General marine grade plywood (or Baltic birch, apple ply, or any other void-free plywood) is superior for subwoofer use. The reason: stiffness.Subwoofer cabinets WILL talk - they will vibrate. The key is to keep the cabinet from vibrating in the frequency range of the subwoofer. There's two ways to do it: push the resonance of the cabinet above the pass band of the driver, or push the resonance of the cabinet below the pass band of the driver.
To push the resonance above the pass band, we need to make the cabinet stiff. Stiffen something, and it resonates at a higher frequency. In this case, plywood is MUCH better than MDF. Plywood is simply stiffer than MDF, and that's why it is used for sub-flooring, cabinetry bases, and other strength-critical uses. It is the lamination of cross-oriented layers of wood that gives you the strength. No matter how you try to bend it, some of the wood fibers are in tension, which is where they are strongest.
To push the resonance below the pass band, we need to make the cabinet heavy. Add mass to something, and it resonates at a lower frequency. This is where MDF is better - it is much denser than plywood, and as such will take less thickness to lower the resonant frequency of the box. Of course, making a wall thicker also increases the stiffness, which runs slightly counter to the addition of the mass; the resonance still lowers, but not as fast as one would expect.
Overall, it's easier to make a box sufficiently stiff to not resonate below 300 Hz, than it is to make a box heavy enough to not resonate above 15 Hz. Bracing and stiff wall materials raise the resonance - bracing ADDS stiffness (as well as physical strength to hold up a driver, for instance).
Additionally, we need to consider the internal loss. As sound passes through material boundaries, it loses energy. The more layers, and the greater the changes in density, the more energy is lost. MDF is a VERY homogeneous material - it has little internal loss. Plywood, on the other hand, has multiple layers and has considerably higher internal loss. So acoustic waves will be better attenuated by plywood than by MDF.
And in the automotive world it is, IMHO, superior to MDF in two other significant ways: weight and water resistance. Less weight is always good - better gas mileage, easier to build/move, etc. And plywood doesn't swell and turn to mush, like MDF. In fact, marine grade plywood is VERY water resistant. No problems living in damp conditions in car trunks, or getting rained on occasionally.
Overall, if you don't mind paying an extra $25 a sheet for the material, I'd go with a quality void-free plywood (marine grade, Baltic birch, apple ply) over MDF, especially for subwoofers in cars. Lots of benefits, and only one real drawback (the slightly higher cost).
(tell that to Dan Wiggins)
