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My March Sointuva Speakers

restorer-john

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Sheoak isn't in the Oak family. It's mainly in Australia.

Casuarina. It's a sh#t coastal tree that lives for 5-10 years before dying off. Most of them seem to get attacked by wood grubs and termites in their later years IME. The seeds are eaten and are the sole food of Glossy Black/Red Cockatoos. The cockatoos are a beautiful bird, big wingspan and a unique call. They've been making a lot of noise lately as we are heading into spring.

We have some Sheoaks on our property, in fact one skinny little one is about to be chopped down as it's leaning over my driveway. Not an oak at all. Just like so-called "Tasmanian oak" isn't an oak.
 
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antcollinet

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What cracks!? Do you mean the vertical-ish black line in the first picture? That's actually not a crack, it's literally a black line, like a darker part of the wood.

As in my signature, my amp is the Neurochrome Modulus-686 DIY build I made: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/my-neurochrome-modulus-686-build.34407/

I have seen it, but it's a big list. Very tentatively I'm considering 2x Perlisten D12S. The reason being, they're not marked up crazily here, though they are super expensive.

Most subs, like SVS, JL, Paradigm, are all marked up like double price here in NZ, but Perlisten is not, although Perlisten is insanely expensive.

So I'm not sure about subs. Any help is appreciated for sub ideas.
It is definately a crack down the left hand side of the first picture. You can see split fibres crossing the gap. It doesn't even look to have been sealed.

A disaster if the integrity of the case sealing is compromised. Needs to be returned.
 
OP
concorde1

concorde1

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It is definately a crack down the left hand side of the first picture. You can see split fibres crossing the gap. It doesn't even look to have been sealed.

A disaster if the integrity of the case sealing is compromised. Needs to be returned.
The speakers feel perfectly smooth to the touch all over, including the black lines. I don't see the issue.

I appreciate the concern and you are welcome to elaborate if you still think there's an issue.
 

antcollinet

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The speakers feel perfectly smooth to the touch all over, including the black lines. I don't see the issue.

I appreciate the concern and you are welcome to elaborate if you still think there's an issue.
If smooth/no gap, then it has been filled and not a technical problem. The photograph is deceiving in that case.
 
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concorde1

concorde1

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If smooth/no gap, then it has been filled and not a technical problem. The photograph is deceiving in that case.
Yeah I understand people looking at the photos and thinking there are open cracks.

That's what I thought when Mr March sent me the original photos of the cabinets.

If there were an open crack be assured I would have returned them pronto.

It does look weird with the "crack" in the first picture, but I'm not going to return. I actually think it's cool, and I don't care about what friends or relatives think of the cracks. I'm positive they won't care about the cracks either.

I was however a bit disappointed with Mr March's communication. He was good at answering questions quickly if I asked him, but he didn't give me much information that I didn't ask directly for.

The product, though, I do not regret purchasing. And I am fussy.
 

MAB

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Is this is a ray fleck that has been sawn through?
Sheoak apparently has these ray flecks. When quarter-sawn they can create unusual figuring. In any case, you should ask March just to make sure. If it is figuring, I bet it looks great in person!
 

hvbias

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Casuarina. It's a sh#t coastal tree that lives for 5-10 years before dying off. Most of them seem to get attacked by wood grubs and termites in their later years IME. The seeds are eaten and are the sole food of Glossy Black/Red Cockatoos. The cockatoos are a beautiful bird, big wingspan and a unique call. They've been making a lot of noise lately as we are heading into spring.

We have some Sheoaks on our property, in fact one skinny little one is about to be chopped down as it's leaning over my driveway. Not an oak at all. Just like so-called "Tasmanian oak" isn't an oak.

From a sustainable point of view I'd say that is a good reason to use this wood
 

nerdoldnerdith

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I'm no woodworking expert, but I wonder why he didn't build the speakers out of plywood or MDF and just use different veneers? The different stiffness of different materials means that the speaker could behave differently depending on what wood was used to construct it.
 

Thomas_A

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I'm no woodworking expert, but I wonder why he didn't build the speakers out of plywood or MDF and just use different veneers? The different stiffness of different materials means that the speaker could behave differently depending on what wood was used to construct it.
It will behave different with respect to resonances compared to e.g. MDF. Whether it is good or bad, I have no idea.
 

Sokel

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I'm no woodworking expert, but I wonder why he didn't build the speakers out of plywood or MDF and just use different veneers? The different stiffness of different materials means that the speaker could behave differently depending on what wood was used to construct it.
Isn't that just decor?
Is actually using different wood for the whole cabinet?And measures every single one accordingly?
That's weird...
 

changer

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I'm no woodworking expert, but I wonder why he didn't build the speakers out of plywood or MDF and just use different veneers? The different stiffness of different materials means that the speaker could behave differently depending on what wood was used to construct it.
The obvious reason is that all edges are rounded and you wouldn’t apply veneer to a quarter globe, like at the corners.
 

JSmith

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Casuarina
Actually the customer appears to have a choice of wood used;
Primary woods available include:

  • Jarrah – Eucalyptus marginata
  • Blackbutt – Eucalyptus pilularis
  • Marri – Corymbia calophylla
  • Wandoo – Eucalyptus wandoo
  • Sheoak – Casuarina
  • Tasmanian Oak – Eucalyptus regnans


JSmith
 

restorer-john

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Actually the customer appears to have a choice of wood used;



JSmith

I was just talking about Casuarina (Sheoak) as a wood. We just burn it in our firepit as it's just a messy tree prone to falling over in high winds. Probably the WA (Western Australian) trees are better, with fewer knots and twists than our coastal trees here. No doubt the salt content in the soil doesn't help either.

I can see there's a good choice of other timbers he offers.
 

JSmith

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I can see there's a good choice of other timbers he offers.
Yeah I'd be picking something better than Sheoak/Casurina if buying these... in fact I'm surprised it's being used for speaker cabinets at all as it only has a moderate density and many "natural features" that may look interesting to some or cracked to others.


JSmith
 

MAB

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I can see there's a good choice of other timbers he offers.
Yeah I'd be picking something better than Sheoak/Casurina if buying these... in fact I'm surprised it's being used for speaker cabinets at all as it only has a moderate density and many "natural features" that may look interesting to some or cracked to others.
John and JSmith,
I've just been wondering about the use of solid wood, rather than veneer over MDF, Birch-ply, etc.
Most solid wood moves quite a bit with temperature and humidity, the amount of expansion depends on the direction. Most wood objects built from different pieces of wood (like small furniture, doors, wooden ships) typically require floating panels and can't be glued without pretty bad consequences. I've never built an entire speaker out of solid wood, only done a hardwood front baffle that screwed onto an MDF enclosure.
I always thought the speaker would self-destruct due to the constrained forces all glued together in different directions.
I thought the cabinet would ring like a bell (or like a marimba if you built it out of Padauk;)).
I thought the expansion and contraction would change the driver mounting characteristics depending on temperature and humidity, which I thought was actually me being too crazyo_O about nonsense until we started looking at the THD of this speaker and resonances a few months back.
Is solid wood a good material?
 

phoenixdogfan

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All these options seem like softer woods, with many of them being varieties of Eucalyptus. Aren't the speakers also available in an MDF cabinet painted the color of your choice? I kind of thought timber was merely an option, but maybe I'm misreading.
 

Holmz

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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 told you they were pretty nice sounding.
(But I would not trust someone I don’t know.)



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

It is pretty amazing how much bass they have.
I was pretty damned surprised myself.


I'm no woodworking expert, ...

The place where the cabinets are made have about a two handfuls of people, ranging from some more junior through to well experienced woodworkers.
They do all sorts of work there… windows, doors, stairs, etc… and it is all absolutely first rate.
Most of those features get filled with a resin or epoxy and the surface finished with something like Osmo.

I am more of a “gentleman wood worker”, having made a few bathroom cabinets, furniture, doors, and other odds-n-ends.

If I could work out a deal to get those speakers in the wood I wanted, I would have done so… But alas we could not come to an agreement.


I'm no woodworking expert, but I wonder why he didn't build the speakers out of plywood or MDF and just use different veneers? The different stiffness of different materials means that the speaker could behave differently depending on what wood was used to construct it.

Personally I would trade rounding a sharp edge using the advantage of a thick solid wood core, over suffering diffraction from the edge of a sheet of MDF.

We (consumers), and we (professionals), use MDF because it is:
  • Easy to work with
  • Cheaper than solid wood
  • Requires less skill
  • Can be painted or veneered to look sort of like real wood
  • Can be made from cheap wood chips

It (MDF) is the stuff that IKEA and other cheap stuff is made from.
But it also is uniform, and has good dampening, can be multi-layered to have dampening layers in it… etc.
So it is a good choice for mass production.


Making a speaker cabinet from solid work is “a statement”, and when there is attention to resonance, then it pretty special.
@Erin noted this in his YouTube review.

One would need some testicular fortitude to make a cabinet out of solid wood, which is why we see only a handful of DIY speakers make that way.
And once the cabinets get big then likely need some bracing to stop resonances.

The closest thing we see are the machined alloy cabinets.


The ‘cracks’ are a common sight in Australian bespoke carpentry and cabinet making and are called features by the builders I know. Locally they are desired as showing the individuality of the product vs mass factory manufacturin of particle board covered with veneer. While working for these builders I have been part of many conversations with customers as they view and chose timber pieces - much focus is placed on picking lumber that has interesting features like this that do not affect the structure but can be stained or treated to show up and show off whatever is being made. Maybe it’s cultural, but Id prefer unique features like this over clean veneer (assuming that it’s epoxy filled when used in a speaker cabinet.

^yeah^
And many of the 100 year old railway bridges and “ties” have these features in them.
But Crickey, we trust these (god only knows how) massive trains to run on them.
 

JSmith

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It (MDF) is the stuff that IKEA and other cheap stuff is made from.
The better items are made from MDF, the cheaper items are made from LDF/particle board.
Making a speaker cabinet from solid work is “a statement”, and when there is attention to resonance, then it pretty special.
Agree, they look very individual and bespoke, making quite a statement in any home. Along with excellent measurements and parts too. Enjoy the new speakers @concorde1. :)


JSmith
 
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