8. Open, closed, glued, nailed together - what the....? Construction and finishing of cabinets

Once the basic decision on size has been made, you should definitely have a closer look at the details of your cabinet's construction. Edges and corners should be adequately protected, either with metal or hard plastics. The latter is often used for stacking corners, which are immensely helpful if you want to stack several components on top of each other, as your entire "tower" will be hold firmly together and stand securely on the stage floor.

The speakers, too, should be well-protected. Usually, this purpose is served by screwing a close-mesh metal grille to the front of the cabinet, which keeps the sensitive speaker diaphragm from being damaged. Make sure with such constructions that the grille and all other components have actually been tightly fastened to one another in manufacturing! Otherwise, there's the concrete risk that every bass note played will result in an annoying rattling or clanging sound - in the worst case, this may come from deep within the casing. Finding the precise location of such problems and fixing them is often a very hard job!

Well protected: this closed Warwick WCA cabinet provides the speakers with a sturdy protection: a heavy-duty front grille.

In order to protect the casing itself, many manufacturers go in for a variety of measures. The most common of these are:

  • Textured paint: a final layer of hard-wearing special paint. However, the quality of this paint varies among manufacturers. Ideally, the paint should adhere to the casing even if it is subjected to considerable impacts.
  • Industrial needle felt: a type of "carpet" which is very resilient against bumps, kicks, etc.
  • Plastic: this cover material is found in Marshall cabinets, for example. However, the cover may separate from the casing over time, particularly with older models.
  • "traditional" vanish or paint: this of course affords the least protection, so that you can pretty much count on your cabinet looking old and worn relatively quickly.

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