet then glue half inch furniture grade plywood over that. You would then have the denseness of the MDF and the protection of the plywood. MDF HATES moisture and water is kryptonite to it.

[@hubbsllc]

Lead not hard to fabricate...you could simply *cast* your cabinet! :)

[@h-jg7730]

The Speaker company Harbeth does this. There boxes ar made from thin walled Wood like a acoustic Instrument . And they sound good.

[@RennieAsh]

H-J G it’s also deadened with thick pads, unlike just about all instruments :)

[@keithbill310]

Sometimes speaker resonance sounds good .... a completely inert dead box can sound a bit dull sometimes ...

[@jooch_exe]

Some vintage designs actually relied on resonance of cabinets.

[@Justwantahover]

One common manufacturer (in the 1990's) made resonating speaker cabinets and sold them. lol They reckoned that the resonance made them sound good (subjectively). lol

[@lostonlongisland6845]

no highs no lows..its bose

[@bc527c]

While a dead cabinet is ideal... reality has decided to make that goal kinda hard to get to, so for the real world I think it is not only valid, but very important, perhaps crucial, to understand your speaker box does make contributions to the total noise output, er, more importantly, sound signature. So it's important to know some about how much and of what nature your box is singing. To deaden the box of a speaker by, say, adding rockwool panels on the outside will likely mess up the sound in a bad way. So one, as the one being me, has to take care to let the cabinet do it's thing while still having proper feet for it... so to isolateit is a really good results way to do that. All that said, to make a speaker box out of real wood (VS MDF) so the woods natural resonant frequencies would make positive contributions to the nature of the resulting sound would be near impossible as the resonant frequencies of various woods are narrow in scope and not many actually sound good and all of them tend to suck up certain frequencies unique to them, which is opposite of what a good speaker seeks to do.

[@fatboy19831]

Dead on.

[@shrodingersman]

In many ways, a speaker, is the antithesis of a musical instrument, in that and artist wants to play and manipulate and experiment with many harmonic residences that perpetuate within the musical instrument itself. Conversely, when we create a situation where the speaker does not add or take away any extra harmonics, we get closer to those complex harmonics which the artist is experimenting with.

[@Mikexception]

It won't help if we watch the red flower with attached green throgh lense emphasing reed and green colors or with monitor in such alingnment. How about blue flowers then? That is acceptable to only deliberate additional coloring of giutar Anyway I also feel serious doubts about proper definition od enclosure resonances - there are minimum two considerable independent resonances happening. One of them which is obviously understood is the vibration of outer walls of cabinet. Which may be beaten using heavy and stiff material. Other which is rare discussed is internal space reflections crerating much more noticeable resonances and phase problems For that reason in my constructions I opt now for opposite - soft or elastic outer enclosure. Then we are getting in another limitation of acceptable weight which may be handled by it. And that leads to limited weight of drivers, (mainly magnets) and finally te are in my old place where much power is disadvantage. To myself I explain it that Hi FI means sound hardly different from natural and natural sound in average living place is not louder than 90 dB. More is not Hi FI. For Hi Fi in my moderate room I do not play more than few Watts.

[@mcrelly]

Jern cast-iron loudspeakers?

[@henrikl1394]

Then You should listen to Rauna of Sweden, it was an concrete speaker in a TL configuration. Big in the 1980-th.

[@delgoogle]

(i know less, don't bash) the drivers are the medium of the sound being channeled through the amp, that channel, signal in wires should be the complete thing, if you add resonance even after, then it becomes supplementary. So I would say engineers strive to control that whatever has to be output should be complete in itself. And yes an instrument is the whole deal, any adjustments would affect the output, an artist would adjust just by hearing some key elements like pitch etc. The instrument relies on resonance to build a rich sound, you take all that in through mikes and output it through speakers as is. Engineers strive to keep things stable and reproducible and reliable, loose wood or resonating wood would mean you need to "tune" your cabinet after a "session".

[@garth56]

Audionote speakers resonate a design based on the late Peter Snell's speakers..And hell do they sound good

[@XjunkieNL]

Audio Note speakers were the first thing that went through my mind also. There seem to be some contradiction is what works best. /Paul

[@Justwantahover]

subjectively

[@Justwantahover]

One common manufacturer (in the 1990's) made resonating speaker cabinets and sold them. lol They reckoned that the resonance made them sound good (subjectively). lol

[@ARGBlackCloud]

Hey Paul , maybe you should check what Harbeth sr engineer has to say about that !!

[@Woofy-tm8si]

Unless a speaker is designed from the ground up to exploit the resonances of its cabinet, which involves designing and making custom drivers and complex crossover networks along with extensive laser inferiometry testing of the design of the enclosure itself, deader is not only better but an order of magnitude cheaper to design and build. Fiber reinforced cement with resinous and mineral fillers would be best, but the costs to design, mold and finish such an enclosure would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming. Wilson Audio is one of the few companies who devote the extensive time and labor involved to construct such cabinets for their speakers and their prices are as legendary as their speakers.

[@97warlock]

but how do you know Just how big of a box you should use for .....let say 2 12" speakers? If you dont want the box to move at all or even vibrate.....and it could be concrete............why would we even need any noticable space inside the box?

[@bobbyneill5917]

Cabinet is good but all that mass develops fundamental resonance, aerolam was so light and stiff it was a near ideal for a perfect enclosure imo...

[@mydogskips2]

From Wikipedia: Antonio Stradivari (1644 - 18 December 1737)

[@sumitgenzyme]

Paul.. In our country excellent quality Teak wood is economical. Can we made the cabinet by this?? Instead of MDF??

[@jonathanginofilippi]

Do 2 layers with sound deadening in the middle. Then cross brace it. Will be great.

[@etoineschrdlu9382]

Similar to speaker cabinet design, automotive designers want the chassis to be "dead" also. The suspension engineers want a stiff, non-compliant chassis to hang their suspension on so the tires will react predictably under all loading conditions. The NVH engineers want a dead, non resonant chassis so the car will ride quietly. They don't want it to bend, twist, or vibrate. Now, back to speakers: What is your opinion on passive radiators? Wouldn't a passive raditor be a "designed in" resonator? Can a good speaker design include a passive radiator or is such a speaker simply a flawed design?

[@noahtheviking1]

the wood can sound warm how do i know I have built speakers with wood, hard wood actually.

[@laurencemarkmallak3076]

I would like to make a pair of speaker enclosures to replace the one's of mine that were damaged. They are rare 1969 JBL/Knight KN2360 They have 12" JBL 123-1A woofers and LE20-1 Alnico tweeters. They are a passive radiator system with 10" radiators in a 23 3/4 H x 12" D x 14 3/16 D smaller enclosures. I do not want to change the acoustics of these enclosures so building them with the same materials is important to me. They are made of laminated particle board and not MDF. Does anybody know if particle board of today is the same as the particle board that was common in the 60's

[@okcyurwin]

Headphone? Maybe open back would be closer to allowing the air to move more naturally than closed headset? 🤔

[@kevinroach9380]

Has anyone tried different types of wood, and verified that it is not a factor? I don't believe s dead box is the best. Resonance from the speakers with the cabinet should be able to be tuned. All wood instrument depend on a certain type of wood and resonsnce. If your planning to buy an expensive system it is always best to have a hearing test. No use paying for something your not going to hear. Sound is a preference, expensive audio is for the rich with nothing better to spend their money on. I have come up with a design that will be called transitional audio. I won't go into detail but will allow the same quality of low end throughout volume range.

[@davidtomsett]

A dead cabinet means that the drivers have to be as accurate as possible and the crossovers have to complement them perfectly. Not an easy task at all. That’s why high-end loudspeakers are expensive. The cost of development, engineering, testing, parts, manufacturing is not inexpensive. Can’t wait for the new PS Audio range to be launched. They should disrupt the speaker market.

[@floppydisk921]

onkyo designed some guitar Cabinet speakers that sounds great with acoustic guitar records but sounded horrible with like a Keith Emerson synth solo

[@swinde]

Enclosures should be made of granite or marble.

[@colinvannbohemen11]

The person asking the question has a fair point. the expert answering it does not.

[@BDawgStudio]

I feel bad for Paul getting thumbs downs on this topic.

[@lroy730]

But What Note would the Cabinet Resonate ? It can't Resonate on All Note Equally ! A Marshall 4X12's have a 1.5 inch post going from the front to back, that Deadens the Resonance ! Sometimes when that post comes loose the 4X12 Vibrates like Crazy on One Note. Thats Not Good.

[@fookingsog]

True Fidelity is Achieved *ONLY* through the Reproductive Neutrality of Every Single Device in the Audio Chain!!! The only Exception to that being the Recording, Mixing & Mastering of the Music to Achieve the Artist's & Recording Engineers Expectations!!! Playback Reproduction is The Aspect that Paul and Every Single Subscriber to this KZbin Channel is Concerned About!!!😁👍🏻

[@proletaire6442]

That was painful to read.

[@thomaswachter7782]

Where is the love button? I love your video's.

[@brettarsenault6573]

I made a cabinet out of inch thick lexan once. Wow that thing had some resonance.

[@jonathanginofilippi]

Wow. Maybe it was too square?

[@NadolbenBlogspot]

the difference between the instrument and the speaker is described by the difference between the words create and reproduce.

[@quananginh9446]

0:45 you just look like Better Call Saul for a moment there

[@ThinkingBetter]

The opposite of a dead speaker box is this box: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4bTo5x-mNOSrtU

[@crazyprayingmantis5596]

We want to hear the resonance from the instrument, if the speaker added its own on top of that we wouldn't be able to.

[@russmaleartist]

The difference being -- the guitar is an instrument and the wood is a part of its characteristic sound; furthermore, the guitar, violin, or even piano's timbre and harmonics are amplified and are greatly affected by the type of wood, its thickness, etc. The differences between a Stradivarius and a cheap violin can easily be heard . . . as can the difference between even great piano brands of a Steinway, a Balwin, a Bósendorfer, a Yamaha, or a Mason & Hamlin, etc. They all owe their sound signature to the soundboard, along with the type of strings, hammers, key action, etc. Even the human voice depends upon the resonance of our sinuses, the bone structure, etc. to project sound frequencies properly and give that distinct sound that enables people to recognize your voice when you talk or sing. Many singers did not like the sound of their voices or instruments that were coming off the early CDs because it sounded dead . . . lifeless and the harmonics and environmental signatures were all missing . . . it was too sterile. The opposite would be true with cabinet or driver resonances, not to mention the nuances of the electronics adding their own signatures to the sound we finally hear on a speaker -- too much added that would not belong to the performance. However, with the speaker, one does not want anything affecting the coloration of sound to be added to the timbre and coloration being produced by the recording voice or other instruments -- just an exact replica, or as close to it as possible, of the original as produced live. When you hear the human voice in person or an instrument, your ears are connecting directly to the air PRESSURE of that instrument. You may hear the environment affecting the performance, hence, Carnegie Hall is a preferred venue to listen to a performance because of the natural acoustics not distorting what you hear, but you are still hearing a live performance. The recording is dependent on microphones and all the ensuing equipment that is necessary to capture that sound pressure at a performance for you . . . you are not hearing it in person. Consequently, you don't want your speakers to add anything to those signals that are already being processed before reaching your ears as music. The more inert the cabinet, the better; hence, the reason some people prefer open baffle speakers with one less influence in the sound being produced by the speaker drivers. We don't even want to hear the vibration of the driver body, coil, and magnets . . . even the neutrality of the cone material should be a neutral as possible. Quite a difference from listening to an instrument or voice.

[@finscreenname]

Would be interesting to put a speaker in a acoustic guitar body and see what happens.

[@tariqmunir4593]

would.like.to.know.about.piston.drive.speakers

[@bernhardmichaelfux308]

My Speaker Cabinets are dead. I have them since a Year now, and the didn`t move a quarter of an inch since then... So, the must be dead i think..lol. Anyway, i built them state of the art, thick and heavy Particle Board, lot of bracing inside, and at least with insulation (biological Hemp Material instead of rockwool) more than 2inches thick. And, i must say, i do not regret anything about these Cabinets. Only the Weight... about 120Lbs each. I can only handle them because they are on proper wheels ;-) .

[@jordanlewis3790]

i wanna listen to what is being played not what the speaker sounds like

[@adolphjanssen6580]

what we want is reïnforced concrete boxes

[@jctrox8461]

Try Maggies..no cabinets, sound is incredible and most likely you'll want for nothing else, give them a try and judge for yourself.

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

I have lived with and loved Maggies for many years. Limited in dynamics and shy in bass, they don't have it all, but what they di have is musical as can be. Before the Infitinty IRSV that are now my reference, it was an all Magneplanar system.

[@jctrox8461]

@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio That's very true, musical as can be and the sound is literally everywhere, bass is there, plenty in most cases for normal listening, but on the day's I want more than enough bass and dynamics or need to get loud I keep the Polk sda 2 for days like that, more than anyone would need. I love that setup in your music room by the way, couldn't imagine what that would sound like, you should never need anything else.

[@anonymousonlineuser6543]

So to follow that logic the only driver that should be enclosed is woofer. Why still 90% of speakers look like a box?

[@ronburgandy2279]

You've got mail

[@mitchellerblich4044]

I think that "deadness" is different versus .... If we play tones in succession we want a natural decay and having a enclosure like the Wilson Audio speakers tend to loose the natural decay. The IRS Vs mid / tweeter panel and the IRS Beta mid/tweeter panels by the famous AN, had the bases damped with clamping to a base (IRS Vs also had their wings filled with sand) to increase their mass.However, the db's generated by the Vs was so high, that the wings still have a resonant frequency that is normally below the freq of the EMIM mids. In my mids by adding mass (steel bricks) to the base xover modules at the bottom and inserting a special damping rubber between the wood surfaces bolting location. However, both are still designed to interact with the rear wall (one via the wing, the other via wave cancellation). AN could have made the wings/panels stiffer by the use of corian (Wilson's first speaker material). So, bottom line all speakers interact with the room somehow, at the same time trying not to increase the decay of freqs and thus smearing the audio from one millisec timeframe window to the next. So they don't want cabinets at all, as a cabinet imparts boominess, thus no cabinet which moves into a different tradeoff of less stiffness, with needed reinforcement.

[@brianmoore581]

Didn't one of those old Thiel speakers have a concrete baffle?

[@rickcperry]

Sorta like GOOD headphones... Great video, as usual

[@gerritgovaerts8443]

The best cabinet is no cabinet : naked dipoles , not even a baffle, rule

[@normanbott]

My first speakers were a Wharfedale design , build it yourself using concrete sewer pipe segments and using an 8 " roll-surround double diaphragm driver, plus damping etc. Placed vertically they were sort of omni-directional. Still don't know what possessed me to build them, other than sheer inexperience. Not a design that ever caught on...

[@honeyken316]

The "pipe" designs were used as speakers for the Saville electronic organs. There were several sized tubes with a speaker at one end. They did the job of producing organ sound but I never tried anything else through them.