It is time to report back on the sonic benefits of the Stacore rack.
Over the last days, I tried to isolate the influence of the Stacore combo on each key component: amplification, digital (DAC/CD/SACD player) and the turntable with the phono stage.
For assessing the impacts on the amplifiers, I used my tape deck, the faithful Studer A80 which, for obvious reasons associated to its sheer size, is not sitting on a Stacore platform.
I suspected that the amplification section would highly benefit of the Stacore solution. It is indeed the case: the floor noise has reduced, the bass are tighter and faster, the soundstage is more precise with more depth and width.
For evaluating the influence of the Stacore combo on my sources, I switched from the Krell power amps to the Tenor Audio stereo power amp that currently does not sit on a Stacore platform but on a Symposium platform located beneath the Studer. Though these amps have very different personalities, they are both excellent and I would not dare stating that one is better than the other. I just love the sound of both amps and I switch from the full solid state to the hybrid design depending on my mood or the type of music I am listening to. I tend to favor the Tenor on solo, chamber and small ensemble music but for Who’s Next, it will be definitely the Krell.
I am mainly an analog guy but digital is important to me as there is a lot of music that I love which is simply not available either on LP or tapes. I performed the tests with CDs, SACDs and high-resolution files under PCM format. Note that my heavily modified Aurender music server (3 box solution) does not sit on the Stacore combo but on a separate console bolted to the front brick wall and hidden behind the rack. In all three cases, the sound was substantially better.
I started with plain Red Book CDs playing some of my favorite pieces of classical music. The sonic improvements were less than subtle and in the same vein as the ones associated with the power amps. The digital experience is improved in all registers. On a CD that I have known for years (Jean Barrière’s Cello Sonatas by Bruno Cocset and Les Basses Réunies - Alpha), I discovered some details I never heard before. I got the same experience when spinning SACDs. The benefits of the Stacore combo were equally convincing when switching to the music server and using the TAD as a sole DAC. The TAD D600 is built like a tank with a thick copper plate on its bottom but still, as a player and also as a standalone DAC, it benefits from sitting on a pneumatic platform and the heavy mass rack.
The analog frontend i.e. the turntable and the phono stage had to be tested altogether. I already spotted that since the Allnic H3000V phono preamp had been sitting on the Advance platform, some minor microphonics I had in the past had disappeared. To me, the most dramatic positive impact is with the turntable. It is like a veil that has been removed - more of everything : a reduced noise floor, a pinpoint sound image, a better-layered soundstage, more micro details and as always tighter bass.
The combined benefit for the full system sitting on the Stacore combo is quite compelling. Coming from lightweight audio racks, I am now absolutely convinced that high mass damped designs are the way to go.