I built my room while the speakers were being built. It was designed by Jeff at HDacoustics. 3 months of nights and weekends. Worth it! Happy listening.
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?
79 responses Add your response
@asvjerry It's a linear tracker, which I tried to build without compromising rigidity or adjustability. That means expensive off-the-shelf stuff from Igus (costs more to make equivalent quality, IMO), three indexed linear slides and two slides with brakes on the sleds. Lots of machining too. I prefer Panzerholz to natural wood because it's rigid and has great damping properties. Lots of decisions peculiar to the layout - like where to hang wires and air hoses, etc. Just installed this weekend, so still finding things that don't quite work together - luckily, little things. But the concept is proved - it's the most adjustable arm I've ever heard of, like tangentiality to the nearest 5 microns - the length of a medium large bacterium. Clarity improved from bass to treble, soundstage wall to wall and rock solid, speakers disappearing. That's over the former unit, also an air linear tracker. |
Gosh folks, I wound up building it all. Power amps, preamp, DAC, active crossover, four way speaks (I need 8 amplifiers of varying power sizes), line array of 9 tweeters and line array 5 upper mids, single low mid, two sets of baffled woofers of 4 driver each. It has evolved a lot of the last 4 years. |
@terry9 Would be interested in your tonearm design, have a turntable that could use one...as well as a deck for the table itself. Since I work with locust (robinia), I've lots of 'drop' planks as thick as one could care to apply.... Hard and dense, laughs at carbide.... ;) DIY TT switch for 3 tables, the 3rd needs an 'input'...allows for RIAA (or not) and anything else I'd care to run 'in' or 'out to'... DIY 'stand' for all; two 1" thick slabs of polished stone supported by a heavy pine frame. Takes 2 to think of moving it...bumping it will hurt you before either TT notices it. Anything that can rack mount is, and is on the above as well. Have built speaker cabs of various shapes for the 'typical' sort of drivers. Most of that takes a back-seat to the DIY Walsh drivers I play about with for the last 15 years on and off.... Some berserk concepts of a surround AMT array with a distributed sub array to go along with a surround Walsh array is pending, but will await moving lock, stock, and everything else to a new home in a vaguely sub-rural location. That in itself will have 2 spaces open to treatments as desired. One of which has the SAF issue, but as long as it has 'plug & play' simplicity, she's good to go with it. ;) All of the above is dependent on the 'spare time' that I've in limited quantity, but I'll manage....*G* |
DIY air bearing turntable - design and build from ground up. DIY air bearing tonearm - design and build from ground up. Just installed this weekend!!!!! DIY phono pre - implemented design with ultra components, like vacuum capacitors. DIY amps - complement design with ultra components. DIY central power supply - design and build from ground up. Designed and helped build listening room. Heavily modified modern Quads. Cartridges unmodified. |
i build a lot of wires--speaker cables, interconnects, etc. I have the stuff on the way to rebuild the crossovers on my 4 way speakers. I am building a set of outriggers for the same speakers. I installed a dedicated 240V 30 amp circuit for my system. I built custom low mass speaker binding posts from all non-metal parts except the center conductor. I'm thinking of building a custom wood chassis for my amp. But I'm less into woodwork and more into metalwork nowdays. Ask me about my other hobbies, I build a lot of stuff for them. I have a metalworking machine shop in my garage. Jerry
|
Finished the build on my 12" Tannoy speakers (enclosures are 150 liters nearly 2" thick MDF, @ 192 lbs. each, built custom crossovers using Mundorf capacitors, Alpha Core inductors and Dueland resistors, rebuilt my Garrard 401 turntable, built my plinth, and installed a Dynavector tonearm. I also built many interconnects and power cables over the years. If I had to buy this stuff new and and/or already built, my system wouldn't be any near as good sounding as it is. And, I enjoyed myself in the process. Regards, Dan |
Built a wall hung record shelf that holds about 400 records, hung on wall with a French cleat. Id have to build about 10 more to hold entire collection! Also made my own absorbtion/diffuser panels using cotton towels and decorative wooden wall panels with scroll pattern bought from Target. Yes, not very thick, but it can’t hurt in maybe cutting down some high frequency reflections. I Mainly use these on back wall to cover some of the drywall. For front and sides, I’ll most likely buy something from gik eventually. I also made my own 50 inch TV screen cover using a 100% black cotton bath rug with rope weaved in an out at top. This is hung from TV using several 3M removable clips stuck to back side/top of TV. |
Back in the 70’s when I started this journey, I built most of my gear. I built my preamp from a kit, my power amps were a scratch built copy of Dynaco MK III’s. I built numerous speaker sets mostly 2 way. I did a 3 way but I bought premade crossovers. I built light boxes that had multiple colors and interfaced with the different frequencies of the music. They were 3’x 5’ X 12”. The front had opaque plastic from industrial light covers. The three colors were blue ( low freq ), green ( mid ) and red for high. I hung them above and behind my speakers. I built a credenza with front doors that closed and an open back with fans to dissipate the heat from the tubes. I built my speaker cables and RCA interconnects. I was in High School and had enthusiastic wood shop and electronics teachers. My humble attempts pale in comparison to the work that I’ve seen here on AGON. Had I continued maybe I would be on par with some of you. What I took from my few years of building was a lifelong appreciation of audio, wood and electronics. And a realization of how truly hard it is to design speakers. You guys amaze me with your ability to create and your skill at matching gear. People poke fun at MC, but look at what he did. Have a blessed day, Mike B. |
I wanted a surround/stand for my McIntosh mx110z Tube Preamp. Not the old walnut case. Research, correspondence with McIntosh about vintage enclosures, ended up developing a unit in 3 optional heights and several optional finishes. Ventilated, Rubber Isolation feet, tempered glass top, wide open back. All dressed up, never offered them for sale, maybe some day I put photos on this site
|
| Post removed |
|
I made panels for absorption using OC 703 and fabric. Also made some deflection boards -- about 4 ft. x 2 ft. on stands about 1 foot off the ground. Placed near the speakers they direct sound which might bounce off a side wall back around the room. This improved the imaging of the speakers without deadening the sound. |