Hey Pete. Yes, my rack system was designed to hold audio gear but as stated earlier not particularly costly. Twelve wooden shelves on a metal structure spread over 3 bays wide with decent leveling capabilities. Amplification is separately raised off of the floor about 4” on similarly constructed wood and metal platforms. Over the past 2 years each component has been separately isolated on stillpoints isolation feet and are sized larger than required by weight. In my logical mind each of my components are already isolated and likely wont benefit from using an isolating rack to isolate the isolation feet that isolate the components. Yes… it sounds ridiculous… but i obviously haven’t read or tried everything which is why im asking.
As far as aesthetics the existing rack is functionally fine and somewhat subdued. I understand the desire to get the most attractive (possibly expensive) rack to display all of the gems which have been acquired and muse at how much cooler a rack such as ben’s @all2ofme would look in my home. Then i look at the task at hand and what it might take to put such a 12 bay rack together in mental and financial resources and i pose the above question.
I really do admire the display of equipment by forum members and am always reviewing these systems looking for hints at how i might improve my own system. I was intrigued for example by the isolation weight used by @Anupc on one of his components. I really am totally open to suggestions and appreciate the feedback. B
The rack is a nice way to arrange your equipment in particular when you have tons of cables behind your gear…With dCS it happens
It is very easy to measure, with a smartphone and the appropriate application you can download most of the time for free.
With this in hand I can tell you that my Bassocontinuo hifi rack vibrates a little bit less than a 20€ Ikea table I have in the same room…Does this tiny difference make a difference I could hear if my hifi was on the Ikea table ? No idea.
Does very small vibrations (0,00005gr) make a dCS DAC sounding bad compared to 0,00002gr, may be dCS people measured that in the factory ?
Athough such apps measure vibration it is unclear that they do so at frequencies relevant to audio. I just checked my copy and I cannot make any such conclusion.
I’d love some concrete, reliable, relevant measurements (if we can agree what relevant means in this case).
I can say I heard a huge difference with IsoAcoustics’ GAIA feet on my previous speakers. However I didn’t hear much difference when I put the Orea feet on my other equipment. I didn’t hear a difference when I replaced those with Stillpoints either.
Maybe because we live in a village and the main road is far enough away not to cause an problem, or, maybe, I’m deaf, but, try as I might I didn’t hear a difference.
Barry, precisely because it’s to really hard to actually compare the sonic benefit of different racks, I attempted to measure what sort of vibration my dCS components were experiencing. You can read about it in the following thread and follow-up posts;
I think especially where solid-state components are involved, it’s very difficult to attribute any subjective listening experiences to vibration measurements. That said, with tools now relatively easily available to measure differences between racks/isolation, one can just pick the best from that objective comparison.
As Ben says, based on my (relatively brief) measurements, I really couldn’t justify swapping out my existing isolation/rack for anything “better” - peace of mind and money saved
Yeah. J. I live out in the country. Nearest neighbor is outside of baseball throw away. Street is over 250 feet. Small airport a few miles away. Im on my own transformer. My listening room noise floor is about 29db and dropping. There are only so many things to work on but im still searching. I do know every bit of isolation and precision is one bit closer to perfection.
Thanks Anup. Ill check out the link. Im not terrified of spending more but i need a reasonable thought that i may actually see a gain. Sounds like the quorum indicates its a bottomless pit with no likely real solution.
Racks are a funny old subject really, and i think any gains to be had from a good designed rack come from firstly how bad your gear is at dealing with vibrations, and then how much vibrations are in the room caused by your speakers, traffic, etc, etc.
Also floor construction comes into it, so lot’s off different thing’s that will either add up to a lot or not so much.
Obviously a nice rack can look nice, and hopefully help keep the vibrations down, but in the end it comes down to you personally as to whether you go for it or not.
For me personally i wanted a nice rack, i haven’t a clue if it’s making a difference but it certainly isn’t making it worse.
I agree with all you say but I have a comment on the above. I have been using dedicated racks for audio since the early days of audiophile rack manufacture in the UK. That was the early 1980s with the first Sound Organisation units. These were replaced with the first version of the late and missed Max Townhend’s Seismic Sink “pendulum” suspended rack and later with my big Quadraspire SVT.
So that’s three racks successively in the same room. So some sort of comparison could be attempted. I have to say that each replacement gave me clearly audible improvements. I can’t easily itemise them but the overall sound and music seemed better each time. As a classical listener string sound is important to me and that, at least, can be thought of separately and got better and better.
I don’t consider it a rabbit hole. It isn’t something easy to compare like two dacs or something.
But I will tell you if you can ever hear a dCS set up on a Grand Prix Audio Silverstone rack, you’ll buy it. You won’t care about comparing after you hear it. And it’s exactly what you say in your original post, less background noise, Improved sonic accuracy. I’d add resolution and tambre. My Grand Prix Audio Rack takes my Vivaldi Stack to a new level, it’s NOT subtle and you can’t go backwards once heard. My 2 cents
Speaking of isolation devices and mechanisms, I’ve often wondered why dCS doesn’t include upgraded footers on its components, especially with major upgrades like the Apex. Considering the price levels of the gear and dCS’ obvious concern for the best sound quality from its products, it seems like a reasonable expectation. Maybe the implication is that better footers aren’t needed. Anybody know?
The only way you can get a proper answer is from the person at dCS who makes such decisions. Otherwise one can speculate. Mine is based on experience that the footers supplied to units such as Rossini or Vivaldi are perfectly adequate. That is not to say that there may be opinions here and there that alternatives may be substituted but there is no uniform decision on what is best.If they supplied one type then immediately there will be calls for another so the issue remains. In this case there is no definitive science to he called on.
In any case aside from Lina these are now established units and replacing feet mid production results in an upgrade programme being requested by existing owners. Wait for the replacement line in due course and see what they may supply then.
I think everyone has different levels off vibration in their system that they may or may not need to deal with.
A decent rack that will independently support each bit off kit is the right start, and more than likely enough. But obviously you can keep going, and only then would you find out if they are needed or not.
But i feel if you are going to place them stacked on top off each other then probably better isolation feet would be more beneficial, or if say you have a normal piece off furniture that it all sits on.
But really unless you feel like you have a vibration problem then the standard feet are fine, as i tried isoacoustic feet under my rossini kit years ago and didn’t find any inpovement, but this was also on a hifi rack, i even had my rossini colck and player stack at one point, and even then i couldn’t hear any difference with the isoacoustic feet on both unit’s.
Thanks for the detailed response, Pete. I agree the only way to get a proper answer is from dCS. Good to hear your view that the stock footers are adequate. They may well be, and it would be unlike dCS to overlook this issue if they weren’t. So logically one would conclude that they are. But as you say, this remains speculation. Of course one could go through a personal evolution trying different footers which, worn-through audiophile that I am, is not appealing. Especially for 9 grand for the Apex upgrade, one would think that new footers would have been included if warranted. As you say, we’ll see what happens in the future, although it would be nice to get a comment from dCS now. Jim Heckman
dunc, good to hear your view that a decent rack (which I have) will probably defray most vibration issues. I must say I don’t know how one can tell if they have a vibration problem just from listening. It’d be like electronic noise on the signal, you don’t know you have it until you install a good noise filter and clearly hear the difference. But then my comments come at the end of a very long, laborious and frustrating summer of upgrades so taking on another audiophile experimentation project is not in the cards. “You’ll have this…”
