La Credenza

[AudioHTIT]

La Credenza is getting very close to completion, the base has been welded, and I’m drilling the axel holes and mounting the wheels. I’ve also started tearing out the existing cabinets, and will order the glass next week.

Before I started drilling I wanted to get a feel for the leg stability on the hardwood floor, here it is sitting in the foyer ... looks pretty good! 😀

[AudioHTIT]

Last week the new floor was installed where the old cabinets used to sit, it also comes out into the room forming what I call ‘the Stage’. This allows me to roll the Credenza away from the wall so I can get behind and work on the gear (my wife even bought me a cool low rolling stool to scoot around back there )

Here’s a pic of La Credenza in place, also showing the stage and inlay, then a video showing a test of the wheels (which are smooth enough to allow me to roll the totally loaded unit by myself).

[LCSeminole]

Jul 13, 2018 14:13:25 GMT -5 AudioHTIT said:

Last week the new floor was installed where the old cabinets used to sit, it also comes out into the room forming what I call ‘the Stage’. This allows me to roll the Credenza away from the wall so I can get behind and work on the gear (my wife even bought me a cool low rolling stool to scoot around back there )

Here’s a pic of La Credenza in place, also showing the stage and inlay, then a video showing a test of the wheels (which are smooth enough to allow me to roll the totally loaded unit by myself).

View Attachment

Definitely a piece of woodwork art Bruce!!!

[AudioHTIT]

Back to real DIY! I’m now down to implementing a unique feature, and it hasn’t been easy. Early in the design of the Credenza I was worried about lateral strength, while most of the heavy objects (all the power amps) are resting on the base, the heaviest object of all is at the very top (the TV); the glass and speaker weight up there is also significant. I worried about the whole unit just flopping to the side. 😮

At the same time I was thinking about how I would route cables neatly and efficiently through the unit. At first open wooden cable trays came to mind, but it seemed like they’d just look messy and collect dust. Then an odd thing came to mind, a cable pipe, it could run the entire length of the cabinet and carry the cables, if it was high enough it could also add lateral support.

I decided two 2” pieces running the entire 8’ length would allow cables to run between components, and for speaker wire to exit the unit (of course it can just come out the back, but I thought I was being artsy). My first thought was PVC, strong, readily available, but white or gray didn’t appeal to me, I wanted black. Home Depot or Ace didn’t have 2” PVC in black so I decided to go with ABS, a concession in strength.

The first challenge was cutting eight 2 3/8” holes in the unassembled side pieces and having them be perfectly aligned. I made a jig to place the holes at the exact same spot on each piece before drilling with a hole saw, now I just had to build the cabinet with the pieces perfectly aligned … no problem? 🤔 All this took place last summer before ski season. ⛷

Then I was faced with the challenge of cutting neat slots in a round plastic pipe, I didn’t think holes would be big enough for all the cables to get in and out. I decided to use a router to cut the slots, my first attempt was dismal and I took out so much material the pipe became very week, my technique was also lacking. I put that task down and did everything else I could think of to avoid it. Now, I can’t put it off any more, and yesterday I finished the cable pipes.

I put a few 2x4’s together to hold the pipe, and then made a jig to hold the router up and in place. Here are a couple pics of the setup (I got clever and shoved the shop vac in one end of the tube to suck out the chips as I routed 🤓)

Sigh of relief, that’s over and it works well! 👍

[AudioHTIT]

So the additions of the Sony 4K TV and the V3 board have had me distracted a bit ... well, a lot. The last big step was cabling, I wanted exact lengths and had to wait until all the gear was in place and I could measure them, this fit in well with the need to buy new HDMI cables for 4K. I also decided—due to the potential change to the RMC-1 or XMC-2–to switch now to all balanced cables. I used to run RCA to my XPA-7 and XLR to he VTLs, but that won’t be possible with the new processors (my Blue Jeans RCA’s were too long anyway). I built (7) XLR cables with Belden cable, Neutrik connectors, techshield, and heatshrink — the L/R’s are ‘Y’ cables and feed both the XPA and VTLs.

The cable tubes are working out very well, I can route cables neatly across the cabinet, the slots let me get the connectors in and out to the gear, and allow me to use Velcro straps to hold the cables up and out of the way so I can make new runs. There’s one tube for cables destined for the processor, and another for power amp connections and speaker cables.💡 The tube idea is turning out well 💡 I also went through all of my power cables sorting them into gauge, then choosing the ones I wanted to use, finally I cut them down to length and put new Leviton AC plugs on the end.

Like everything else I made a Visio drawing of the cable plan, it really helps when your concentrating on routing things neatly and get to the end and think “now where does this go?”. Here’s the plan I worked from, I’ll post some ‘in use’ pics soon.



(first test of embedded Google Photos, hope it works)

[ÈlTwo]

I bet it'll be even sweeter looking from the front!

[novisnick]

Such beautiful craftsmanship! Bravo!

[petew]

A - you are OCD
B - you are one hell of a craftsman
C - you must be retired
D - it's not ski season.

Great work. Looking forward to pictures!

[AudioHTIT]

Aug 24, 2018 18:46:55 GMT -5 petew said:

A - you are OCD
B - you are one hell of a craftsman
C - you must be retired
D - it's not ski season.

Great work. Looking forward to pictures!

Guilty on all counts! (well, thanks for B)