Solid wood a no no?

[Bus_Boy]

I have some Solid timber speaker enclosures. They were made by an unkown person a long time ago, and have since had the drivers removed. They are quite nice, and I am considering giving the cabinets a bit of a freshen up, and replacing the drivers with something from the like of Peerless, Vifa ect.

Now i know due to resonance, solid wood, or hard wood, is considered the worst. But is there something that can be done to the inside of the enlcosures, that would stop, or minimise any resonance issues, making it worthwhile putting such a quality driver in them?

[Upfront]

Dynamat and fiberglass or carbonfiber? I'm sure the resonance problem can be tamed.

[cheekyboy]

This stuff here is very BB provided you have good access to the internals of the enclosure.

Cheers,

Keith

[Bus_Boy]

Yes i have easy access to the internals, the rear sections are screwed on, much like most vintage style speakers. Thanks for the quick replies, so long as i can tame any issues, i think i will most likely go ahead with my plans.

[buzz lightyear]

Hi Busboy get your deadening sheets from a automotive supplier a lot cheaper but use some good trimmers glue .

[Paul Spencer]

I would add some MDF internally along with some bracing for a start, perhaps some panels on the walls with chunky dowell wedged in so it's a very tight fit. Then go the damping. What size is this box? Got any pics?

[kye]

Dont' assume the cabinets will sound bad the way they are - modify them with drivers and crossover and then start tuning the sound..

in my experience things sound like what they're made of. ie, things that deaden the sound deaden the music...... when was the last time you heard someone say "I love this music, the way the deadening in your system deadens the sound really brings the music to life" ???

[THOMO]

Solid timber boxes?
No,no ,no,no,no,no, no,YES!

Jarrah boxes can sound superb.

[andyr]

I have some Solid timber speaker enclosures. They were made by an unknown person a long time ago, and have since had the drivers removed. They are quite nice, and I am considering giving the cabinets a bit of a freshen up, and replacing the drivers with something from the like of Peerless, Vifa etc.

Now i know due to resonance, solid wood, or hard wood, is considered the worst.

You are mistaken in this belief. Some high-priced speaker mfrs deliberately use hardwood for their cabinets ... OTOH, the reasons why 99% of speakers are made from MDF are because it is:
a) cheap,
b) easy to machine, and
c) does not warp.

TNT has a report where they made some hardwood cabinets up for some well-known speakers (whose stock cabinets were made from MDF) and then tested the sound from both. I think the "real wood" cabinets won in each case, hands down!

But is there something that can be done to the inside of the enlcosures, that would stop, or minimise any resonance issues, making it worthwhile putting such a quality driver in them?

Putting Dynamat or such stuff (which is designed for damping thin steel auto panels) on wood will have limited effectiveness, IMO. However, using say, contact adhesive to glue sheets of lead to the inside wood surfaces ... or using 10mm of bituminous compound, might work. However, I'd be careful of damping it too much with this.

Regards,

Andy

[Decky]

There is no reason why Dynamat would be effective on steel panels and not on thicker wood ones. It is not the substrate that drives its effectiveness. The principle of its functionality is called constrained layer damping (CLD) and it effectiveness is a strong function of temperature and frequency, to a lesser extent substrate stiffness (which is correlated to thickness). If you keep in mind that wood is far less stiff then steel of equivalent thickness (in plate bending mode of vibration) then you can probably get that dynamat can be even more efficient in damping speaker cabinets then steel panels in cars. That is at least my understanding. I am just finishing a pair of bookshelves where I used dynamat equivalent material - I am about to do some measurements so I can report on results. Some useful info:

http://www.earsc.com/pdfs/engineerin...ingdamping.pdf

Ideally one would implement CLD between two substrates of similar stiffness - double wall speaker box with a damping layer in between. I have seen this concept in quite a few projects - hard wood on external and MDF internally separated by a damping layer.

[planet10]

The biggest issue with solid is that it tends to move & then crack with humidity. If you get some that hold together solid wood can make a fine cabinet.

If your cabinets are old and still of one piece you are probably fine. If you are refinisjing make sure everything is sealed -- inside & out. I wouldn't try fixing problems that may not exist ahead of time.

dave

[JA]

There is no reason why Dynamat would be effective on steel panels and not on thicker wood ones.

Even on an equivalent stiffness basis, it is not that it would be ineffective on thicker wood, it of course would have an effect as it introduces some extra damping, but don't expect it to be as pronounced as when it is applied to steel or other metals which have very little internal damping compared with timber.

Best
JA