Do you build anything for your high fidelity system? If so, what do you make?


After some self assessment and introspection on my own high fidelity habits I discovered that I build or make things for my stereo/audio room. Some examples of these things are;

1 Tore out carpeting/padding/floor tiles in the addition to my house (audio room) and painted the cement floor with epoxy paint and clear coat. Placed out a Turkish area rug.

2 Made cherry wood speaker stands on wheels.

3 Had made custom speaker covers and stereo stand covers for when I am not listening to audio to keep away dust. Thanks to my seamstress....

4 Custom made Paduak wood cover (with legs) with two low speed exhaust fans for my tube amp

So curiosity got the best of me. Have you made anything for you stereo system or room? If so what did you make and why?

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built my 4-way speakers. Built the phono preamp. Built the amps. Built the shelves. Built the turntable stand. Built the speaker cables and interconnects.

Working on my first turntable. Built several styli for several of my cartridges.

No plans to build a DAC.

Dacs are not a big deal. You can use existing models as a template.

Doing such complex involved beasts from scratch makes you a prototyper(ist)(ish) for manufacturing, so it’s bit far down the rabbit hole, there. If indeed you went that way. These days it would involve using software for circuit layouts and then a whole bunch of ancillary skills and lore, so yes, a real pain.

The vast majority of all executions of modern complex chips, in a given circuit, involve a perfect copy of the orignal chip utilization tech manual’s suggestions. No one wants to take risks these days via any variances in the proffered employment/utilization of given chips. None of them ever did, actually.

In this specific case..this turns most engineers and engineering the world of modern complex electronic (audio) circuitry (when working for large firms)... into elevated technicians or technologists, not engineers. Glorified rubber stamp board swappers. No one steps out of their lane of expected competence any more. Pity.

Re mods, using selected models for modification, where most of it is in place as a starting point, is useful. It invariably makes a (hands on modifier) person far more adventurous than most any main manufacturer these days.

What I means is... you can open up any Denon, Yamaha, Sony, JVC, NAD, Marantz, etc etc..and you will se the exact same utilization and layout and parts count and parts type, around any ESS, AKM, TI, etc..digital chip and so on, in all of them.

That is a large part of why they can sound so similar. Within the scope of chip utilization, they are similar. Exceedingly so. None of them will take any form of a risk in the build and execution of the given gear that is built out of so many complex ICs.

The same thing, for the most part, happens around the idea of Class D amplifiers, to an extreme. The entire amplifier board comes in, fully assembled/finished, and then they stuff it into a box, with some power supply and some speaker jacks, maybe a relay. That is now called ’amplifier manufacturing’, in the world of Class D. I think it is a bit of a joke.

Designing a functional and good sounding Class D amplifier circuit, and executing it well is no small task, mind you. so we end up where things in class D models and companies..is more a case of box stuffing than anything else.

This consideration makes such manufacturers more of a ’Dynaco kit assembler’ kinda manufacturer, akin to taking dynaco kits and swapping faceplates and boxes out and somehow calling it ’manufacturing’ of audio gear. Even then, with the older less complex analog based circuits, more builders would be closer to true manufacturing as they would take chances and make modifications and parts changes involving the given circuit.

I've made two sets of speakers... I use walmut wood and B&W speaker drivers... they sound great. I would like to say though that you only save a couple of hundred dollars from buying B&W used... of course, you have new drivers.

We bought a house on the lake that needed a lot of attention. With that in mind I rebuilt the entire house. Almost 6 inches of closed cell spray foam in the floors. Closed cell foam in the exterior walls. Open cell foam in the attic and layer acoustic batting on all trusses from one end of the house to the other. All interior walls are insulated. Used cork floors throughout the house. Used all double pain low e impact windows. Also cut the entire top off of the fire place stereo rack and rebuilt the top to fit the equipment. I did all of the things to this house that I always wanted to do to every house that I lived in. This one gave me the opportunity as it needed rehab. Acoustic bliss!

I usually don’t mess with stuff but I couldn’t justify spending $$$ on a rack so I modified my Pottery Barn end table into a HiFi rack using thick slabs of reclaimed wood to fabricate a shelf for my Dac/Streamer and a plinth for the amp to sit upon. Anti-vibration material (Herbies Audio Lab) is fitted under the shelf, amp slab and the table/rack feet. I think it turned out rather well!

 

 

I design Build a  lot of things including

My House

Turntable Stand

Sound Panels

Roller Block Footers

PAST PROJECTS

Home entertainment center

TT Sand Box

Loaded Horn Speakers for PA