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Shelf Material - Neuance

I started a thread a month or so ago trying to find opinions on the best shelf material. I got some good new ideas, and tried them all out - except one, Maple Butchers Block. McMaster did not reply to my emails concerning Maple Butchers Block - not unusual, I have found many US companies turn a deaf ear to anyone from another country. I did try some local butchers block - stips of heart timber glued together, and the spectral balance was very good, but pace was poor. If Maple is better then it must be much lighter than what I was using (Weight = energy storage = poor pace). The best I tried was a very classy looking Neuance shelf, which you can find out about at www.neuanceaudio.com. I think subaruguru was also trying one and so it will be interesting to see what he thinks. It has a sound, but one that is difficult to pin down. It did not work well on my transport, flattening mid-range images for some reason, but worked well on everything else. I will order some more and therefore be able to get a better measure of its performance, and will try again with the transport (I have since learnt that I should not have used up-turned spikes). The Neuance is fast, it almost spotlights mid-range detail (you hear everything a vocalist is doing), it is very extended top and bottom. It might have a tad too much warmth in the lower mids and upper bass, but I am not sure yet. I love the way pianos sound with it - very much like the real thing (my daughter plays piano and so I hear it every day) - no exagerated presence, but all the natural harmonics of a real piano. I find it works best resting on small 1mm thick hard rubber pads, on a sand filled steel rack, with Vibrapods between shelf and component. I did not particularly like up-pointed spikes underneath it when I tried it but will experiment some more when I have some more Neuance shelves - it is hard to get the full measure of this shelf when I have only one. But I suspect this really is very close to an ideal shelf - very light, very rigid, no noticeable resonances - as I am using it at present. If, like me, you have been looking for a top quality shelf, then the Neuance is well worth a try. My only relationship to Neuance is that the man behind it offered me this ex-demo one for the cost of freight in response to my original post. When I order the next three shelves from him I will be offering to pay more generously for the first one.
redkiwi
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,594 posts
 
Ernie: I have not liked the "dead" sound of top loading my CAL player except with a one thing that I tried recently, by accident. Before I tried books, bags of rice and sand and they all removed the kind of reverb (I think that this is what people ar referring to when they mention "air") quality that I actually like. What I have tried that tightened but did not deaden the sound were three brass (by Mapleshade) placed flat side down on the top of the player (they were just there by accident when I was moving my DAC). I then discovered that just one of them placed slightly off center on the top made a very subtle but nice change. My player is also in an 80% enclosed cabinet (just part of the back, up against the wall, is left open, and receives very few direct of reflected sound waves. I also feel that Ken's point on de-voicing the component is a valid one and although you can certainly tailor the sound a bit by trial and error we don't want to go overboard by damping everything in sight. Mapleshade also has a brass top weighting device that only touches the top of the component with three little cone points that are integral to the brass weight itself if I get it right and this seems like something to look into as well. This must all be system as well as taste dependent as I did not like the sound of weighting my speakers either though sand bags on the bases of my stands sounded good to me.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,594 posts
 
Brass "cones"
caterham1700
271 posts
 
Hi Ernie,
I thought you had fallen off the edge(flat earth joke).
Neuance dissipates energy bi-directionally by internally converting those energies into heat within its core.In order to most effectively transfer the vibrations one needs to have a relatively high contact pressure at the point of entry(not so high as to deform the structure of pierce the shell tho).By placing the cone/spike points directly against the Neuance surface laminate,the transfer is more complete and driven deeper into the absorption elements rather than rebounding/reflecting off of the boundary layers of its laminated shell structure and back towards the vibration source.
Using the broad side of a cone device spreads the load over a broad surface area and is less effective except in the instance where one has very heavy components approaching the maximum load rating.
A side issue to consider is that every material in the isolation/support chain has its own particular sonic/resonant signature.Every time something is placed between the component and the floor ,the levels above will be doing their filtering off of the resonant signature of the material below and leaving its own mark upon the presentation as a result.Footer devices are generally redundant when using Neuance and are best used to fine tune for specific taste requirements or system/environmental circumstances.
Best,
Ken
GreaterRanges/Neuance
redkiwi OP
1,092 posts
 
Hi Ernie. I was wondering when you would try the Neuance. Before I make any further comments, I should point out that the effect of the Neuance changes quite dramatically over the first week. And if you play around with footers, cone direction or spikes during the early weeks then it takes even longer. I know because I made that mistake myself. When you first put the Neuance in place it will immediately sound warm and woolly. It will then tighten up over a period of a couple of days, but will sharpen up too much, flattening mid-range textures and become irritating right in the middle of the spectrum of violins. At this stage you will feel like you definitely did the wrong thing, but to salvage something from your investment you will get this overwhelming urge to play with footers to fix the problem. But if you have more self-control than I, and just LEAVE IT ALONE! - then the upper-mid resonance goes away. What you are left with is truly fantastic. So when I read some of your comments Ernie I wondered whether you had not left the Neuance in place long enough.
redkiwi OP
1,092 posts
 
OK - now for how to use the Neuance. I tried almost everything and found out the hard way that if you want a truly great result you - use a light rigid steel rack, you do NOT fill the rack with anything, you spike the rack firmly to the floor, you put threaded spikes into the top of your rack to support the Neuance on spikes. Don't use any fancy footers under the component and don't mass load the component. Just do this and leave it for a week, and then evaluate it. If you do not end up with a great result at the end of the week then I will eat my hat. I know a lot of people have found benefits from sand-filling, mass-loading, sitting components on bladders and using fancy footers. I know because I have been there and done that, more than once. But they are all just band-aids and no substitute for doing it right. The light/rigid/damped idea is the best way to go because it results in far less smearing, thereby giving better PRAT and resolution. The problem for me has always been that I could not find a product that followed the light/rigid principles successfully. The main problem was always the shelf. MDF is just not good enough and neither is glass. This is why the Neuance is such a breakthrough for me - finally I have been able to realise the promise of the light/rigid theory. Using the Neuance as I have described will allow you to hear your components for what they are - and they are maybe much better than you think. If you want to then tailor the sound you can play with footers, but all you will be doing is adding resonance and smearing to emphasise or de-emphasise one part of the spectrum - the result being a loss of PRAT and resolution, so you need to be judicious with the footers you use. I know I am sounding really dogmatic about this, but I really have played around with this issue a lot, and know a breakthrough when I hear one, and I know the pain I went through attempting to use the Neuance in ways that did not work.
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