One of my more useful posts LOL.
And relatively more accurate
One of my more useful posts LOL.
Tima... The reason I haven't done rack compares is that they are difficult... Almost impossible... Including by the people I have visited. What I have done is taken my mooks around and found all racks wanting so I don't like racks. I have never gone wow, I can see what your rack can do, like I have gone wow I can see what your TT or pre can do, or even a crystal cable absolute dream. People spending on racks should spend on records instead.
Btw...i am not including TT isolation here which is a separate topic, just component racks
Agreed. On and off the rack is tiring but possible. But a/b CMS with SRA or Stacore rack, can you really be certain what you really hear given the a/b or /c process has so much time gap and racing heart rate between them. I don't see any consumer have a chance and efforts to do that. I mean with these very expensive racks. So choose one over the other is mainly gut feeling and people's testimonials.
Kind regards,
Tang
Tima... The reason I haven't done rack compares is that they are difficult... Almost impossible... Including by the people I have visited. What I have done is taken my mooks around and found all racks wanting so I don't like racks. I have never gone wow, I can see what your rack can do, like I have gone wow I can see what your TT or pre can do, or even a crystal cable absolute dream. People spending on racks should spend on records instead.
Btw...i am not including TT isolation here which is a separate topic, just component racks
Interesting Tima...are you a proponent of either: SRA (who apparently tune each isolation block specifically to your equipment) or Active Isolation?
Hi Lloyd - I'm of the view currently that the best of those called 'audio racks', as well as component platforms, are SRA and HRS. My experience of active isolation is somewhat limited - if designed for, I think they can work for specific component by component scenarios, but I'm not so certain about active rack solutions.
Each component is different and when you place it something its resonance characteristics change. Often people will hear some difference - more soundstage depth, improved clarity or focus - and say 'hey that really works'. However sometimes it is hard to grasp the full degree of vibration's distortive impact until you hear something better.
Granted that trying to do side-by-side comparisons of racks is awkward and time consuming and usually requires some space. I'm not an objectivist - listening is the final judgement - but it is possible to measure results with the application of whatever vibration management technique is considered and render some degree of 'proof' of what is happening. There is a science to it - large scale industrial applications don't do much of the trial and error approach. The principles involved are the same for audio. Same with acoustics - you hire someone to design your audio room to avoid trial and error.
To some extent because of their size and shipping cost, rack preferences tend to be regional. Until companies get enough sales to establish regional distribution it is sometimes hard to find more than one rack or platform for comparison outside the manufacturer's region.
I recall reading about your 'sandwiches' if I may call them that - multiple constrained layers? Are you still following that approach?
Yes I have Tima. But normally it doesn't take the whole day to realize a sunshine in equipment testing unless the equipment required a long settling time or to burn in or to find the right placement in a room. In a very revealing system with less homogeneity you will hear it with no difficulty in a short time. Listening a long time with different pressings and also certain part of pressing repeatedly is to me is for testers to be able to crystalize their thoughts and put into words to convey what he heard to readers. But to hear differences in equipments for me alone I dont have an obligation to explain what I hear to others so it doesnt take a long time. All highend gears are very expensive to me. I mean every single one of them. It is a very expensive hobby imo. Yes racks in the ten thousands of dollars are very expensive so a cartridges.Have you tried long term listening comparison? That's where you have a component long enough that you learn how it sounds - you come to know it. When a different component is swapped in, differences are obvious. Quickie A/B/A tests can be useful, but can also lead to misjudgement - or so I've found. When you say "very expensive racks" what are you thinking of - the price of a SAT tonearm, a GFS cartridge or...?
We still do not know what is the main purpose of racks, excluding support our components. Do we want to isolate? Do we want to remove their intrinsic noise energy due to their own operation? Do we want them to tune the component being supported? Is air borne feedback significant or not?
IMHO as long we do not have a clear list of objectives, just the aim of getting better sound, objective measurements are tools for the developers that have their own priorities, but useless and misleading to consumers.
You say "we still do not know ..." and "we still do not have ..." as if this is somethig waiting to be discovered. I'm not understanding that.
Vibration management for Turntables is no different than for any other component. You can have a seperate topic but you can't have seperate physics.
Trying to judge a rack with shun mook devices is, imo, laughable. Now you may like the colorations that you get through mooks but they are not a tool for gauging vibration abatement and isolation. The rackfact you have not gone 'wow' suggests have not heard what before and after a decent rack. But where it bothered me is without much study or experience you are making suggestions on what people should do.
Sorry, you keep making inaccurate posts. If you have a rack, put any footer in and out. Does it make a difference? If yes, I don't like what the rack does. I might not like what some footers do either, but I don't like what the rack does. Why is this difficult to understand? And this experiment has been done multiple times across systems. My favorite sound has always been footers on simple solid wood (with option to tune the footers easier)
Ah, I get it now ... you're not talking about removing vibration or preventing it from entering a component.
Yes, I hope that some day someone can have a proper answer do these questions. All we have are contradictory possibilities from manufacturers and forum experts ...
We still do not know what is the main purpose of racks, excluding support our components. Do we want to isolate? Do we want to remove their intrinsic noise energy due to their own operation? Do we want them to tune the component being supported? Is air borne feedback significant or not?
Bonzo, I plan on ordering a full set of CS2 feet and setting up a shootout in my Dealer's main showroom which i'm familiar with. Basically the plan is to listen to the system with the components sitting on the CMS shelves, then add my Stillpoints Ultra 6's to the front end & power amp, then remove them and install the CS2 1.5 and 1.0 feet. I then plan to listen to the feet freshly installed, after 1.5 wks run in, then at 3 wks. I look forward to posting my findings. I will be taking the winner home with me!
That will be tricky as my Dealer is extremely busy and his shop is only open part time by appointment. I felt that was an adequate testing protocol overall to assess the two feet.So you will be comparing two footers with each other and trying the rack with and without them. You should also compare the footers on a non CMS rack