Box Material- Anything not MDF/Birch?

[Hugh G. Rection]

I have definitely learned that we have a few knowledgeable musicians here. Nice!

[aculous]

Wait what? Birch is hard as hell. Some powertools have trouble cutting it. It is WAY harder than MDF. Why would you have to brace the hell out of the box? Are you using single ply or something? Don't use single ply. Go get some furniture grade multi-ply birch. That is the stuff you want. You say 3/4 inch thick but where can you even find single ply 3/4 inch birch in pieces big enough for a subwoofer enclosure? I would double check what you are looking at. There are also different types of birch mentioned earlier. I admit I only skimmed. Somone correct me if I am wrong. Don't forget to stain and protect it

It makes complete sense to use birch for the same reason it makes sense to build drums out of birch. Think about it. Both a drum and a Speaker enclosure involve what is basically a moving membrane in a hard enclosure. Birch drums are usually louder sounding because the wood is so hard and good at reflecting the sound instead of absorbing it or flexing.

Now drum building gets really complicated because like you guys said with guitars as well you can use different materials to color the sound to get the sound you want. It's not about total efficiency so sometimes you use softer woods and things on purpose. That being said birch drums are usually the most expensive!

Speaking of which, There is even evidence to suggest birch is a good choice specifically for low frequencies. Like a subwoofer!

http://mikedrums.com/tuning/shell.html

It isn't brittle either. I have a huge 8 cubic foot box with an 18 in it in the back of my Jeep XJ. If it wasn't birch it would have turned to splinters by now. There wasn't any side to side/front to back room left but there was some up and down. Fixed it with a ratchet strap

hadn't thought of it that way. That makes complete sense.

Well...as usual playing brass instruments has essentially helped me....never.

These were done in Birch

[kirill007]

Bracing is always nessecary, MDF, BIrch or anything else needs bracing unless you want do use so many layers that you can't lift the box with two people..

[Ritch40]

in some cases i will agree with that. certain finishes will definitely have an affect on the tone. then again with certain pickups, it ALMOST doesn't matter what woods or finished are used. For example the pickups that James Hetfield of Metalica uses. It ALMOST doesn't matter what wood, finish or even body shape you have, those pickups pretty much sound the same in almost everything. That assumes you make no other changes from the guitar to the speaker.

High gain pickups are stupid like that. Get a few different guitars with single coils, a nice tube amp with a good clean channel and reverb, and you'll start to notice the differences.

i do like my hotter dual humbuckers with either my jcm800 on a 4-12" cab or even my orange dark terror with 2-12" cab.

That said, i prefer them to be passive instead of active.

[TheMonolith2001]

Bracing is always nessecary, MDF, BIrch or anything else needs bracing unless you want do use so many layers that you can't lift the box with two people..

Well yeah I just didn't see any reason why Birch would require EXTRA bracing.

I know a little bit about the construction of drums because my dad builds/plays them. He isn't like a master drum builder or anything but he is pretty good at it. A lot of times he can turn a beat up old drum or some random crappy ebay drum into something really nice. It's pretty amazing the amount of specific parts/woods/etc that goes into it. I am pretty sure he does mostly snares.

Those are some pretty rad looking speakers BTW

[gckless]

I always liked Birch cabs myself. Mesa, Marshall 1960's, Peavey, owned a couple and loved em. Though I will admit I didn't pay too much attention to wood when I was selecting them, just happened to be what I ended up with.

Guitars are a different story, soooo many options there. What with body type, pickups, music style, neck, etc, etc, etc, the amount of options are crazy. I do like hot passive pickups though