# Birch vs Pine



## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

I am having a custom combo enclosure made for my 1965 tube rectified Traynor Bassmaster (basically a Bassman/JTM 45). I have the option of having it built with either birch (slight upcharge) or pine.

Are there any general tonal differences between the two? What about weight, durability? Any other basic differences I should now about?

Any info appreciated,
TG


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## LowWatt (Jun 27, 2007)

traynor_garnet said:


> I am having a custom combo enclosure made for my 1965 tube rectified Traynor Bassmaster (basically a Bassman/JTM 45). I have the option of having it built with either birch (slight upcharge) or pine.
> 
> Are there any general tonal differences between the two? What about weight, durability? Any other basic differences I should now about?
> 
> ...


Birch-ply (like in a marshall cab) or solid birch?


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## vds5000 (Apr 14, 2008)

Stick with solid pine if you can. It's relatively light and cheaper. I'm assuming either option will be covered with tolex.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

LowWatt said:


> Birch-ply (like in a marshall cab) or solid birch?


5/8" Baltic Birch ply.

TG


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

All the Traynor cabs I've seen were 3/4" fir plywood.
The birch plywood will stay straighter/flatter (if it's Baltic birch) but the pine can be finger jointed for superior ridigity. You can't really finger joint plywood very well. 
Personally, I'd go with carefully chosen clear pine boards.


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

I would personnaly go with Pine..it's lighter as vds5000 said, and it can be finguer jointed.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Thanks for the responses so far.

Either wood will be covered in tolex so aesthetics is moot. The builder (Saxon Cabs) uses finger joints with either wood.

I should also note that this amp has a TON of bass on tap.

TG


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## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

I'd personally go with Birch. It's a little heavier, but it's much more durable and a bit brighter than pine.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You can regulate/adjust/tailor the bass response, and any other resonances with the back (how open/closed), the baffle (thick/thin, fixed all round or only loosely attached like a 5F6-A), and the EQ. What you can not adjust with anything else is the weight. Go with pine.

The only reason I might NOT go with pine is if the cab ends up being physically unbalanced for some reason. I can't imagine what that might be at the moment (heavy speaker frame and now enough backweight in the cab?), but you don't want it easy to tip forward.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Well, weight is certainly a concern so that gives the nod to pine. Pine isn't "weak" is it? I mean, I could still sit on a pine cab no problem, right?


Thanks for all the responses, still debating so keep them coming
TG


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## vds5000 (Apr 14, 2008)

Also take note that most of the higher-end builders use pine. My Victoria 80410, Bruno Leadman 100 ,BadCat Tone Cat all had solid pine cabinetry. My Top Hat Emplexador has a solid pine cabinet as well.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

traynor_garnet said:


> Well, weight is certainly a concern so that gives the nod to pine. Pine isn't "weak" is it? I mean, I could still sit on a pine cab no problem, right?
> 
> 
> Thanks for all the responses, still debating so keep them coming
> TG



Yeah, you could sit on it. No problem there. :smile:


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## Big White Tele (Feb 10, 2007)

A lot of high end builders are using birch as well. In my experience, the birch is tighter, more hi fi, the pine mellower and sounds warmer. But only slightly.


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## LowWatt (Jun 27, 2007)

Big White Tele said:


> A lot of high end builders are using birch as well. In my experience, the birch is tighter, more hi fi, the pine mellower and sounds warmer. But only slightly.


Yep. Very true assessment. For me, and keep in mind these differences are VERY slight, if I wanted my Traynor to lean towards the Marshall side of things, I'd go Birch. If I was after more of a Fender Bassman-ish sound, I'd go pine.


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

I was thinking pine, and then the birch fans come out the woodworks (oy, horrible pun!).

How much lighter is the pine? Are we talking a 3,5 or 10 pound total difference?

I have been told that birch is more "neutral" sounding whereas pine has a bit of its own sound (which can be good or bad with any particular amp).

Argh! 

OTOH, I think I'm starting to make a mountain out of a mole hill!

TG


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## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

I don't agree that birch ply is lighter than pine. Part of the pine "Mojo" is that cabs made with pine and box joints have more resonance. This is accentuated by using thinner walls - 1/2" as opposed to birch's standard 3/4". Pine ends up lighter for sure.


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## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

mrmatt1972 said:


> I don't agree that birch ply is lighter than pine. Part of the pine "Mojo" is that cabs made with pine and box joints have more resonance. This is accentuated by using thinner walls - 1/2" as opposed to birch's standard 3/4". Pine ends up lighter for sure.


One thing to keep in mind is that most pine today has a much higher moisture content than pine used in the "Golden Years". Plywoods really came on strong in the late 50's and early 60's. Before that pine was the standard for decent quality at a reasonable price.

So nowadays pine sees much less volume (pardon the pun!) in construction and other wood-intensive industries. The people who supply pine lumber don't want to keep it around for it to dry out any longer than they have to. So it hits the shelves of Home Depot with a higher moisture content than the pine Fender used for its famous 4-10 cab.

This DOES make a difference to the sound! There is a story going around that when someone first cloned that 4-10 they gave one to Clapton and he swore it didn't sound as good as one of the originals that he already had. Then someone figured out that moisture content was about the only difference and built a cab from old barn board put through a planer to make cab thickness boards. Clapton then said he couldn't hear any difference!

I don't know for sure if the story is true but it makes sense to me. We're not dealing with electrons in a speaker cab. Once the speakers start moving air then the physics of the cab takes over. The wood and its moisture content, weight and all those other things become just as important as in an acoustic guitar or other such instrument. The DIMENSIONS are not critical with a guitar cab! The wavelengths involved are so long that a guitar cab is basically just treated like a frame to hold the speakers but the resonances and internal reflections are still important. Hifi and bass cabs of course need careful attention to dimensions and also need to be much larger if they are going to be efficient at those lower frequencies and over the full bandwidth. That's also when we need ports and stuff.

Anyhow, I don't know of any good source for pine dried to a lower moisture content. Perhaps there are some specialty suppliers or maybe you can just store your pine outside in a rack for a couple of years. My experience is with sniffing tin/lead fumes. I'm not really experienced with sawdust stuff!:smile:

:food-smiley-004:


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Makes eminent sense. 

So here's a question. Can one guesstimate the moisture content of a pine board by how much it weighs relative to all the others in the stack?


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## Rugburn (Jan 14, 2009)

This is one of these topics that keeps coming up in this and other forums. I've played through my fair share of amps and cabs over the years. I have no doubt that different woods resonate differently, and that the same type of woods can behave differently based on moisture content. Talk to a drummer about the types of wood used in the manufacture of drum kits, and you'll soon see this is to drummers what tubes, speakers and other related gear are to guitarists. However, outside of the recording studio this is one of those details that will be lost amongst the clamour of bar patrons and fellow musicians. More so than the type of amp, speaker(s) and guitars. Not quite "mice nuts", but perhaps "chihuahua nuts".

Shawn


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