How important is the rack you use for your components

Roxy

If you were doing science you would be controlling the variables, including the variable of bias, when testing for the audible effects of a rack on a piece of gear.

Have you been doing that?

(The mantra “Trust your ears” is really no different than the New Age Guru saying “trust your feelings”)

I’m not declaring that an audio rack can’t have a beneficial audible effect on certain types of components (turntables being more plausible).  But I’m saying the methods often used in the audiophile community are so loose and rife with bias that we get to a place where  it’s thought “everything makes an audible difference.”

I'm using a Salamander Synergy Triple Unit SL20 A/V cabinet. It's essential in terms of housing my audio and video gear, but in no way do I believe it contributes positively or negatively to the sound or picture quality.

roxy

Sure, that’s what I presumed. That’s not of course “science.” Which was simply my point.

I get that we all report our subjective experiences - I’ve been doing it like everyone else. But sometimes it’s good to keep some perspective on the reliability of those experiences for determining actual sonic differences.

Anyway, that’s all I want to say about the issue. I’ve been looking at audio racks myself with the idea of ensuring good isolation, though this is because I have bought a nice turntable. For any other component I can think of I wouldn’t be sweating the isolation factor: As long as it holds up the gear safely and looks good.

Prof sorry but wrong, We have been playing with isolation devices for both electronics, and digital components for years and the difference is very audible.

All electronics are sensitive to vibration and that includes solid state as well as tubes. Of course Turntables are a greatly improved by isolation.

I used to do a demo of a $900 Rega Planet on a solid steel shelf, then with Black diamond footers, and then a black diamond shelf.

The black diamond shelf is a thick slab of carbon fiber with other high density plastics. and a set of carbon fiber footers.

I would demonstrate this cd player vs a $3000 Cd player booth on top of the same racks, then put the isolation components under the Rega once the CD player was fully isolated it crushed the performance of the more expensive cd player and once you took the cheaper player off of the base and then put the better player on top viola the more expensive player then wildly outperformed the cheaper one.

Think of mechanical jitter, this way in the days before electronic image statbilzation and you were trying to take a long aperture exposure with a telephoto lens the small shakes and vibrations would cause your exposure to be blurry.

A $20k professional camera  hand held vs a $1k camera with the same lens setup but sitting  on a tripod would take a much sharper picture, then the much more expensive camera.

All devices including transistors are microphonic, tube are more so, but transistors still have crystaline structures which can vibrate.

When you remove vibration the system focuses much better, the images are much more defined, bass is tighter. Huge improvements.

If you told me 10 years ago I would have a $14k Stillpoints rack I would say your are crazy. The difference putting high end electronics just amps on this rack were huge.

We recommend Isoacoustics cheap and very effective.

We are looking at several next generation racks as Stillpoints have gotten crazy expensive but you have to hear the differences in doing proper vibration isolation it takes a good system into the next generation.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ