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The wall of sound

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 5:33 pm
by karatestu
A little idea i had a while back. Would only happen if i had a dedicated listening room or lived alone :violin:

What is needed is a wall (preferably solid construction) on to which all your hifi gear is arranged. A bit of diyness and soldering is required. :grin:

Start with the sources - vinyl and cd for example. Mount these on shelves at a comfortable height.

Everything amplifier related goes below the sources

LP psu and all cdp psu's go above the source components

Preamp and phono stage go directly under the source components with a minimum of 40cm between each of them

Poweramps go at floor level distanced well apart.

Think of it as a bit like a spoked wheel with source components at the hub. Power sockets could be in the wall directly behind the powered unit. Think of the spokes as signal or dc power cables. This will keep lots of distance between different components and reduce the effects of any musically harming transformer stray field or cable rats nests.

This idea can be broken down even further to the individual parts of amplifiers i.e transformer, rectifier, smoothing capacitors, regulators and amplifier boards. That is where the diy part comes in. More later..........

Re: The wall of sound

Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2017 7:13 pm
by Geoff.R.G
I can see where you are coming from but, taken to extremes, you may begin to compromise the sound by having excessively long signal cables to accommodate the spacing of the power supply components. However it would be endless fun trying to get the optimum positioning for all the components.

Can I throw a spanner in the works and ask where you are going to put a tape machine, needs to be well away from magnetic fields but does require a local power supply for the motors.

Re: The wall of sound

Posted: Sun Nov 26, 2017 10:05 am
by karatestu
Geoff.R.G wrote: Sat Nov 25, 2017 7:13 pm I can see where you are coming from but, taken to extremes, you may begin to compromise the sound by having excessively long signal cables to accommodate the spacing of the power supply components. However it would be endless fun trying to get the optimum positioning for all the components.

Can I throw a spanner in the works and ask where you are going to put a tape machine, needs to be well away from magnetic fields but does require a local power supply for the motors.
Tape machine ? Do you mean reel to reel or good old cassette deck ? All sources go at the same chest height. Another mains socket needed.

Long signal cables would be undesirable for sure.

When you get into the diy part things start to get interesting.

Off board all source power supplies and put them a good distance above the sources . Transformer furthest away and the rest of the psu chain getting progressively closer to the source components.

Do the same with preamp psu (if any) and phono psu. When the source psu's have been off boarded the sensitive amplifier boards (pre, phono, poweramp)
can go much closer to the source components i.e right underneath. Then the amplifier's psu's can be fanned out underneath with the transformers at floor level and the psu chain getting progressively closer to the amplifier boards they are powering.