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“Nothing changes, except the moisture content.”

Posted by wazoo (A) on November 12, 2009 at 05:57:28

In Reply to: RE: just one little comment (okay, two) posted by Peter Gunn on November 11, 2009 at 07:47:56:

You said you don’t like my ‘mile long lectures’, so I tried the terse approach. Apparently that doesn’t work either, but you touched on one of the issues I would have raised had I been characteristically verbose – except that you glossed right over it as though it were completely inconsequential.

After harvesting, the wood is dried and milled. If drying the wood doesn’t change it, then why isn’t it milled before it’s dried? A tree typically holds a fairly significant amount of moisture in the fibers of its wood – the water in those fibers can outweigh the actual wood. Drying shrinks the thickness of those fibers, thus changing the dimension of the wood – both mass and density have changed. Isn't that, and the fact that wood is hygroscopic, why wood isn't dimensionally stable as relative humidity levels vary?

My problem isn’t with you; it is with some of your fanciful explanations. You espouse a strange science. A board does not behave precisely like a living tree. That’s the statement I made (more or less) and I stand by it. Your correctives actually support my position better than your own. On the other hand, perhaps wood is a magical substance. Just because the mechanical behavior of any other material is altered when its mass and density are changed, I shouldn’t infer that wood follows the same dictates. I stand corrected.

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I am not arguing that these speakers don’t benefit from being mounted in hardwood frames. That much is clearly obvious to me – the change even solved an irritating problem (the slap) I was having with my MMGs. I even agree with your reasoning to a point – the wood does bleed off vibrational energy, but do you really believe it happens like this: “Energy is energy, and a woods cell structure doesn't care if it's 20khz or 2khz going thru it. It's going to shift in response to it and dissipate it.” So, the cellular structure of wood (even more amazing – dead wood) remodels itself on the fly in response to varying stresses so that it may dissipate them – strange science indeed .

Furthermore, who started this argument? Dawnrazor mentioned an alternative solution and you are telling him why it's completely wrong. I don't believe it to be the best solution, but it does appear to be addressing the same problem, albeit differently. You seem to be suggesting that hardwood frames are contributing to the sound we are hearing by way of their sympathetic vibration. If all we should be hearing is the sound generated by the vibrating Mylar, then how could the framing possibly be overdamped?

I am a proponent of hardwood frames. I just don't agree with all of your reasoning, nor do I think there is only one way to accomplish a desired end. You think my new hobby is arguing with you; I think your new hobby is arguing with anyone who hasn't adopted your approach.

Let's live and let live. I'll crawl back under my rock now.

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The Cable Cooker

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