Are exotic speaker cabinet materials overrated?

All things being equal a more inert cabinet will more closely reproduce the original signal.  Period.

“Exotic” has nothing to do with any of it, it just means that it interacts less with the launched wave of the driver therefore more of the intended signal is transmitted into the air that interacts with the enclosure.

I believe those of you who are preaching MDF if best, haven’t heard a better material or are unwilling to admit what they heard.

I have very recently been in contact with the main designer for my most recently purchased Speakers.

This person is a Drive Unit Designer for a very exposed Speaker Drive Unit Company and has been instrumental in producing designs for Speakers for Companies, that can retail in the Highest Retail Price sector.

This same person knows a thing or two about Cabinet Structure.

I made my own inquiry about substituting the Design for the Cabinet used with my Speakers for a Cabinet produced using my preferred RIDWB Material.

The response was interesting, as their was always from the outset for these Speakers the design to use a extremely rigid material, which was to contain certain intrinsic properties to work favourably for the Multi Driver Array.

The suggestion has been that if the Front Baffle was to be a particular material up to the quality of the RIDWB Material.

The cost to produce the modification and add the new machined Baffle and Fascia Finishing to create an improved mechanical interface may prove totally wasteful when assessing the End Sound, as the effects even though measurable as beneficial, might not be discernibly audible as an improvement and easily forgotten when heard, as the End Sound Improvement is not remarkable. 

It is suggested that such a practice used from Scratch will show through measurements taken that, at an additional materials cost, there is a improved mechanical interface in comparison to another cabinet material that is less in cost and not with the same intrinsic properties. 

In the case of my Speaker and the Design all ready selected for the Structure, it seems I can go out of my way to produce a mechanical interface that will be measurable as an improvement, but not necessarily a design to clearly show a End Sound has stepped forwards.

I am assured using REW Software and Multi Mic's in different positions will reveal the info that allows the Xover to be worked on to substantially improve the Speakers End Sound produced within the room. It is also stated I might already be very lucky and have Speakers not requiring the support of REW.   

As always nothing ventured - Nothing Gained.

My take on this, after such discussion had. Is for my case and this may spill over to other cases. Is that a Speaker used in a Particular environment, if fully investigated for its function in that environment. Can for the small outlay for a selection of Xover Components, 'possibly' be much better to overcome issues with Room Correction. Other methodologies can be adopted to overcome issues with Room Modes.      

I have often mused about replacing my Cornwall 4 cabinets with cabinets of my own making. I have plenty of 2 inch thick walnut and cherry left over from my professional furniture making days and a fully equipped woodworking shop still. The main hesitance is that the dynamics of tuning a crossover to a given cabinet has already been done by Klipsch with their MDF box. It's likely that an interloper material would require a differently tune crossover, and that would be way beyond me.

For now, each cabinet box is damped with a thin 18 lb lead block that slips through the front bass ports on the cabinet to sit on the bottom surface.

Further damping of the horns is achieved by punching out .75 inch diameter circles of black Gorilla Tape adhered to the black plastic outside surfaces of the mid and tweeter horns. This seems to work out well enough. It's the kind of "trouble" that is easily reversible.