particle board

[Delwin D Fandrich]

Alex Thompson wrote:
> 
> Dear particle board critics and everyone else,
> Particle board/MDF is not the inferior product some of you claim it to
> be. It is by far the best material acousticly. You want proof? Tear
> apart any high quality loudspeaker, I dont mean a cheepie pioneer I mean
> a something comparable to a Bose or Infinity. (the cheapies use particle
> board too) They all are constructed out of particle board/MDF. The
> reason is because particle board/mdf is incredibly dense and it absorbs
> sound rather than vibrating like solid wood adding unwanted coloration
> to the sound. So the result of using particle board is: the sound you
> hear is the sound from the speaker not the sound of the cabinet
> resonating.
> So as long as particle board is not being used in soundboards pinblocks
> or any important structural part of the piano, don't complain it may
> actually be <improving> the quality of the instrument.
> 
> A
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MDF is used in high-end speaker cabinets because it is acoustically
dead--well, relatively so, anyway--not because it has any outstanding
acoustical properties of its own or because it is particularly strong.
It's obviously strong enough for speaker cabinets. But then there is
essentially no structural load on a loudspeaker. Pianos have different
needs from its cabinet parts.

The key words you've used above are "any important structural part." I
think that one of the things that has given the material a bad name in
the piano industry is its mis-use early on. Before piano engineers
learned about stripped out screws and its lack of long-term structural
stability. (Actually, some of the first man-made materials used in piano
cabinets was particleboard. MDF came later and, for pianos at least, is
a far better material.) I'm not up on the current usage of the material
in pianos, I just know that it should be possible to use it without ill
effect in many parts of the cabinet.

--ddf