can you tell a diff between pine and birch?

[neastguy]

cabs? I never played via a pine cab.. but would like one because it lightweight... your thoughts and impressions...:RoCkIn

[Luke]

High quality closed back cabinets tend to be made of 13 ply birch plywood.

Open backed cabinets tend to be pine.

So it is an apples vs oranges comparison in most cases. To truly test the theory (question asked) you'd need identical cabinets with the only difference being the wood. Not aware of anyone making such to compare.

Additionally you can add front mounted vs rear mounted speakers to the variables.

[neastguy]

just wondering if the less weight of the pine causes bass loss or anything silly like that..

[SuperReverb2]

Originally Posted by neastguy

just wondering if the less weight of the pine causes bass loss or anything silly like that..

I use pine for most of the cabinets I make, and I haven't noticed any bass loss whatsoever. Here's a picture of one I built a while ago out of finger jointed Ponderosa (knotty) Pine. I usually tolex them, but I made this particular cabinet with a floating baffle board so I left the tolex off for some added resonance.

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h8...2/DSCN2403.jpg

[blastastick]

Originally Posted by neastguy

just wondering if the less weight of the pine causes bass loss or anything silly like that..

No not at all. The open back design will give you less bass, but not because of the Pine. Bob Burt makes the best Pine Cabs I have played. 150 yr old Pine sounds sweet iindeed.

[sgslinger]

Originally Posted by neastguy

just wondering if the less weight of the pine causes bass loss or anything silly like that..

We have built and tested both pine and 13 ply cabs open, closed, and oval.

Using the same amp, guitar and settings, spkrs etc. in this case a 2 x 12 closed back cab w/ 60hz KTS speakers we noticed that the pine cab delivered more bass. Pine is a softer more "pliable" lumber it has a lower resonance than 13 ply, this results in a softer tone with more emphasis on the lower notes. Hi freqs, don't seem to be effected as much.

Conclusions could be a bright speaker may benefit a pine cab, to round out that low end, however a 55 or 60 hz spkr can sound "huge" in a pine cab, and this is where technique, guitars , amp setting etc. enter the equation.

Obviously ported and open boxes and spkr combinations are endless. This is just a general observation.

Carry on in the pursiut of good tone!

Ron