Who makes the most solid bookshelf enclosure?

[syzygetic]

I have to put a vote in for Genelec 8030C. I replaced a pair of perfectly good-sounding ELAC DBR62s with a pair of 8030Cs, and it's no contest. The 8030Cs, if they were louder and given a subwoofer, might even give my Meridian 5200.2s a run for their money.

On the matter of solid enclosures, the Genelec 8030C is aluminum. It's utterly dead.

The Meridians are too, some of them even have aluminum plate sandwiched between the MDF cabinet layers.

 

[retro]

Whatabout Cast Iron Loudspeakers from Denmark..should be solid enough..

 

[RoyB]

There are much better "Dead" materials than most any metal (Except Lead, Gold and Uramium) ......Concrete? Granite?

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

I thought the Mods would have to start working some overtime in order to not have everyone scared away.
Amazingly there are replies to the topic and they appear to be serious. And they keep on coming?
Whoa.

 

[pjug]

There are much better "Dead" materials than most any metal (Except Lead, Gold and Uramium) ......Concrete? Granite?

Granite rings quite a bit. If you have a piece, stand it on end and give a little rap. Or make one of these!

 

[Keened]

There are Granite speakers, not sure how they sound.

Cabinet resonance seems like one of those problems that is *mostly* solved. You could go to extremes to eliminate it, or you could just move slightly further away from the speaker and use DSP to drop the output at the resonance frequencies. From what I understand, sufficient interior bracing, modest mass dampening, and tuning so the worst resonance isn't within the normal range (i.e. if your speaker is rated 60-20K+ shoot for a resonance at ~40hz) gets you 99% of the way there. It was something from the big box speakers of the 70s-80s where this was a problem and it was pretty much solved by the mid 90s.

 

[Keened]

Granite rings quite a bit. If you have a piece, stand it on end and give a little rap. Or make one of these!

Less fragile than the glass armonica

 

[mightycicadalord]

This is what noaudiophile had to say about the B2031A's enclosure:

Prepare for more insanity. MDF quality is very nice dense stuff, not the usual chinesium crap. The front baffle is a complicated heavily machined piece which is 1/2 inch behind the tweeter, and 1 1/8" behind the woofer which is precision flush mounted to the surface. The center brace is a solid 3/4 inch piece and all of the cabinet walls are covered in a thick carpet padding type material. This is a better box than the Infinity Primus, which was over built massively for the price point. I would say that only the B&W 686S2 beats the Behringer Truth's in cabinet construction quality of reviewed speakers.

I only have one nitpick there.. I think this maybe gives the impression that the tweeter mounts to wood and is solid. its not, the tweeter is only mounted to the thin plastic waveguide/ woofer cover. The whole tweeter apparatus vibrates a lot with the woofers movement.

 

[thewas]

KEF LS50 Metas...... In the hundreds of speakers I've handled over the years, I've never seen any as nonresonant as the Metas. They seem like a solid block of unobtainium.

Agree and it's the same for the original LS50 (own both) and can be seen also by the superb Stereophile enclosure resonance measurements of both. Also they prove once again that not exotic or expensive materials are important but intelligent engineering, in this case FEM optimised damped internal bracing.

 

[mightycicadalord]

This is what noaudiophile had to say about the B2031A's enclosure:

Prepare for more insanity. MDF quality is very nice dense stuff, not the usual chinesium crap. The front baffle is a complicated heavily machined piece which is 1/2 inch behind the tweeter, and 1 1/8" behind the woofer which is precision flush mounted to the surface. The center brace is a solid 3/4 inch piece and all of the cabinet walls are covered in a thick carpet padding type material. This is a better box than the Infinity Primus, which was over built massively for the price point. I would say that only the B&W 686S2 beats the Behringer Truth's in cabinet construction quality of reviewed speakers.

It's not all rainbows, the tweeter just sits on the waveguide which is pretty thin plastic. The whole tweeter vibrates with the woofer.

 

[More Dynamics Please]

It's not all rainbows, the tweeter just sits on the waveguide which is pretty thin plastic. The whole tweeter vibrates with the woofer.

At that price point we shouldn't expect all rainbows.

 

[mightycicadalord]

At that price point we shouldn't expect all rainbows.

Idk I was able to get a pack of stickers for my windows to help birds see them and they cast rainbows all over, only like $2

 

[tuga]

Vonschloo?

https://www.vonschloo.com/making-of

 

[jonfitch]

I guess if you believe Ascend Acoustics claims then their 3/4" bamboo enclosures are as good as something like 3" thick mdf.

 

[Tremolo]

Not in the business anymore but Paragon Acoustics made the Jubilee bookshelf. Solid mdf for the tweeter housing and one inch hdf panels damped with lead plates for the woofer box. 46lbs each.

 

[Pattern]

KEF LS50 Meta?

That cabinet is like a brick.

Vanilla LS50s here. If I didn't know any better I would think it was a solid homogeneous block. The knuckle rap test on them is unbelievable.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

LS 50, either OG or Meta. Nice to own a speaker that could under certain circumstances be characterized as a "blunt object" on a police report.

 

[raindance]

Ascend cabinets are very solidly built. Polk Lsi-m703 cabinets feel solid also. Aurum Cantus cabinets are very nicely made.

 

[melvinjames]

Mark & Daniel uses CAM (Compound Artificial Marble) for their enclosures. Solid. Heavy.

 

[test1223]

Avalon uses a lot of wood for it's speakers. Avalon Tesseract with 827lbs or 375kg per piece. Not book shelf though.

Tesseract | Avalon Acoustics

TESSERACT Signature represents the culmination of more than 30 years of research into the subtleties of musical waveforms and the psychoacoustic perception of

www.avalonacoustics.com

There was a company which uses missile like steel enclosures which are very heavy. I can't remember the name.

As others already pointed out: heavy isn't necessarily better.