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Why are there so many wooden speakers?

I have noticed a problem within the speaker industry. 99% of speakers that come onto the marketplace are wooden, i.e MDF.
 
This is true of old speakers and new speakers. This is true of Dynaudio, B&W, Elac, Kef, revel, PMC, Focal, ATC the list goes on and on. This is a longstanding problem that has been deceiving audiophiles for decades and it requires a solution. 

The problem with a wooden box is that no matter what crossover or drivers you use, it will still sound like a wooden box. 
There is a limit to the sound you can get out of a wooden box so it is not possible to improve the sound just by using different drivers. Despite this, every year or two, the aforementioned companies put new speakers on the market claiming that they sound even better than what came before. In conclusion, we are being misled. 

I have no problem with MDF boxes per se. MDF is a good material to use. But if you want to make an even better speaker then you obviously need to use a better material. You cant use the same material and say you have made a better speaker. Thats false. 

Let's take the B&W 600 series for example. This is a series that has been going on for decades. 

Here is the latest speaker from their current series

https://www.bowerswilkins.com/home-audio/607

There is no mention of what wood is used but I'm pretty sure its MDF. All they talk about is their continuum woofer and dome tweeter that goes up to 38khz. No mention of even improvements to the crossover let alone the cabinet.

I believe that this has gone on for long enough and audiophiles deserve better treatment. I don't know if a class action lawsuit is the answer but something needs to change.
kenjit

Showing 2 responses by rixthetrick

rixthetrick's avatar
rixthetrick
1,060 posts
 
HD3 laminated with 4mm sprung steel plate. Lined with two different densities of open cell Dupont brand memory foam. Full Duelund internal PCB free crossovers... Close to $3k just in raw crossover components.
@kenjit - you probably don’t even know what to look for anyway.

It’s easy to complain, try actually designing something that sounds great, is affordable to the masses, and isn’t ridiculous to ship because of the weight?

I’m confident there are truly magnificent speakers out there kenjit, you just haven’t heard them yet.

rixthetrick's avatar
rixthetrick
1,060 posts
 
There is certainly some truth to Kenjit's posts on cabinets being a potential compromise. There are other materials that are by far superior, and generally to implement them correctly would cost substantially more. The resulting products would also weigh more, and cost more to ship as well.

Open baffle resolves some of the issues kenjit presents, and it also presents it's own set of problems as well, much of which can be tuned with equalization.

Replacing MDF for a more exotic material, or laminating other materials to reduce or rather as Focal states moves the energies into different frequencies is a real thing. However just because Focal hasn't found out how to do it, (I know they certainly haven't done it with MDF, please feel free to run a full white noise sweep through a pair of Focals to prove me wrong) doesn't mean nobody else hasn't or can't.

There's reasons cars are still mostly pressed steel, and not carbon fiber, aircraft grade aluminum, or some super rigid ultra light materials... The cost to produce exotic cars is far removed from the affordable family sedan.



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