off the wall

[tule peak timber]

I'm starting to set up my audio visual wall and wanted to share some build pics. I haven't listened to good music since about 1972 and thought it was about time to set up a stereo again. I saw the TV series "Vinyl" earlier this year and it brought back memories of Allison Steele, the "night bird" in NYC and the joy I used to get listening to her and other good music. I pulled my stereo out of storage and set it up about 3 weeks ago and decided I could do something better. I got some tips from Audiokarma website about how to set up a wall and acoustically tune a room, so here is the start; a glued and nailed stud frame and panel, 1/4" steel brackets to hang cantilevered shelves and the shelves themselves from reclaimed glue lams. the purpose of this wall is to support very heavy gear, be acoustically dead and provide dynamic air flow to keep the equipment alive. Aesthetically, the wall needs to look modern, have hidden built in wire runs, the ability to add equipment and stay on my wife's good side. Just a few pics of the start here. Rob

  

    

 

[samandothers]

This is gonna be good!    :P

Are ya gonna hook up the turn table?  Reel to reel? Man what memories!

[tule peak timber]

No, no turn table, no tubes , and just CD's. I think I own 10 CD's at this point . When I first got out of the service in 1972 the big Sony reel to reel , turntable and Voice of the theater speakers dominated my rented apartment. I had a super expensive MacIntosh preamp and a home built amplifier. At the time, 200 watts/channel in solid state was rare and I built from technical specs put out by Motorola Labs. I had to etch my own circuit boards, build my own chassis and engineer, develop, wind my own power transformers. There was not enough iron available at the time, in power transformers, so I used 2 colour TV transformers, stripped, rewound and hooked in parallel  into an extremely heavy power supply. I do not intend to re-enter music listening  at this level but do want performance and something of a standard a little above average. In reentering music, I just have to laugh at how things have gone retro!
Rob

[Hilltop366]

Perhaps cds are going to make a come back someday :D.

There has been compact hard drive players, flash memory players, and streaming and perhaps some more that I forgot or never knew about since.

I admit I'm still mostly using cds.

[DDW_OR]

another option is to use car radios with a SD card slot. i have one in the garage/pole barn to play bluegrass.
paid about $40 for the radio, $5 for the banana plug adapters, and used some old house speakers

I could run it off of a battery and a solar charger.

[tule peak timber]

A shot of the shelves forming up.

 

[lowpolyjoe]

I'm very interested in this thread.  My main hobby (on and off) for the last ~5 years has been home theater speaker building.  I enjoy the woodworking more than the audio side of things.  Lately I've gotten away from speakers to move more towards fine woodworking, but I do still have a few audio projects planned and half built.

Can't wait to see what you make

[tule peak timber]

Progress today on the shelf and speaker brackets. I am cantilevered 18 inches off the wall on a single bracket-strong.  Rob

  

  

[tule peak timber]

Today I wound the speaker wires. They are #16 pairs, twisted, then twisted back upon themselves. This is an old technique used for wire that carries signals. In this case, we are carrying from roughly 20-40,000 cycles/second (herts). Back when I was  in engineering, and much younger, I could explain to you the physics of why twisting wire works. Now I am old, and can only simply tell you that it does work and adds a lot more sparkle and life/dimension to any given hookup.
Cheers, Rob 

 

[Larry]

I got out of the service in '73 with my Voice of The Theater speakers, Akai reel to reel, and Dual turntable.  Never did get the Mac, but have always wished for one.

It took me a long time to figure where I heard Allison Steele but it finally dawned on me.  We were Wolfman Jack fans.  In the service I worked in communications on Oahu Hawaii.  We ran Wolfman into SE Asia on bootlegged audio channels when the Generals were asleep.

I would like to build a new system for the shop where I can play what I want as loud as I want.  I'm sure it will pretty simple, the Voice speakers are long gone.

Twisting the wire is also good for high speed data traffic allowing speeds that would error out on untwisted or slow twist wire.

[tule peak timber]

Funny how much we have in common, And strangely enough I still occasionally deal with Generals.  Rob

[Magicman]

Two parallel wires form a capacitor (XC).  Twisting the wires form an inductor (XL).  Adding the two elements together causes the XL to cancel out the XC which results in neither a leading nor lagging voltage/current.  You get full power with virtually no dB loss in the wiring.   ;D

[tule peak timber]

Lynn, I certainly will not impede/ence your view on this subject. Only mentioning this once will be considered a direct response and I will certainly not repeat this post with frequency.  8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Magicman]

 :D :D :D

[tule peak timber]

Lynn , you managed to stay smart !

[Magicman]

Shut Up and Drive

[tule peak timber]

 :D :D :D :D The gal in the video is certainly easy on the eyes !

[John S]

I was on active duty in 67,68 when cps (cycles per second) was replaced with hz (Hertz) in honor of some physicist.  Just the opposite of one of the reasons for adopting the metric system (less things to memorize).  Later centigrade was change to Celsius, also a persons last name.  They (experts) say that we should keep things simple, as they complicate this and many other aspects of our lives.

[tule peak timber]

John S, Affirmative on your last..................

[Magicman]

 :  :D

[tule peak timber]

Got the blue meters in yesterday and the shelves dry fitted. Rob

  

 

[Delawhere Jack]

I got out of the service in '73 with my Voice of The Theater speakers, Akai reel to reel, and Dual turntable.  Never did get the Mac, but have always wished for one.

It took me a long time to figure where I heard Allison Steele but it finally dawned on me.  We were Wolfman Jack fans.  In the service I worked in communications on Oahu Hawaii.  We ran Wolfman into SE Asia on bootlegged audio channels when the Generals were asleep.

I would like to build a new system for the shop where I can play what I want as loud as I want.  I'm sure it will pretty simple, the Voice speakers are long gone.

Twisting the wire is also good for high speed data traffic allowing speeds that would error out on untwisted or slow twist wire.

About 12 years ago I had the pleasure  : of working a marathon weekend cleaning up a very sloppy data cabling install. On a couple of the lines you could actually here radio stations (not sure if they were AM or FM) when toning them out. Not sure if this was due to non twisted pair (not likely) or unshielded cable.

[Magicman]

High probability it was an AM station.

[tule peak timber]

Getting closer ! Rockwool , burlap and wood staves installed.