Equipment Rack Between Speakers...Good or Bad

mikelavigne

You live within 3 days travel from me????

I truly admire your dedication and accomplishments involved, and your photography is superb also. 

Cal and Elliot,

thank you for the kind comments.

Elliot, i'm in the Seattle area and you would be most welcome to come listen any time.

The ideal system will have balanced input mono amps right behind the speakers keeping the speaker wires as short as possible. Balanced ins and outs let you use long low level signal cables without ill effect. Now you can put the rack anywhere in the room you want unless you have a turntable in which case you want to get it as far away from the speakers as possible in a place where the bass is not amplified. Mine is in an alcove off to my left side. 

mikelavigne, how did you find not one Studer but three.....?  Oh so lucky. 

In the search for SQ improvement from the room, I tried removing the rack and put the components on the floor (separated by the same wood and isolation devices used with the rack) and things improved, big enough I never even tried a reverse trial and moved the rack out of the room same day.  By things I mean less high level glare (my room/system's weak spot to my eras) and better soundstage.  The rack was about halfway between speakers and front wall.  My room is not ideal, 11.5 x 20.5, a bit of a tunnel, so YMMV.  This was before I added absorption at primary reflection points, so if I get bored one day maybe I'll pull the rack back in the room?  Next I will experiment with mix of diffusers and absorption on the front wall, which has a heavily curtained window.  The windows also have blinds, and sometimes I can convince myself I like the sound more when the curtains are open and blinds are reflecting, sometimes not. 

Full disclosure, the rack was a cheap Ikea table, veneer over foam, so hard to say if I improved reflections or isolation/vibration or both.