Bartók's chassis carry capacity

How much weight can I put on Bartók? I am thinking of buying an external amplifier, which runs quite hot and weighs 30kg, is that too much for Bartók, do I need to invest in a rack? Thanks

Your issue will not just be weight but stray electric fields produced by the amplifier especially from its power supply. Bluntly not recommended.

For the above reason dCS do not recommend even stacking their own components on top of each other. This is from the Vivaldi user manual: " For best sound quality the units in the Vivaldi range are designed to be mounted on separate shelves of a rack". So that should give you a clear steer on whether or not you need a rack.

Yes, dCS do recognise that sometimes people have to compromise and say that they can be stacked but obviously this will not result in " best sound quality".

Stacking can reduce the end sound quality by a surprising amount. Believe me, I have experimented. For those who do stack their units, dCS or mixed, I would recommend that they do not try putting them on separate shelves unless this can be a permanent arrangement as I expect them to find that they do not want to go back to stacking.

Just out of interest the first 4 box dCS system ( Elgar(+)/Purcell/Verona/Verdi) was physically designed by Alan Boothroyd to fit together in a stack forming a truncated pyramid. In practice nobody used them that way ( including dCS at shows) unless they had to as the negative affect on SQ was so obvious.

Please try not to do this. If you really have to, put the Bartok on top of the amp not the other way round as 30Kg is a lot of weight.

Get a rack.

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Thank you for your detailed response. I did not expect SQ differences, good that you pointed out for me. My concern was the weight and potentially heat, had no clue about SQ degradation.

What’s the rule of thumb about racks? Any prescribed/recommended “space” between racks? There are a lot of racks out there, and even within their product lines, their shelves hight differ.

Many brands of rack provide a choice of different length uprights between the shelves so that a variety of components can be accommodated. I use a double width Quadraspire SVT rack where ( mainly for Vivaldi) I have selected 18cm uprights which for most of the units gives around 5cm of air space above the unit. Of course with this type of design you can customise the height for each level to suit the component. For example you may use tube equipment where sufficient free space above the unit is essential for dealing with heat.

I would suggest looking at this type of rack as if you change components for taller ones in the future you only need to change the uprights rather than needing to buy a whole new rack.

Oh yes absolutely, was looking at either Bassocontinuo or Quadraspire. I wonder, is there any negative in having the tallest uprights from the get go?

Not obviously except you could end up with a less then stable rack as the centre of gravity could become too high. That depends upon the loading though.

Rather, never put something on top of a power amp, I would say. It will cause heat dispersion problems, but also the power amp’s transformer(s) will mainly negatively affect SQ upwards.

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I forgot to mention which amp it is - Viva Egoista 845, so no way of putting anything on top of it.

Pete
What can you tell me about the Quadraspire SVT?

My Naim 500 system w/ Rossini/Clock sits on Fraim. I run a seperate headphone system (dynamic and Stax) in the bedroom fronted by my Linn Klimax DS and I dusted off my original Quadraspire EVO system to house it.

My dealer friend tells me the Q4 EVO (same as my Q4 but with the underside of the shelves milled out) and the SVT are both considerably better than my original Q4. He also prefers wood shelves with veneer as opposed to the Bamboo shelf option. I used to run a Quadraspire perspex wall shelf for my LP12 and when they first introduced Bamboo 10 years ago (?) I tried it. A disaster as it completely killed the LP12 and I went back to perspex (since replaced by the now defunct TigerPaw wall shelf).

On a crazy side note my headphone system resides in the bedroom and look and design are very important for both me and my wife. I have a dedicated room for the main system so HiFi racks etc. can reside there no problem. Not so much in the bedroom. We are both fans of iconic furniture and own many well known pieces. I am almost considering the Nelson Platform Bench to sit the Linn and headphone amps on top of. Maybe Quadraspire copied Nelson when they decided to make slats in the SVT shelves :grin:

Best
Gregg

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As always from you Erno; good point.

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Good question :thinking:

My first reaction is that as you have a Naim 500 based system and a Naim Fraim that’s probably how it should stay as they were made to be together. So I guess you are thinking about your bedroom.

My experience with Quadraspire SVT kind of follows ( up to a point) a typical Brit path from the later 1970s ( though my LP12 was bought in 1974 or 75 ( £160 :grin: plus arm and cartridge - Grace 707 and Supex 900). At that time there were no proper dedicated racks and the first that came along was the Sound Organisation . I used the initial single tier one and added a multi tier one later for the rest of the system. The single tier one was replaced by the next fashion for housing the LP12, the Audiotech table which was a spiked frame like the Sound Organisation with a top made from a foam heart sandwiched between laminates - many US readers of this can think of Neuance shelves. That subsequently gave way to the ( infamous?) Mana table.

We are now in the later 1980s and I was experimenting with CD players and learned one lesson. Glass ( the Mana) can introduce a bright sheen to the sound that can be very uncomfortable to listen to. One modified player went to and from the modifier to try to solve the problem. The solution was only found by accident when I placed it on the old Audiotech table - excessive brightness banished at a stroke.

All of this was dispensed with when Max Townshend introduced his Seismic Sink rack so I bought two of them each five shelves high. I was already using multi box components and needed a lot of shelf space.

The reason for the history is that the Townshend racks were replaced by the Quadraspire SVT and I need to give context to my comment that the Quadraspire SVT sounds superior to any of them even given turntable support. However the LP spinner is no longer an LP12 but a highly modified J.A. Michell Orbe. The LP12 is an unusually difficult beast to house correctly as its very " mobile" suspended design seems to make it unusually sensitive to placement ( even given some of Linn’s efforts to mitigate this). Incidentally there was a lot of debate in the UK magazines of the 80’s/90’s which broadly held that wall shelves were not a great idea for the LP12 as although they could provide rigidity and protection from foot fall disturbance the proximity of the wall places the turntable within a bass reinforcement node which is sub-optimal for this particular model. NB :please note that I am not arguing this, merely reporting the argument of the time.

So , the Quadraspire SVT sounds good. I don’t know if they ever saw the Nelson Platform Bench ( beautiful) but AFAIK the slats are a technical based development from their earlier/less costly designs. These designs had/have a pattern milled into the underside of the shelf in order to break up resonances. The next step was to improve the milled underside idea so that the resonance “breaks” reach completely through the shelf , hence the SVT. And, of course, the SVT slats are merely milled through the shelf rather than the metiod used in the superb Nelson bench where individual laths are joined to a frame to produce the end result.

All great stuff and I find the SVT practical , aesthetically pleasing and reasonably good value. In fact it is IMO probably the best solution in its price range.

BUT…

… Unless absolutely necessary I would not advise building one higher than 4 shelves ( keep it to 3 if possible). This is because the coupler/upright combination means that the higher the rack goes the more unstable it becomes in torsion. Vertical stability is fine so basically it is great so long as it is not firmly touched during while the components on it are playing as this introduces a torsional force. However this is of debatable importance where there is no LP or silver disc spinner.

That being so I am still using it as, even though I need a double width rack with 5 shelf levels (so not optimal), I cannot find anything else that would fit my needs at a cost I can afford.

Pete
Thank you for the detailed reply - and history lesson :grin: Quite interesting as, although I am Stateside, there is definitely a love for Brit hifi as witnessed by my Naim, Linn, and dCS ownership.

I have a dedicated two channel room and I am free to indulge my fantasies by storing a 7000 lp and 3000 cd collection as well as my full system complete with purpose built hifi racks etc.

My master bedroom is a different story and it is there where my wife and I indulge our passion for design and furniture. I was “allowed” to move my complete headphone systems there (various Stax and other dynamic cans) and all is being “temporarily” situated on my original Q4 rack back from when I first started.

My comment on the Nelson slats was purely tongue and cheek. The Nelson is a magnificent piece of furniture and design history. It was not meant to hold hifi components. Then again I found the idea of the slats interesting, particularly in that it is part of the design in the SVT shelf.

In the case of my bedroom design and beauty trumps end game listening - especially because I already have that in my 2 channel room. Before the Quardaspire was dusted off and put into the room last month the headphone gear sat on a vintage low coffee table - and adequate performance was provided. Some experimentation with IsoAcoustic Orea and HRH Nimbus pucks showed that additional benefits could be obtained. I think the Nelson could be a nice starting point which first and foremost will satisfy our desire for beautiful things in the bedroom. After that some experimentation with the placement of footers, be it Orea’s, HRH, Stillpoints, Ceraballs etc. could provide a nice compromise solution while being discrete enough not to take away from the beauty of the Nelson bench.

Best
Gregg

PS me thinks time to finally post a photo of my 2 channel room in the appropriate thread.

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Hello Gregg,

good to see another interior design aficionado here. :slightly_smiling_face: It’s a beautiful furniture combination that your images show. My listening chair is a Jean Prouvé Cité lounge chair designed by the architect in 1930 and manufactured by Vitra in Germany. I had them dye the leather strips black, because I am going all black furniture now. It works great for long headphone listening sessions. When I still had speakers, I used it as well. Although in such a setup the height of the ears can be a bit low relative to the speaker drivers.

I have no real recommendation for your bedroom situation, but for coffee table books :grinning: You might like these photography books - Ravens by Masahisa Fukase . American Surfaces: Revised & Expanded Edition by Stephen Shore . Many are Called by Walker Evans . Exiles by Joseph Koudelka . American Power by Mitch Epstein . Lee Friedlander (the book has just his name as a title) . 2 1/4 by William Eggleston . Lewis Baltz (again just the name as the title)

An interior design book I currently like is ‘Wabi Inspirations’ by Axel Vervoordt

Best,
Marco.

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Hello Marco

Lovely chair!

We have several Vitra pieces by Antonio Citterio in our main room and other items sprinkled throughout the house. In my listening room time is spent with a Womb chair and ottoman. Sometimes I pull up a Jens Risom chair near the Naim Fraim rack to listen to headphones. The main headphone listening is in the bedroom on an Eames chair. The Nelson bench seems like it would go perfectly well with it.

I will post a photo of my listening room in the listening room thread. If you zoom in back of the speakers you will see my “collection” of coffee table books. There are several more vertically stacked next to the Risom chair. I will definitely check out your list of recommended books - I already have 1 or 2 including the Koudelka.

Best
Gregg

Marco

Photo of the room finally up

Best
Gregg

A beautiful listening room it is indeed :smiley: And your collection of coffee table books is good for a new one every day of the year.

Although it’s off topic I thought you and some others might enjoy this piece of furniture. It was created by Maarten Baas and is called ‘Clay Chair’. They are made one by one. Here’s a link to his site http://maartenbaas.com/clay-furniture/. He is known for the burned furniture. His Smoke Armchair is manufactured by Moooi.

The photograph in the the back is from one of three road trips I undertook from Denver to Pagosa Springs in Colorado.

STUNNING chair. I just googled it.

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Blimey - never rack an amp with anything near it. The effect on your system can only be hugely detrimental in so many arears. All that equipment … you must be able to find enough for a wooden stand!

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