Racks

he's not the same guy with the Accuphase and Focal stuff too is he? He was going on about special racks especially for mains extension leads as 'the speakers wobble about generating lots of different varieties of frequencies when all the mains block wants is 50hz'.
Give him his due though- he's very enthusiastic and dances around like a pixie on ecstasy when all his precious leads are being used!

 

Is this the Nordost guy? Dave something?

 

no...he did MusicWorks power leads too. Saw him at Source Sounds, Sheffield (mainly a ICE show but Focal wanted to show off their Micro Utopia Be speakers in a demo room so unbearably echo-y it was stupid!)

 

I have heard differences in supports under components, and have made choices accordingly.

I use a Mana 4 tier amp stand, which was an accidental purchase but one that I've not regretted. I'm about to become the owner of some Hutter stands.

NOt sure whether I'll ask the wife to conduct a blind A/B of the Hutter against the Mana - seems a lot to ask her to do, given all that implied manual work she would have to do while I was out of the room - and do so twice to get the repeated measurements!!

However, I might have opinions to share afterwards - and then a stand (or several) to sell on.

btw, I think there are reasonable grounds to worry about support stands

 

I don't think I'm a "valued customer" any more! Plus, I don't possess a mains block. I suppose I could always get one.....

 

as a sceptic, I'd be genuinely interested in your findings.

 

That will be the ever enthused Steve Jackson - he has also designed and built a very expensive and remarkably good valve power amplifier, the Hot Tubes JD1, details here.

Tony.

 

And I quote....

"The chassis is constructed from non-magnetic stainless steel to give rigidity and, ultimately, a purer sound".

Now, doesn't that sound familiar..

 

Mine works just fine - but the only thing I tested it against was a shelf on a solid brick wall. Both succeeded admirably in reproducing music - apart from Meatloaf which the rack couldn't bring itself to play at all. Same with Mariah Carey.
So obviously I went for the Finite Element, which was reasonably priced (2nd hand) and does indeed look very good...

 

There is one manufacturer of racks with glass shelves that claims to be able to overcome the shortcomings of glass by placing strips of sticky tape on the underside. Now what was the name...

 

Well I wonder more and more about your sound taste.
..actually really not, knowing where you're coming from and what music you usually hear.

 

mind your manas!!

 

The Finite Element is good, the predictable Mana-bashing is just tedious, frankly.

 

do you know what an eddy current is?

 

I do, and I also know sales crap when I see it, used by people like mana etc...

 

OK, back on message. why worry about what your kit sits on?

if we believe that there are advantages in having hifi separates, rather than a completely integrated CD/amp/speakers set-up, then we are on the road to believing that we want to minimise/eliminate the interference on one component by another.

if you go to the trouble, say, of having a separate cd transport, dac/pre, poweramp & speakers, then why use a stand that is not designed to reduce that interference?

whether any given design succeeds is arguable (I clearly hesitate to suggest that its testable ...).

in addition to the 'basic' stand, there is then the matter of those little cones. I've tried a few, and to my ears they have different effects on the overall sound quality. given that stereo reproduction is, imho, all make-believe, then you choose the effect/affect that you like, and which you think is closest to 'the real thing'.

 

A question.... how can any rack that is coupled to a floor which may or may not have vibrations, be better than wall shelves rigidly coupled to a solid wall?

I moved my components to turntable shelves - in order to keep them out of reach of a toddler - and I swear the improvement was considerable.

 

I doubt anything except a deck is sensitive to racking. Back in the days before cd was invented it was easy to justify a rack as everyone used a record deck. When cd came along and displaced turntables then suddenly the manufacturers had to claim that all electronic items are senstive to justify their continued existence and invoke garbled nonsense like components vibrating in the earths magnetic field and other such tripe. Mana work well for certain decks which work on the same principle - like pink triangle - but their worth is greatly over stated IMHO. The cheaper units are ok but much above that it becomes comic.

 

[".... how can any rack that is coupled to a floor which may or may not have vibrations, be better than wall shelves rigidly coupled to a solid wall?"]


its because the stand is isolated from the vibrations caused by the neighbours banging on the adjoining wall

 

Do you?

Paul