Copper Lined Avel Box

[MillerLiteScott]

The past two weeks my roofers have been putting a cedar shake roof on the house I am building for a client. As promised I scarfed up a few copper scraps and lined my DIY Avel isolation transformer enclosure for my AI-1 interconnect.

I have not had a chance to listen to see if there were any improvements but here are a few pictures.

Scott

[hearingimpared]

Nice job Scott, you're hired.

[dorokusai]

That's tight.

[nikolas812]

Looks cool if nothing else...









Nick

[george daniel]

Nice work Scott,, very nice indeed.

[Face]

Purdy!

[schwarcw]

The DIY A1-1 interconnect has come a long way!

[F1nut]

Me like. :)

[comfortablycurt]

Ok...newb question here.

I've seen mention of these before...though I'm not sure what they are exactly.

I assume that they're an upgraded SDA IC?

How does the toroid come into play? Or is that even a toroid? Is this something that goes inside of the speaker? I assume it's external since you finished the cabinet on it so nicely.

Looks like quality work either way though, nice job.:)

[george daniel]

it's a AI-1 "dreadnought" that is used for non common ground amplification with SDA's. And perform well,they do.:)

[Lasareath]

Ok...newb question here.

I've seen mention of these before...though I'm not sure what they are exactly.

I assume that they're an upgraded SDA IC?

How does the toroid come into play? Or is that even a toroid? Is this something that goes inside of the speaker? I assume it's external since you finished the cabinet on it so nicely.

Looks like quality work either way though, nice job.:)


George answered it correctly, I will just elaborate a little further:

Polk made the AI-1 cable so that people could use Mono Block Amps with their SDA's. But the cables are very Rare. When they come up for sale they go for $150 to $350.

I bought one on eBay last year for like $305 just to own one. I haven't used it yet, LOL

So, Since it is so rare to find one people decided to try to build their own and they found out that some of the Homemade ones sounded better than the Original that Polk made.

So, this is the Quest now, to see How we can improve it ever so slightly by trying all these other little things, Like copper shielding. Some people have found that if they take a few sheets of heavy duty aluminium foil and wrap the outside of the Polk one that it sounds better.

So now everyone is trying lots of different things to see if they can get better results.

Sal

[comfortablycurt]

Ahh...I see. Thanks for clearing that up for me George and Sal.:)

I may be looking into this myself eventually when I get some SDA's of my own. Unfortunately that's probably still a 2-3 years down the road though. I'll get there eventually.:)

[MillerLiteScott]

Thanks guys.

I was very easy to do and took me about 45 minutes even with my 4 year old helper. The copper sheets I used are 20 oz. copper which is probably twice as thick as the aluminum sheeting I was using before. I believe the properties and thickness of this copper should offer quite a bit more shielding over the aluminum.

I did listen to a bit of music last night and I do not know if it made any improvement over my previous aluminum shielding but it did sound pretty good last night until my Valentine came down to the basement.:D

Scott

[unc2701]

Probably work better if you attached the copper to ground.

[Lasareath]

One day I will make one like DK made. Right now I don't even own Mono Blocks.

[hearingimpared]

One day I will make one like DK made. Right now I don't even own Mono Blocks.

That type of situation never stopped you before.;)

[Lasareath]

That type of situation never stopped you before.;)


But now I have a Mortgage :(

[ShinAce]

Probably work better if you attached the copper to ground.

Ditto.

[MillerLiteScott]

Ditto.

Why? If I am shielding from RF?

Scott

[unc2701]

Why? If I am shielding from RF?

Scott

Good point, but lower frequencies are probably more of an issue for your application & your cage will be more effective on them when grounded.

[ShinAce]

The toroid's field is internal, so that's good.

The shield is shunting EMI and dissipating some energy as eddies. By connecting it to a ground, you're now excluding most and shunting some of the EMI to ground.

I see it as a guaranteed good choice.

p.s. Have you tried it yet? Do it!!!

[MillerLiteScott]

I have not tried it. I assume I should connect both of my negative terminals to the copper shield? Correct?

Scott

[ShinAce]

I have not tried it. I assume I should connect both of my negative terminals to the copper shield? Correct?

Scott

I'd ground it to the nearest case of a piece of equipment that has an earth ground connected to the case. But that's just me.

If you have a piece of equipment with 3-prong outlets on the back, you could snip a cheap 3 prong cord and use that as a ground wire.

Do not use the negative terminals, since the point of the transformer is for non-common ground amps(right?). It's not even worth researching, as it depends ultimately on your amp.

[MillerLiteScott]

All of my 2 channel pieces have ground lugs on the back an I have them all tied together and connected to my Panamax ground lug on the back.

Should I just run a ground wire from the copper shielding to the ground lug on my Panamax?

Scott

[unc2701]

That'll do it.