[Derek1984]

I emailed Audioengine about this and they responded extremely quick. This is what they had to say:


Hi there,
Thank you for your interest. To the trained ear there will be some differences in sound between the bamboo speakers and the MDF speakers. In tuning these speakers, they were designed to sound as closely as possible to the black and white speakers but the bamboo speakers do have natural acoustic advantages being that they are made from solid bamboo. Hope this helps. Please let us know how else we can assist you!

Regards,
Logan

 

[Sherwood]

Yeah, stay away. MDF is an ideal enclosure material, and bamboo is far from it. You want a cabinet to be as inert as possible.

It is possible that the internal characteristics have been tuned to compensate for the different resonance of bamboo, but I doubt it has been done extremely well, especially considering the price point of the A5. I'll bet the MDF sounds better, and it's clearly cheaper. I was gung ho for the bamboo until I learned all this.

 

[Derek1984]

Well Audioengine was great for responding so quickly. I've heard they had good customer service and this proved it to me. Yeah, if I decide on these, I think I'll go with the black. Besides, it's $100 more in my pocket!

 

[Hookem]

Sound quality should be the same as they share the same speakers and amp.

And like vulc4n quotes they are bamboo and not a veneer.

 

[Sherwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hookem /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sound quality should be the same as they share the same speakers and amp.

Spoken like someone who's never built a speaker

 

[Hookem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Derek1984 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I emailed Audioengine about this and they responded extremely quick. This is what they had to say: Hi there, Thank you for your interest. To the trained ear there will be some differences in sound between the bamboo speakers and the MDF speakers. In tuning these speakers, they were designed to sound as closely as possible to the black and white speakers but the bamboo speakers do have natural acoustic advantages being that they are made from solid bamboo. Hope this helps. Please let us know how else we can assist you! Regards, Logan

I would be willing to bet that AudioEngine has built some speaker enclosures.

Seems Logan at AudioEngine states that the bamboo speakers do have a natural acoustic advantage being they are made from solid bamboo.

I might have misread his email...But he seems to be saying the opposite of what you are saying.

I doubt very seriously that there is a big difference in the 2 speakers sound...As Logan stated they have tried to tune the bamboo models to sound as close as possible to the black and white models.

Nice looking speakers for sure...Worth a hundred duckies ??? I guess it would be up the purchaser.

 

[Maxvla]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hookem /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would be willing to bet that AudioEngine has built some speaker enclosures. Seems Logan at AudioEngine states that the bamboo speakers do have a natural acoustic advantage being they are made from solid bamboo. I might have misread his email...But he seems to be saying the opposite of what you are saying.

He's also on the collecting end of the extra $100.

 

[MaZa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hookem /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would be willing to bet that AudioEngine has built some speaker enclosures. Seems Logan at AudioEngine states that the bamboo speakers do have a natural acoustic advantage being they are made from solid bamboo. I might have misread his email...But he seems to be saying the opposite of what you are saying. I doubt very seriously that there is a big difference in the 2 speakers sound...As Logan stated they have tried to tune the bamboo models to sound as close as possible to the black and white models. Nice looking speakers for sure...Worth a hundred duckies ??? I guess it would be up the purchaser.

Well, it depends how good acoustic material bamboo is. MDF is very very good stuff for speakers.

 

[Sherwood]

Bamboo is an unorthodox acoustic material. Nothing about it is "naturally better". MDF is inexpensive, rigid, and non-porous. It joins to itself easily with little more than wood glue. Bamboo is expensive, malleable and porous. It vibrates at specific resonances, creating an imbalanced frequency response that would need to be addressed elsewhere. Great speakers have massive, inert enclosures that allow the driver to move air freely. Bamboo does none of this, but it does look very nice, and gives a "green" feel. I'd love some bamboo veneers, but I think making the whole cabinet out of bamboo may well be a mistake. I'll freely admit that I've not heard both side-by-side, however. From an engineering standpoint, it would be extremely difficult for the bamboo versions to overcome the limitations of their construction medium, let alone excel above them. For a scant $100 markup per pair, I seriously doubt Audioengine put in the non-trivial engineering expense to do so.

You're free to believe Logan at his word, Hookem, but I recommend you read up a little before you do so.

 

[Hookem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherwood /img/forum/go_quote.gif You're free to believe Logan at his word, Hookem, but I recommend you read up a little before you do so.

Well I took you advice and this is the first thing I came up with...Dont sound all that bad to me...Guy sezzz he has built literally hundreds of thousands of speaker enclosures...He seem pretty stoked about bamboo.

Sierra - The Cabinet - Ascend Acoustics Community

Here is the orignal thread.

Stereophile Forums: Bamboo speaker from Ascend Acoustics

I do not know how many speaker cabinets you have built but I know Logan and these other people have built more than a couple pair...Or I would assume.

I guess we can believe whatever we want...And I for one do not believe that bamboo versus MDF or HDF would sound that much different...Especially if the manufacturer is trying to tune them as close as possible.

I certainly believe what Logan says about "trained ears" which I by the way do not have.

I think they look bad to the bone...And it would appear that there are a couple of other manufacturers besides AudioEngine that like bamboo as a enclosure material.

 

[Sherwood]

Thanks for the links, Hookem.

I followed them and read up on Ascend Acoustic's use of bamboo in their Sierra speakers.

Here's a quote from their description of the material they use:
"The bamboo we use is actually a laminate. The bamboo stalk is initially split lengthwise into strips. The strips are kiln dried and sanded to a smooth surface for laminating. They are then glued face to face to form vertically laminated panels. The material is extremely rigid."

Sounds pretty cool to me

The way they're utilizing it is as a kind of plyboard, which seems to really enhance the density and rigidity. Their primary purpose is to use a renewable resource, which I do not care about, to be frank, but more power to them. They're also making speakers for $850 a pair, which is more than double Audioengine's price, so I wonder if Audioengine is using bamboo in the same fashion. Again, I'd have to hear them to know.

 

[Maxvla]

The quote from the retailer says they use solid bamboo. Would that be a different sound than laminate? It sure makes a difference when you talk about laminate cellos and string basses, but in the instrument world the solid is better. So confusing.

 

[Sherwood]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla /img/forum/go_quote.gif in the instrument world the solid is better. So confusing.

Solid is important in the instrument world because solid wood (and bamboo) resonates evenly. That resonance helps determine the volume, decay and sustain of the instrument. Resonance is extremely important to acoustic instruments, but it's extremely important to avoid it in loudspeakers. It seems that laminate bamboo is a more rigid material than solid, which would make it preferable for loudspeaker cabinets.

 

[Brighten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sherwood /img/forum/go_quote.gif Spoken like someone who's never built a speaker

...

 

[Nebby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brighten /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...

I thought the same thing Simply adjusting a port length has a huge effect on a speaker, let alone changing the cabinet material! That being said, you can minimize the effect of the cabinet material by other means, although I don't see it as being very probable due to the small cost difference between the MDF and bamboo models.