Panzerholz, magic or myth.

[Daniel Quinn]

I am always on the look out for ways to improve my hifi. Unfortunately experience and the level of quality ive reached, means improvements are few and far between.

Panzerholz is simply stated to be the material for your plinth. Is the any substance to this or is it simply collective myth.

I currently don't have a view anybody who deos?

[valvesRus]

Seems that Panzerholz is basically layered birch impregnated with phenolic resin, an engineered wood.

As baltic birch ply is supposed to be good for plinths (constrained layer damping ?) then Panzerholz may also be. I have no personal experience of it.

I found a forum that discussed it's use in audio, what I read seemed interesting, so see what you think.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/ ... ems.29360/



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[29mile]

I posted this in June

I stumbled across a few large blocks of panzerholz ( engineered beech/birch plywood ) I got many years ago for an audio project. At the time it was to build a composite ( with aluminium / acrylic ) turntable plinth and for armboards for my Lenco. However since then I have noticed several audio companies like Clearaudio ( in turntables ) Audio Note ( pcb’s? ) & Kaiser ( speakers ) who have used it in their product lines.

I was maybe considering a DIY set of Cubes dependent on how much I have and how easy the blocks are to machine ( it machines apparently similar to aluminium ) . Anybody with any experience of using Panzerholz in a project ?

[29mile]

https://www.kaiser-acoustics.com/en/spe ... hiara.html

Here are some speakers in Panzerholz.
I suspect it has the same effect of one of Doc's speaker mods ( used by Joe Ackroyd ) - using steel plates to line speaker cabinets to improve rigidity.

I tried my blocks ( 40mm ) under my Royd RR1's recently but they overdamped the dynamics makng them sound a bit flat. Could be that a smaller block may be better or a composite which is what I planned to do with a turntable plinth,

[Daniel Quinn]

Some interesting posts on that forum. It would seem it is but 1 material for your plinth, with strength and weakness like any other material.

[valvesRus]

Some interesting posts on that forum. It would seem it is but 1 material for your plinth, with strength and weakness like any other material.

My preference would be BBP (Baltic birch ply) for reasons of cost and ease of working. I normally use 18mm thick, but other thicknesses are available.

[savvypaul]

My Garrard and Lenco plinths are a laminate mix of chipboard and mdf. Not very fashionable but they seem to sound as good (though, slightly different) to the slate and birch ply plinths I've heard on 401s. I could happily live with any of them.

Not heard a Panzerholz plinth.

[CaterhamKev]

I am always on the look out for ways to improve my hifi.

Improve, or just make it different?

[savvypaul]

I am always on the look out for ways to improve my hifi.

Improve, or just make it different?

I think DQ is being clear that he wants an improvement rather than a difference. You might have learnt that on an earlier thread

[valvesRus]

As far as I'm aware no one ever does anything DIY in hi-fi merely to make a difference.

In reality, different is more often than not the result we get, but we don't get to know till the job is finished.

Better, and different can often be difficult to differentiate.

If one prefers a difference, does that automatically make it better ?