The Move to EFS:

As of November 3rd, 2008:

We at Elemental Designs are announcing something that we're extrememly happy to share. After taking a look at the world we live in and how we can impact it in a positive way while creating a better product for you; we knew that it is time to move in a more environmentally friendly direction. Now after weighing the options available we have found a unique opportunity to help take the company in a green direction. In order to do this Elemental Designs has taken the steps internally to make this transition as smooth as possible and at no additional cost to our customers.


So What Is Elemental Designs Doing To Go Green?

We are moving from the industry standard of using MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) for our enclosures. Upon having done some intensive research and testing have found a material that is a greener product that is not only environmentally friendly but also performs better in our
applications. This material is an Environmentally Friendly Substrate, herein known as EFS, that is not only healthier for the environment but also for our employees that work with EFS. EFS does not release the added carcinogens commonly found in MDF, which also makes EFS California Compliant far into the
future as well.

What makes EFS actually friendly for the environment?

EFS is created using a different process than MDF, and it does not contain urea-formaldehyde which is the bonding agent used as MDF is baked into the panels commonly used in construction. Without using urea-formaldehyde EFS is also a safer material for us to work with as well; because it does not emit the fumes
while we are building enclosures. EFS is also built using whole wood logs (these are logs not suitable for construction in raw form), wood chips, and sawmill waste. The differences in the process add some interesting attributes to EFS; it actually ends up having a higher density than MDF as well.

So EFS has a higher density than MDF, what is the benefit of a denser material?

Basically in the audio world we chose the materials to use based on a few factors, one of the important ones is the density of that material. The denser the material the less resonation
that material will give to the enclosure.


So what does EFS do for performance?

What we have seen is that in the applications we’ve had the chance to test so far we are seeing average gains over MDF in output. Especially as the wattage of the application goes up, the
density advantage of the EFS really appears to push the average gain even higher across the frequency range we
have been able to test so far. More average output that in some cases was definitely smoother has us excited to see all of the applications we can integrate EFS.

For The Official PDF File Documenting Our Move To EFS - Including A Perfomance Graph Click HERE.