Footers/Shelf Material

I hate it when I speak too soon. I am probably doing it again but want to correct my last post. I have gone back to the E-A-R feet between the monoblocks and the Maple Butchers Block, but am supporting the Maple with Mana sound frames - thick rigid steel, spiked up and down. And it sounds good. The cones didn't quite work on more extended listening. I will probably shut up now until I have tried this out for longer as well as in the other systems I am using.

Dekay Kimber Powerkord is very light and has been recommended for front end components. I have one and I need to make a decision for where to install it either the preamp or the digital source unfortunately I have to hard wire it in place my first impression is to go with the digital, what do you think?

Dekay and group how have you set up your power cords. Are they elevated from the floor? How do you do this? I had overlooked the effect of the weight of the PC on the components interesting detail, could you comment further on this. Thanks

Hi Sol: I have always had the PC's hanging in the air from the power conditioner to the component. My gear is placed in (and now on top of as well) an old Tansu cabinet and all of the components are at least 5' off the floor. I never upgraded the PC to my integrated Musical Fidelity SS amp (which has a seperate power supply and either captive cords or ones with odd plugs) so I have do not have experience with upgrading PC's on preamps. Most of the feedback seems to say that more improvement will be had upgrading digital front ends though. I just received a new tube amp that accepts replacement cords and in this case I am not too worried about the weight of the PC (within reason) because of the sheer mass of the amp and its overall balance (weight distribution). I also do not plan on placing the amp on cones (way too precarious) due to earthquakes and the fragile nature and expense of the tubes (300b's). For this reason I do not place my mini moniters on cones either (though they really did sound better when placed on sets of Mapleshade cones). My main gripe is using heavy PC's on DAC's and player/transports that are placed on cones. Any of the methods that I have used to "support" the PC's on the digital components so far seem to change the sound (each method of support sounds different from the other) and this is why I suspect that they are mucking up the isolation components. I am also asuming that a free and hanging PC would be the way to go (this seems to be the case with speaker cable), but again this is only a guess. If I end up liking the overall sound of a lighter PC (such as the Mapleshade PC) on the DAC, it will still not prove much. The only thing that I am certain of is that the position and "drag" of a PC changes the sound of my digital front end. I also just cleared more vertical height to play with and will next try top weighting the DAC and transport to see if it will stabilize the sound a little more, regardless of PC placement. Too much top weighting can sound dead though, IMO.

Redkiwi, I've followed your progress on shelf material with great intrest. I know that finding maple was an issue for you and you are reviewing it now. I'm interested in following up your experiments with different thicknesses of maple, mahogany, pear and anything else anyone might suggest. In order for me to first relate my study to your previose findings I was going to start with a similiar board. Thus the question, what size all three measurements are you using now, and is it a built-up (butcherblock) or a single board. Thank-you for your research and following information. J.D.