Are the best speaker cabinets truly silent? And should they be?

caesar · Nov 14, 2012

Two of the newest kids on the block, Magico and YG, believe in metal cabinets to "lower coloration". But many claim these speakers have a metallic sound. Furthermore, companies including big gorillas such as Wilson Audio, Sony, etc., who can afford to make their cabinets from any material, choose MDF.

So are cabinets from the top companies perfectly silient? If not, should the materials used add "euphony" to the sound? Is there a "best" cabinet material?

audioarcher · Nov 15, 2012

Good question. I have found the bass/mid bass from these two brands of speakers to sound too thin and lacking in body. It is possible that if music was engineered with these speakers for playback on these speakers then the bass would sound right. This is of course not the case and most likely never will be. This is only my opinion of course. Some people prefer the sound.

As far as I know Wilson Audio does not use MDF. They use a couple of different proprietary resin based materials.

I think you just have to use your own ears and choose what's best for your taste/system.

TJE · Nov 15, 2012

Wilson speakers do use some kind of super dense panel, and the primo Sony speakers (SS-AR2) use specially made hardwood plywood. Look at the measurements page of Stereophile reviews, where they have accelerometer readings from cabinet walls. The YG and Magico and Wilson cabinets are indeed pretty much silent.

I would agree that this is ideal. The speaker is not a musical instrument and should not color the sound. At one extreme you could have a speaker built like a cello with thin walls of hardwood. It might sound great playing certain recordings but would sound strange and annoying with other recordings. Better for it to be neutral. Maybe the question should be, is it worthwhile to upgrade from MDF (which works pretty well) to something like the Magico aluminum plate extravaganza?

caesar · Nov 27, 2012

I spoke to the designer of the Sony high end speaker and he told me that they did a lot of testing. He said an "after taste" of the cabinet was unavoidable. Here's a quote from John Atkinson's review of the smaller Sony speaker:

"He experimented with many different enclosure materials, including aluminum, but no matter how stable and solid he made a loudspeaker's cabinet, it still produced sound, ie, distortion. The important thing, therefore, would be to control that cabinet-produced sound: If the wood is going to vibrate anyway, choose a wood whose vibrations can be controlled, and are consonant with the music, not dissonant to it. "The sound coming from the cabinet should be as beautiful as possible," he told me..."

Interesting.

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Are the best speaker cabinets truly silent? And should they be?

caesar

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audioarcher

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TJE

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caesar

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