My March Sointuva Speakers

[restorer-john]

Considering the size of the panels in these little speakers, I wouldn't have any problems with solid timbers being used. In fact, I'd rather something real and solid, than some poxy MDF or composite sh#t board.

 

[JSmith]

• Jarrah – Eucalyptus marginata 820kg/m3 SD4
• Blackbutt – Eucalyptus pilularis 900kg/m3 SD2
• Marri – Corymbia calophylla 850kg/m3 SD3
• Wandoo – Eucalyptus wandoo 920kg/m3 SD3
• Sheoak – Casuarina 840kg/m3 SD4
• Tasmanian Oak – Eucalyptus regnans 720kg/m3 SD3

Wood density and strength group ratings for the woods used in these speakers, more detailed info;

Timber Properties - DGI Australia | Dale Glass Industries

dgi.com.au

https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2020-09/FPC-species-information.pdf

JSmith

 

[restorer-john]

• Jarrah – Eucalyptus marginata 820kg/m3 SD4
• Blackbutt – Eucalyptus pilularis 900kg/m3 SD2
• Marri – Corymbia calophylla 850kg/m3 SD3
• Wandoo – Eucalyptus wandoo 920kg/m3 SD3
• Sheoak – Casuarina 840kg/m3 SD4
• Tasmanian Oak – Eucalyptus regnans 720kg/m3 SD3

Wood density and strength group ratings for the woods used in these speakers, more detailed info;

Timber Properties - DGI Australia | Dale Glass Industries

dgi.com.au

https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2020-09/FPC-species-information.pdf

JSmith

Jarrah: Outdoor furniture, can take UV and rain for decades. Hard, but boring and not as pretty as rosewood, although it wishes it was. Needs attention to look good.
Blackbutt: flooring in miner's huts and hipster's coffee shops. Tough as nails and can look fabulous. I love it.
Marri: Honey coloured and awesome for poles, posts and structural parts of furniture. A lovely timber for sure. That is my pick.
Wandoo: Gorgeous hardwood and will last a hundred years. Grain is nothing fabulous.
Sheoak: firewood at best. It's a rubbish timber.
Tassie Oak: not remotely a 'hardwood' (more a softwood) and not remotely anything special. Honestly, veneered MDF is nicer and less prone to splitting or cracking.

 

[changer]

Sheoak: firewood at best. It's a rubbish timber.

730 kg/m³ is higher than averegage MDF, the material the people seem to be craving for over here (600-800 kg/m³.)

 

[restorer-john]

730 kg/m³ is higher than averegage MDF, the material the people seem to be craving for over here (600-800 kg/m³.)

MDF is just consistent, that's all. It's horrible compared to solid wood, but it is predictable, especially laterally. Solid timber will do what it wants. It will shrink, warp, crack and swell and there is nothing you can do about it.

I'd rather have solid timber, but not in a loudspeaker. Hopefully they are lock-mitre joints and if so, the cabinets should be fine.

I'd certainly be asking how they are jointed if I was buying.

 

[changer]

I am just wondering if your are a carpenter?

 

[MAB]

I've been looking at people's DIY solid-wood speaker fails for decades. For instance solid maple:

A precautionary tale of building with solid wood.

I just thought I’d drop a note (a long note) here about my recent experiences which I hope will help anyone who considers using solid wood as speaker cabinet building material. If you don’t want to read my story, you can go to the end and see my conclusions. I’d like to start out by saying...

www.diyaudio.com

Or solid walnut:

A friend of mine built some large and gorgeous floor-standers out solid oak, he moved from New Mexico (dry) to Florida (humid) and the panels split within a few months.
The problem isn't the strength of the wood or the type of joinery, it's the expansion of the wood with moisture (and to a smaller extent temperature) combined with being constrained. My limited experience: the more rigid the joint, the more likely a crack will occur in the bulk.

 

[thin bLue]

My Sointuva will soon arrive! I hope I could provide detailed reviews.

 

[Peluvius]

I received my pair of March Sointuva's in Sheoak wood, after a long wait of nearly three months.

With a certain thread here posted during the wait I was a bit worried.

These worries have been neutralised.

The build quality from what I can tell is tremendous. I did notice a couple of minor imperfections here and there in the final finish, but I am not disappointed. They look even better than I had imagined. The sound is wonderful, even in my non-ideal setup of being behind a desk with the speakers stand mounted a few metres behind it.

I really wanted JBL LSR6332's due to the notion of bigger is better and they look cool to me. I still would like to hear them but the Sointuva's are lacking nothing in output capability.

These Sointuva's are far beyond my JBL Studio 530's.

The bass on these is more intense and goes far deeper. I still will be getting a couple of subs later on.

Vocals cut right through to the front. Guitar solos scream at me. I hear every icy detail of the cymbals, every texture to the voice, and anger from the bass. Everything sounds like it is in its own discrete angle out from the speakers.

Nothing is offensive except perhaps the bass, BUT this is due to my room - perhaps due to the wooden flooring everywhere. I am moving into a room with carpet at some point.

Now I need to learn room EQ with REW, invest in a measurement microphone and likely some bass traps to clean the sound up.

Some pictures of my Sointuva's:
View attachment 223890View attachment 223891View attachment 223893

If they sound as good as they look they must be spectacular!

 

[sweetchaos]

My Sointuva will soon arrive! I hope I could provide detailed reviews.

Do you post your reviews outside of ASR?

 

[thin bLue]

Do you post your reviews outside of ASR?

It'll be posted to ASR and DC inside speaker gallery!

 

[sweetchaos]

Okay. Can you post a link to your profile on that website? I'll like to read your previous reviews.

 

[thin bLue]

Okay. Can you post a link to your profile on that website?I'll like to read your previous reviews.

I didn't officially post any review yet.

I'm in the step of preparing power amp measurements for future(soon).

I'll post exactly same contents both ASR and speaker gallery(It's Raddit-Like community. https://gall.dcinside.com/m/speakers)

Loud speaker Measurements will be done by @Nuyes and I'll add exteriors and personal-subjective-feels reviews for the Speakers

 

[thin bLue]

Coming soon!

Wooden surfaces are not finished, just sended as I asked.
Coloured panels are also made with solid Wandoo wood.

I'll do some finish touches with Urushi(Ottchil).

 

[restorer-john]

View attachment 232107View attachment 232108

Coming soon!

Wooden surfaces are not finished, just sended as I asked.
Coloured panels are also made with solid Wandoo wood.

I'll do some finish touches with Urushi(Ottchil).

Wow. They will look awesome.

 

[frabor]

"Features" is a classic furniture term for flaws.

In a product with a price tag on the 1000s of dollars, such imperfections are not acceptable unless it is a discounted grade b. The front plank is probably within 1-2 per thousand of the price of the pair. No excuse, that plank should have been switched before the CNC. Whenever I see such a disregard for the customer in a product, specially on a pricy one, it makes me wonder what else might have been neglected.

 

[Axo1989]

• Jarrah – Eucalyptus marginata 820kg/m3 SD4
• Blackbutt – Eucalyptus pilularis 900kg/m3 SD2
• Marri – Corymbia calophylla 850kg/m3 SD3
• Wandoo – Eucalyptus wandoo 920kg/m3 SD3
• Sheoak – Casuarina 840kg/m3 SD4
• Tasmanian Oak – Eucalyptus regnans 720kg/m3 SD3

Jarrah: Outdoor furniture, can take UV and rain for decades. Hard, but boring and not as pretty as rosewood, although it wishes it was. Needs attention to look good.
Blackbutt: flooring in miner's huts and hipster's coffee shops. Tough as nails and can look fabulous. I love it.
Marri: Honey coloured and awesome for poles, posts and structural parts of furniture. A lovely timber for sure. That is my pick.
Wandoo: Gorgeous hardwood and will last a hundred years. Grain is nothing fabulous.
Sheoak: firewood at best. It's a rubbish timber.
Tassie Oak: not remotely a 'hardwood' (more a softwood) and not remotely anything special. Honestly, veneered MDF is nicer and less prone to splitting or cracking.

Interesting that E. pilularis (Blackbutt) has such density, I'd have guessed a bit lower. Here in Sydney it's widely available and is the general hardwood construction timber. I live in a forest of it and can reach out and touch a large one from my front verandah. The trees themselves are majestic, broad and range from 25-50 metres (they grow taller and straighter in rich-soiled closed forest but here it's open and coastal).

That timber is a light colour with sparse darker patterning at times, and maybe some gum/black which can be visually striking. Despite these qualities I avoid it, it's very palatable to termites and needs constant protection. It isn't particularly durable when exposed to weather, but that's not a problem for a loudspeaker. It's nice kiln-dried and easier to work than many other eucalypts (presumably low in silica).

There are many species of Sheoak, some (like Allocasuarina fraseriana from WA) are fine timber with delicate lace patterning and contrasting rays when flat-sawn or quarter-sawn. E. regnans (Tassie Oak) is certainly a hardwood, albeit lower density (by Australian standards). It makes a very nice light-coloured floor with delicate longitudinal grain and very occasional darker contrast. My house had wider planks (6" in the old language) and it was gorgeous for years. Termites love it though, even more than Blackbutt. Elsewhere here's some E. saligna (Sydney Bluegum) a dark red timber (not unlike Jarrah in that respect) that fared better (termites go for the sapwood but not the heart).

I've taken up much of the damaged Tassie Oak floor and recycled some into furniture. Outside I recently replaced mixed hardwood decking with an Ironbark species (can't tell you which eucalypt specifically as there a fair few with that common name) as they have better durability to weather and insect attack. The house had some original Ironbark posts in-ground (some red, so likely E. paniculata and some grey likely E. crebra as the timber was supplied from local forests in the 1940s). They've been there unprotected for decades and have a few termite nibbles barely scratching the surface and zero rot while the mixed hardwood bearers and joists they supported were well eaten and largely masticated into mud. Ironbarks can exceed 1000 kg/m3 (and are thus heavier than water, which is fun).

One of my favourite timbers is not a eucalypt but another hardwood genus Lophostemon confertus (Brush Box). It's very fine-grained, pink-red and finishes beautifully. It also resists mechanical wear extremely well, with the corresponding downside that it wears down small router bits (solid tungsten carbide) so rapidly that the cutting life can be measured in metres without going to big numbers.

For speakers, any dense hardwood isn't dimensionally stable in changing humidity so careful construction techniques are required. Softwoods move much less. I've been tempted to try some subwoofer boxes in Brush Box because the timber looks so good, but I baulk at how many dovetail bits I'd have to buy to get the job done (as I have plenty of wood in the house, I bought main speakers sheathed in glass). Anyway, I got carried away, excuse the digression.

 

[srrxr71]

They sure look like cracks and I think it could be avoided as they spoil the overall good looks.
I hope you enjoy your music for a long time!

On hand it looks beautiful as it is natural like an aniline leather. On the other hand could they not have put that wood piece in the back? Or just cut that part out? The knot I could deal with but the black lines are something else.

Interesting that E. pilularis (Blackbutt) has such density, I'd have guessed a bit lower. Here in Sydney it's widely available and is the general hardwood construction timber. I live in a forest of it and can reach out and touch a large one from my front verandah. The trees themselves are majestic, broad and range from 25-50 metres (they grow taller and straighter in rich-soiled closed forest but here it's open and coastal).

That timber is a light colour with sparse darker patterning at times, and maybe some gum/black which can be visually striking. Despite these qualities I avoid it, it's very palatable to termites and needs constant protection. It isn't particularly durable when exposed to weather, but that's not a problem for a loudspeaker. It's nice kiln-dried and easier to work than many other eucalypts (presumably low in silica).

There are many species of Sheoak, some (like Allocasuarina fraseriana from WA) are fine timber with delicate lace patterning and contrasting rays when flat-sawn or quarter-sawn. E. regnans (Tassie Oak) is certainly a hardwood, albeit lower density (by Australian standards). It makes a very nice light-coloured floor with delicate longitudinal grain and very occasional darker contrast. My house had wider planks (6" in the old language) and it was gorgeous for years. Termites love it though, even more than Blackbutt. Elsewhere here's some E. saligna (Sydney Bluegum) a dark red timber (not unlike Jarrah in that respect) that fared better (termites go for the sapwood but not the heart).

I've taken up much of the damaged Tassie Oak floor and recycled some into furniture. Outside I recently replaced mixed hardwood decking with an Ironbark species (can't tell you which eucalypt specifically as there a fair few with that common name) as they have better durability to weather and insect attack. The house had some original Ironbark posts in-ground (some red, so likely E. paniculata and some grey likely E. crebra as the timber was supplied from local forests in the 1940s). They've been there unprotected for decades and have a few termite nibbles barely scratching the surface and zero rot while the mixed hardwood bearers and joists they supported were well eaten and largely masticated into mud. Ironbarks can exceed 1000 kg/m3 (and are thus heavier than water, which is fun).

One of my favourite timbers is not a eucalypt but another hardwood genus Lophostemon confertus (Brush Box). It's very fine-grained, pink-red and finishes beautifully. It also resists mechanical wear extremely well, with the corresponding downside that it wears down small router bits (solid tungsten carbide) so rapidly that the cutting life can be measured in metres without going to big numbers.

For speakers, any dense hardwood isn't dimensionally stable in changing humidity so careful construction techniques are required. Softwoods move much less. I've been tempted to try some subwoofer boxes in Brush Box because the timber looks so good, but I baulk at how many dovetail bits I'd have to buy to get the job done (as I have plenty of wood in the house, I bought main speakers sheathed in glass). Anyway, I got carried away, excuse the digression.

Just as I wrote the above I saw you wrote in great detail about wood, wood working and finishing.

I love reading stuff like that. Also I realize that I better not try my hand at it. This is really for knowledgeable people. It seems so simple but reading what you wrote it’s clear I would be far out of my element and fail at it.

 

[ryan996]

Actually, they are indeed cracks. That one on front vertical edge most likely occurred after the tree was harvested and drying. I would venture that the visible defects are filled with black tinted epoxy. Wood is just that way. Years ago, something like that would have been a non-starter from a cabinet making standpoint. Now various defects are considered visually interesting or imbuing character. That's oak of some variety or another and none of the oaks have streaks of black nor do any woods I've worked with.

They are characteristic of Sheok wood in Western Australia. Just google it. I've seen furniture made with this wood and it has similar black markings. It is part of the natural beauty of Sheok.

 

[ryan996]

I think a lot of people are used to vaneers and vinyl wraps. Those are perfect, but not in the least bit "life like".
This is what real wood looks like. Resin fill of cracks is actually a feature. Imperfections, swirls etc are a highlight, the wood/cabinet will still be structurally rigid/aitight - lets not mention binding posts.
Obviously at the end of the day aesthetics are a personal preference and you carefully chose what you like, real wood is not going to be for everyone. But come on, this is not a production defect! And iam definitely not a March fan boy.

Yeah, I'm laughing at some of the posters here that are so used to fake printed wood and wood vaneer that they don't know what a natural wood product looks like. Those are definitely not cracks.