There is no doubt about the crucial role of wood in acoustics. Is it impossible to imagine guitars, violas, and flamenco box drum without wood? In our eagerness to improve what already is perfect, we have been experimenting with different types of materials in instrument building and the results are always the same: failure (fortunately).
Each double bass, each piano or each concert hall has its own resonance and it varies according to its shape, the wood used, the processing executed, and a wide variety of climatic factors.
Historically, the acoustic qualities of wood have also been used in audio players, speakers and radios. The unique reverberation achieved by this material makes it a common resource that enhances the sound of the end product.
The great Dieter Rams resorted to walnut and pine in his speakers for Braun, as in the L2 model of 1958. The wood hugs the body of the product complying with Rams allegation: “less but better”.
More than forty years later, the brand Tivoli Audio, gained a remarkable popularity for its sound quality and for creating elements like this:
It is a model made with walnut that has resistance without aesthetic variations over time thanks to its clean finish and care.
Lastly, the design studio Nendo imagined some peculiar music boxes with figurative forms carved of Japanese cypress wood collected according to sustainable forest management.
It comes in three versions: hand bell, standing bell and hanging bell. The traditional way of playing the bells is used in this case to turn the player, establishing a similarity between the real object and the object imagined by Nendo.
