Are exotic speaker cabinet materials overrated?

A well damped enclosure can make a real difference. I would not buy a speaker that sounds hollow when I knock on the side. But this result is mostly attainable with more common materials and good design.  I have no doubt that the super materials make a difference and are technically superior, it comes down to what you like and the size of your wallet.

I  am the owner of Eastern Bay Sound (handcrafted speakers with real hardwoods.  Search YouTube and you can see our speakers from shows to get an idea of builds.  We made a conscious choice to use 7+ layer Baltic Birch for our inner cabinet.  I can tell you from manufacturing experience, the reason to choose MDF is because it’s cheap and doesn’t warp with humidity.  So why use expensive Baltic Birch Plywood?       

1. Stiffer → less panel flex

Baltic birch is much stiffer than MDF. For the same thickness, BB flexes less, so cabinet walls vibrate less, meaning less resonance.  

2. Stronger → better for joints and hardware

We use furniture joints.  BB ply has so much stronger joints, but also screws, T-nuts, and inserts hold far better in birch. MDF crumbles, strips, and blows out edges. Birch allows tighter tolerances and repeatable machining.

3. Lighter → easier to handle at same stiffness

A BB box can be both lighter and stronger than an MDF box on the same design.  That also means (for the same design) the cabinet will be smaller.  Although the difference between using 1” MDF and 1/2” BB ply doesn’t seem like much - it can add up with the bracing.

4. Longevity

Screws stay tight, box stays square. MDF boxes tend to sag, round over edges, and lose tightness over years.

IMO - it’s worth investing in quality materials.

I remember a slide deck from Focal on how they aligned their engineering with marketting and sales.  Among the attributes they listed as important was "Sense of modernity."  

The idea that you are buying high tech as opposed to old tech.  It's an important sales tool, and in addition to cabinets applies to drivers, tweeter types, you name it.  No one wants to buy version 1 when version 4 is out. 

Having said that I think wooden cabinets, properly braced, are just fine. 

As you move up in performance speaker designs incorporate more and more aspects of materials used in the product. The designer must carefully choose materials... from the magnets, cones... etc. Ultimately to squeeze out the maximum sound quality the absolute rigidity of the cabinet becomes crucial... hence using exotic materials. Exotic material become more common as time goes on... so using them seems inevitable. 

A friend of mine has heard the exotic and expensive plinth that Linn came up with for their turntables... and commented that sonically it is superior. 

b2colchagoff

Baltic Birch Plywood is amazing. It is probably the very first "composite" panel. which makes a huge difference in sound.  

When I was young and dumb I thought heaver speakers "had" to be better, remember when there was talk about concrete speakers.