ZYGI
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ClassA,
At the time we I started building the WO's WO32's and the like, Baltic Birch was about the same price as MDF per square foot. So price wasn't the issue.
I did build a WO out of Baltic birch, and hated it. When I told Steve about it, and this was years ago, he said it was more likely to be the piece of junk drivers I had installed in the cabinet. Which he was probaly correct, given the absolute junk available for car audio. Either way, I went with MDF and haven't looked back. We now use a double pressed MDF which is denser that regular MDF, works like regular MDF but isn't as hard as HDF. It weighs about 15 LBS more than a good quality MDF and about 20 Lbs more than the cheap crap they sell at the home improvement stores. I think the added mass is more beneficial for bass cabinets.
Either way the choice of material is more of what the driver needs as a system, and not, this is the material to use regardless of drivers to be installed. This is my opinion.
You have to be very careful with Baltic, it splinters very easily, even after everything is machined, you can catch an edge and run a splinter the size of a pencil right off the surface. That can ruin date night for sure.
I only build one cabinet out of baltic birch, and even it uses braces made from MDF. Customer choice, and design!
ZYGI
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