Equipment racks - is the cost justifiable?

[Marco]

Surely if it worked, you would only need one layer?

Lol, erm no... Simply because one 'layer' only isolates the equipment to a certain degree. Therefore, the effect is increased cumulatively by additional 'layers', simply because the issue of vibrational energy, adversely affecting equipment performance, is always present to a certain extent, thus never fully eradicated.

Of course, like anything else, the improvement gained is subject to the laws of diminishing returns, and so rather like wine, once you get past the £20 a bottle mark, further improvements become much more subtle... From experience, I'd say that the sweet spot is 'Phase 4' - i.e one rack and three additional'layers', but the difference, sonically, between that and, say 'Phase 15', such as I have, is significant and worthwhile, somewhat like upgrading from a 10 year-old single malt, to a notably superior 15-year old

However, an indisputable advantage, with 'tall stacks', such as mine, is that all your gear is at a convenient height to work with (unless you're a midget, lol), so there's none of that getting down on your hands and knees to change kit or cables, which I detest, plus I've also ensured that there's similarly plenty of room at the back to facilitate neat 'cable dressing', rather than jumbles of cables looking like the usual out of control 'spaghetti'!

All my cables, both mains and signal, are well up from the floor and away from side walls, fully separated, and hanging neatly in free space, which not only sounds better, but makes it a damn sight easier to work with

In any case, it's pretty pointless (unless there's anything in what Grant said) discussing a defunct and long-discontinued product, unless anyone here was sufficiently motivated to go down the route of fabricating the design, and making copies, as I did, and in which case I'd be more than willing to help

Marco.

[CageyH]

A genuine question. What stops the glass shelves (sat on all those isolation platforms) from vibrating due to the sound waves?
You must have felt the vibration in the shelves at some point when the volume is up a little?

[Marco]

Nope. There's no vibration felt anywhere on the rack itself, even when music is pumping out at very loud levels in that small room with those huge speakers, and with the R/H one only about 3ft away from the first stack!!

There are two strips, stuck onto each piece of glass, which help 'tune' the shelf to a certain frequency, and which in turn is supported evenly on each corner by four stainless steel spikes, which you adjust so that when fitted and tapped with no equipment on, the shelves make a 'bong' sound, rather than an unpleasant sounding 'clang', caused if the tip of one spike has either been very slightly overextended or not extended enough up towards the glass.

Then of course you have the weight of the equipment itself on top, to dampen any vibrations... You really need to see the arrangement in place to understand properly how it all works. The key is in how each piece of material used combines to help dissipate energy from the equipment, and the more 'layers' you have, the more successful the effect is.

Therefore, in that respect, from the ground up, with each 'layer', there is floor > 4 spikes > metal > 4 spikes > laminated MDF board > 4 spikes, and so forth for each 'layer', until you get to a rack housing the equipment, when then on the last MDF board, sat atop you have the four downward spikes of the rack itself, then a layer of metal and four upwards facing spikes, which support the first glass shelf (fitted with the aforementioned 'tuning strips'), with the former arrangement repeated on each available glass shelf, until you reach the top.

It's entirely modular, and ultimately only restricted by the height of your ceiling, or depth of your pockets!

Marco.

[Pharos]

What I find a little disappointing in general on forums is the lack of forbearance by members when facing a little adversity. We will all, if we develop, find our own paths, and they will be different from those of others, but this does not have to result in rancour.

Maybe many here would not like the sound of my system and would change many things in it if it were theirs, but expression of that in an aggressive or offensive way is unnecessary, and serves to sabotage progress in understanding by all.

I hope that anyone would just humbly and sensitively offer suggestions about the sound, and how it may be improved. This is what used to happen many years ago when I was an apprentice in a hostel in which many people were building systems and comparing them, and with excitement and cooperation helping each other.

We have to learn to live with the tensions involved in unresolved issues as a part of life, and deal with that whilst trying to resolve things.
I acquired a book, Contrary Imaginations which deals particularly with the personality types able to deal with the intensity of a lack of resolution in situations, and the author argues that developing this ability gives great advantages.

I haven't placed much importance on equipment racks, initially because of the heavy investment and my relative poverty, and they may indeed be significant, but ABing and DB tests can be very expensive, this also applying to all of the equipment.

[Marco]

What I find a little disappointing in general on forums is the lack of forbearance by members when facing a little adversity. We will all, if we develop, find our own paths, and they will be different from those of others, but this does not have to result in rancour.

I totally agree, Dennis. The problem is, when challenging someone's observations on subjective matters, such as on this thread, the efficacy of equipment supports, it's never going to be well received when without any real experience/knowledge of the subject in question, you rather lazily imply that the user in question has imagined hearing differences, simply in the absence of 'scientific proof' to the contrary. And I'm not just talking about my argument here yesterday with Martin - it's an age-old problem on forums, caused largely by stubborn intransigence, but also a reluctance to investigate or accept the unknown.

In my view, too many of us crave certainty and desire for everything in life either to be black or white (ignoring the shades of grey in between) and for our learning experiences/facts we've formed to be neatly pigeonholed into boxes marked as 'done and dusted', never to be challenged. It's not only craving certainty that's the problem, but fearing what we've always believed as true being proven wrong.

Now I'm not saying for one second that things aren't imagined, as we all have the potential to succumb to expectation bias or other psychological effects that can make things appear as real when they're not, but the point is there is no way of proving that conclusively, and certainly simply because whatever is being suggested *appears on the surface* not to comply with 'the science', doesn't qualify as conclusive proof that whatever is being claimed is false. It may be that a new phenomenon has been successfully identified, or an area that hitherto hasn't yet been properly explored, now requires further investigation.

However, I doubt that anyone posting on a hi-fi forum has the wherewithal or ability to conduct such an exercise properly, in order to arrive at a truly meaningful conclusion, so in order to PROMOTE discussion of these matters, rather than them simply being shut down by people saying 'bollox, you've just imagined it because the science says so', we should be putting our own biases aside and giving people the benefit of the doubt, even if it means challenging our own belief system (scientific or otherwise) and allowing users of items such as stands, cables, mains accessories, and other such products, the claimed effects of which are subjective, to be properly discussed, rather than dismissed, as that way we might actually learn something new!

That's the approach I want to see here, and the display of genuine open-mindedness and a willingness to LEARN and embrace the unknown (on both sides of the divide), rather than when subjects like this come up, them simply being shot down in flames by the entrenched views of those who mistakenly think that all there is to know about such matters is already known, which instead displays more pigheaded intransigence than anything else, and also which does a gross disservice to the true meaning of the scientific process.

Real scientists have the most enquiring of minds and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and also accept that life is a constant learning curve; they're not so arrogant as to assume that they already know the answers to everything, including the complexities of the subject of audio!

Marco.

[Pharos]

Blake said; "A man convinced against is will is of the same opinion still".

And often he makes a fool of himself by so doing.

Look at how Copernicus was regarded, and how Galileo was treated, ten years in prison for expressing his views, that were eventually proven to be true.

[Marco]

Indeed, so why do people so fear their 'truths' being challenged, and historically fight against, so-called heretics, who dare challenge them? What's the big deal?

Surely, knowing the REAL truth, i.e. reality, is far better than living in a blinkered fantasy world, simply because it's become the accepted norm? I don't get it... What if 'the science', driving the prevailing orthodoxy is wrong, or simply being misinterpreted? If so, surely it deserves to be challenged?

My brain simply isn't wired that way, and would far rather know the truth, than hide behind the safety of my preconceptions. Free-thinkers, unhindered by dogma, and those able to think outside the box/apply lateral thinking, should be lauded, not lambasted!

Marco.

[Lawrence001]

The issue is that in many areas there is no truth, just opinion. Good Vs bad sounding racks is one area. (Notice I don't say lively Vs dead racks as this would be measurable).

I've found in many contexts that reducing distorting effects towards zero can often deaden the sound to boringness. Eg. Mass loading speaker stands/bases. Zero distortion is not always the best distortion. (I include the effects of vibration in this.) Otherwise why do people like valves?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[Marco]

Indeed, Lawrence, but if you've read my last post, you'll see that I wasn't talking about racks, but HUMAN NATURE

Marco.

[Pharos]

Science is as prone to error as any other thinking, but it does attempt to test its theories and verify them, whereas some belief systems are purely dogma with no reference to verifying any realities.