Update on my Rack endeavors.....
We did the big move. The rack is now up
front between the speakers. Many nay-sayers have quoted me the age old concept that the rack goes anywhere but between the speakers. I designed my custom listening room with that in mind and my rack has occupied the space to the right of my listening position for years, with a very expensive 8.5m balanced run from preamp in the side rack to the amps up front.
About 3 months ago I had the opportunity to upgrade my speaker wire to the Crystal Cable Absolute Dream cable and what they did to my system was revolutionary! The change was SO dramatic that I immediately began thinking I need to upgrade my very expensive Shunyata Anaconda interconnects with the very very very expensive Absolute Dream XLR interconnects. The problem is, an 8.5m run of XLR Absolute Dream would be $96,000- retail! 😵
So the only other option was to move all my gear up front and keep the preamp-amp run to 1m. But then I had to put the rack between the speakers, and that’s supposedly bad (especially since my speakers are pretty close to the front wall and the rack can’t be placed that far behind the front speaker baffles).
Step one - I had to buy extra parts to reconfigure my current rack to a 2 tall, 3 wide rack. Amps on the bottom left and right, preamp in between. DAC above the preamp centrally and the server to the top left, power conditioner to the top right.
Step two - Try every (well, not every, but the ones that look most intriguing) major manufacturer footers and shelves since it’s impossible to audition a complete rack so I decided that a footer/shelf combo should give a solid taste of what a full rack would do. I have been reporting along the way here and on my YouTube channel.
Step 3 - Order a 10 gauge outdoor 25’ extension cord so I can plug my system in on the side wall and then move it up front without having to change ANYTHING including the power supply. And then let it burn in for a few weeks.
Step 4 - Invite some good ears over that are connected to reasonably strong arms and backs so we can listen with rack on side and then move it up front between the speakers and compare directly.
Step 5 - Buy said good ears with strong backs lunch for their efforts and assistance!
Well, step 1-5 are now complete. Lunch was great!
The very appreviated report on the affects of the rack being moved up front is that it sounds just about the same up front after 45 minutes of letting the system re-aclimate to the front. Especially since we had to unplug and replug everything in when we took the rack apart and moved it. At first it wasn’t as good, but it improved with time as the equipment re-stabilized. We did have to move the DAC onto the floor because with the shelf and footers the DAC came up high enough that it covered some of the front treatments and clearly affected sound.
So the two factors that made the biggest difference was keeping everything at least 6-10” behind the front speaker baffle, at least. And most important was keeping everything LOW LOW LOW! if I can get the top edge of the top shelf to be just under 20” off the ground that would be awesome. And if we can get lower, even better. Ideal would be to have the top of the top piece of equipment be no higher then 18-20”.
Everyone agreed that getting the new 1m interconnects will yield a massive gain in overall performance, especially since there appeared to be no appreciable change with the rack move.
Stay tuned for thoughts on what new rack I am most considering. (Shhhhhhh - The Symposium product is amazing!!!)
