Hello all, a short history.

Ever since I can remember physics has drawn my attention. Around 5 years of age, I was folding newspaper into boxes, stacking like bricks building walls in the living room of my parent’s small apartment. At 8 my favorite read was Edmund scientific catalog with visions of actually creating some sort of laboratory in my bedroom. In my earliest teens, when not in the woods with friends cutting wood, making secret hideaways, or enjoying berries and fruits from bushes and trees, I was at home building a table saw from a TV cabinet console. It was the result of my failed attempt of repairing the TV that was giving up by dad and the instinctive nature of making something that can be used out of junk. Heck, I remember making a working steam engine out of a tall #3 tin can. It worked until the rubber washer used in the piston swelled and seized causing enough back pressure to blow the #3 vessel. Mom was not too happy with the loud explosion coming out of the back yard! I remember sitting in 7th grade class, looking out a window at workers replacing the roof on a house that was a few hundred feet away. We did not have AC in those days at school so the windows were open and the sound of hammering was present. It struck me odd that the hammer sound did not match what the worker was doing with the hammer. I think at that moment my curiosity was set with the physics of sound. Over my lifetime, the curiosity has leaded me to many endeavors building personal speakers, audio systems, and listening rooms.

Fast forward to the turn of the 21st century:

My 3 beautiful daughters were just about to leave the nest, 2 in high school, 1 entering college. I was a maintenance manager for a local grocery chain that gave me the freedom and means to build a complete wood shop. The family room at home was a theater of sorts with 36" JVC tube and audio components to match. The front speakers were a set of refrigerator sized Cerwin Vegas and Radio Shack center with a custom sub. A set of Bose 901s complimented with Death Boxes filled in the rears. A Wicket One coupled with the vaulted ceiling made the .1 sub. I also installed some tactical transducers in a love seat facing the JVC tube. The sound system rocked the house. In hindsight, I think it was my way of preserving dignity amongst the opposite sex

Elevation Profile. Note the front wall is not canted and ceilings are flat in the final build.

The beam in place and the old support post removed

2X6 stud framing was used for the walls. The beams to support the ceiling are placed alongside ductwork and new beam. Careful consideration was given not to have any of the Chariot structure come in contact with any part of the house structure.

As you can see the area got very tight.

The entrance door is a stock sound proof door that was purchased at Home Depot. All electrical fixtures are placed on the surface of the interior walls/ceiling. Three circuits feed the room. One home run circuit is used for the electronics. An oil filled electrical heater is used for heat. Air condition is not needed being that the basement is 75% under the surface of the ground and I spend most of my time outside during the warmer months.

Thanks

John

Exactly Donnie! I need to clear out some stuff. Good old fashion garage sale will be done this spring and is being staged to the left. Those shelf's are earmarked for the storage area via the door on the right. The storage area is full of a DJ setup that needs disassembled and re-purposed. Unless you know someone interested in a system that could entertain a thousand or so? Pardon my mess but brighter days are on the horizon.

John

Growing up in an era when tube electronics were rapidly being replaced with transistors, unused tube radios/stereos/tvs were handed to us inquisitive kids. Most of  the equipment had seen better days and did not work. Actually, I am surprised my life did not end with electrocution as many times my hands where in the box, power on, trying to wiggle the right tube to make the thing work again. I did learn some good life saving respect for electricity when one of my adventures abruptly sent me across the room with my back hitting the opposing wall then sliding down to the ground on my arse! Dazed and confused, it was about that time the thought of making a table saw came to mind.
Anyhow, there was this one working radio we kept up in my cousin’s room that had an aux input we used to play 8 track tapes. The radio worked OK, but on one of our overnight tinkering sessions the FM radio seemed to become haunted with holographic music. We looked at each other in amazement and listened intently until falling asleep. We were totally disappointed the next morning when the FM just sounded OK again.
The quest began to find out why. Well it seemed to be a couple factors. A perfect FM signal being fed and amplified using clean AC. The airways were clear of electrical interference as well as the AC grid power during the wee hours of night.
Building the Chariot, it was one of my goals to supply the electronics with clean AC power within budget. Searching the internet produced an article written by Magnan Audio Cables, “Recommended Audio System Tweaks”. The suggestions presented seem reasonable and within means. Basically the filtering tweaks adding film caps between hot to neutral and another with neutral to ground all over the house to eliminate the grunge in AC supply. I did not like the idea of adding custom built modules to outlets as described in the tweak but believed running a home run power source to the Chariot’s audio equipment and adding the hot to neutral treatment to that circuit could be just as effective. The neutral to ground receptacle modules could be eliminated by adding the capacitors to different circuits at the breaker panel. 320uf of capacitance was added to the Chariots audio feed and 6 separate circuits were treated at the breaker panel. When complete there was a noticeable improvement with soundstage presentation and more detail (blackness). That was almost twenty years ago!
Along with my respect for electricity, I pursued a couple years of training in electronics and held jobs that required said training. Over the years troubleshooting, there has always been this nagging wonder of why neutral to ground voltages were present and the same always fluctuating. Well there are many reasons and surely many of you engineers can fill a book of causes. But the fact is it’s there, can not be eliminated, and causes inaudible/audible effects with sound reproduction. This led to the next tweak for the Chariot – Balanced Power. I used Jon M. Risch recommendations for balanced power. At a risk of speaking out my league this is what I know:
Using the center tap of a balanced AC transformer the tap reference is effectively at 0 volts; 60 volts on the sine wave upswing and 60 volts on the down swing. Connect the grounds of equipment to this reference point makes all the equipment ground at 0 volts eliminating ground loop cause of stray voltages. Connect this 0 point reference to earth ground shunts grunge lowering the noise floor.
These tweaks along with a new ground rod were added and silently served well over the years, I think! Often over the years, I wondered if that box next to my circuit breaker box was still doing its duty! Quite frankly, I forgot exactly what it did until now. More on that later.

Neutral to ground box with cover removed.

5 hot to neutral modules in a DAK switching platform. The two end modules were removed from the top of the DAK cover which dislodged the insulating tape.

Two months ago I was cleaning up favorites in a browser and clicked on an old Decware link. Since that time the audiophile spirit was rekindled creating a desire to finish the Chariot project’s detail abandoned 15 years ago. The Chariot has seen plenty of use since it's completion but the room was never really dialed in for the best music reproduction. As it stands, the room sounds very good with the Jordans. The last couple of months going thru the music collection totally enjoying it, I fully understood it could be further improved with added sound treatment.
I finally started by moving the home theater electronics to the storage room and hanging the LED TV on the front wall eliminating a 2' deep Metro rack. This would give better access to the music reproduction gear for tweaking. The Acoustic Handbook was ordered and consumed. A plan was starting to form. But…

Except for a few TV upgrades and the shelving on the left this is how the Chariot looked for the last 15 years.

I quickly removed the modules from the DAK and plan to permanently mount them inside the Balance Power SU-2 cabinet. Temporary paralleled with the SU-2 the Chariot is sounding like it did before moving the TV. Even better! I attribute the addition of the SA-2 helped the increased refinement.

Back on track with refinement of the Charoit, a post from Steve set in motion another project to eliminate the Radio Shack center channel speaker. The RS center was a left over when the system was moved from the family room. It does not fit in the current scheme and has questionable voice reproduction. It use to nest in a custom subwoofer when used in the family room.
This video sparked my imagination of using the Tang Band T2-2136SA driver in a custom enclosure to replace the RS speaker:

https://decware.wistia.com/medias/x4d46vqe8s

A Parts Express order was placed for a set of these drivers with the recommend 80hz high pass filter. A sketch was drawn. Searching thru old gadgets and wood laying around produced enough to get the project up and running.

The result is very good already outclassing the speaker it replaced. It was designed to enhance the human speech range of 100 to 3000 hertz coupled with Chariot dimensions. Speech is much more clear than its replacement. Tweaking will commence as well as a finish to match.

Spent some time buttoning up the IP tranny adding 4 hot to neutral moduals and salvaged Isobar box(circuitry removed) with 2 isolated ground recepticals.

I just completed a new addition the ZKIT1. It's burning in and getting meater by the hour.

https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1583668045

John

Very nice, John. I know it sounds great!

Awesome! The ZP3 is a fantastic phono pre. I recommend GE JG-5751 black plates in the first two positions, and a RCA 12AU7 clear top side getter for the third.

I mentioned above that the SU-2 balanced power transformer did not play well with the hot to neutral capacitor banks. It seems that orientation of the components matter very much to the point that the interaction of magnetic flux and capacitors can create a circuit that draws current...a lot of current! When I placed the capacitors on the board on top of the SU-2 there seemed to be no problem. When the capacitors were mounted inside the case it conducted 7 amps without any load. I only found this out when adding the AKSA in the circuit for use as a sub amp. This caused the overload to initiate. It was pulling 14 amps with all equipment running! Normally it would be 6 or 7 amps.

I purchased some project boxes and and dug up TV power cords along with extension cord ends to make the modules as shown. Now, all is well with the capacitors plugged into the dedicated outlet.

New hot neutral module scheme.


Temporary setup after capacitor removal from SU-2 case.


John

JBzen,

How do you post more than one picture per reply?  I've never figured that out.

So, this works for file sharing sites only?  I don't do any of that but I've been posting pictures from my computer, but only one at a time.

What Donnie said on posting pics.

I picked up my new 1968 Craftman saw. Spent the last couple of hours cleaning her up. She is a diamond in the rough! The extras are just gimmicks...especially the sabre saw attachment. The past owner and I had a good laught talking about that attachment. She is tight and cuts square. What more can a man ask for.

Swing low, sweet chaaariooo-tt!

Love your door!  

That door with chair art weights well over a hundred pounds. When first installed it worked well until a failed sump pump swelled the jamb and door. Had to reinstall it after rework. Then the AC condenser pan rotted out. Repeat. Hopefully no more issues arise. The door seems to get heavier with age

Things are starting to gel![/size]



Listening to Miles "Kind of Blue". Finding it very hard to form this post! Crystal 10's in the Netherlands  cabinets...Nice [size=24]

Skeeter likes listening in the Charoit. A real sign of progress⁴