Redwiki - About racks, shelves...

I don't want the mantle of expertise on this issue. I just want to report excellent results with the light and rigid approach, when using Neuance shelving.

Mwalsdor, your rack arrangement goes in the opposite direction, plumping for mass in most cases. I am sure that there are lots of ways to skin the cat, but my experiments with the mass approach were not successful for me. The sound was often lovely, but the music failed to grab me. This is an odd thing. We can make our systems cause saxophones to sound beautiful, a voice to sound resplendent, a drum to be crashingly impactful and strings to soar. But this is not the same approach as seeking to remove all time smearing and go the PRAT route.

There are some that insist that their massy structures achieve PRAT. I am sceptical, I can't help myself. It defies my understanding of the issues, and does not gel with my experience. But I admit that does not mean I am certain that they are wrong.

The PRAT approach can result, in lesser systems, in a fast, infectious, but colored and fatiguing sound. The mass approach can result, in lesser systems, in a sluggish system where the instruments don't seem to be quite playing together, but often with good neutrality and powerful bass. At the pinnacle of each approach it may be that the sound quality converges to the same point.

But for me, I have found some form of previously unobtained musical bliss from the light/rigid/damped method. It is easy to implement, gets you great PRAT and is very neutral.

Get a welded steel rack that is spiked to the floor and supports its shelves on spikes. Get Neuance shelves. Possibly, use E-A-R feet between shelf and component. Simple and works great - you just have to wait a week while the sound stabilises - something to do with how the Neuance settles under the weight being applied to it. No need for cones, Vibrapods etc.

Almost everything in your shelf strategy Mwalsdor follows the opposing path with mass, and then has cones as a light/rigid interface to dissipate energy. It may sound great, and I have no reason to doubt that. But I reckon you would be surprised if you heard my system on my rack and would expect it to have a fresh vibrancy and speed that would make it very different from yours. What you may also notice is that your system had more bass weight and more solidity. I don't know which you would prefer, but I urge you to give the light/rigid/damped method a try. But throwing a Neuance shelf into your current rack is not the same thing.

I have to admit I am struggling because I don't really know what your rack sounds like or what you will like. All I can say is I am delighted with my rack, and it works best if I just keep it simple, no lead or sand filling, no concrete or granite blocks, no cones....

Hi Rushton. They look beautifully made but perhaps kinda heavy to me, but hard to tell from a picture. But any weight in them will pay off in extra rigidity since it is all welded steel, so I have no reason to doubt they would do the job well, particularly with heavy components. I like the Mana racks, but they are pretty expensive, particularly when you are not going to use their special damped glass shelves. I reckon the most important issues are welded steel of sufficient guage (where the Atlantis certainly qualifies), spiked up and down, not filled with anything, and using one rack for each component. The last point is very beneficial, which I proved to myself recently. It may not be practical for everyone, but I have one rack for my CD Player (which has volume control), and one each for my monoblocks. The sound is definitely better than when all components are in one rack.

Gregm. I have tried all materials known to man (ask my wife how many shelves lurk in the basement), so can report on Perspex. The best thickness seems to be around 12mm. It is really too heavy in my opinion and not damped sufficiently in the lower treble. Therefore you get good bass weight, but slightly behind the beat, and a bit of accentuated presence. The accentuated presence gets obscene if you support the perspex with spikes, or if you use cones between component and shelf. In particular the BDR cones seem to really set off a mutual resonance with Perspex. I found Corian to be better (which is also an acrylic but much denser than Perspex) than Perspex, and really not bad. But neither approach the Neuance. If you use Corian or Perspex, I recommend using very thin hard rubber pads (3 or 4) between rack and shelf. And then use soft footers between shelf and component. This will tame the resonance I have referred to reasonably well and if the footers are Vibrapods the bass will speed up a bit.

The Neuance is not a perfect solution, but it is damn good. Being very light compared with what most people use for shelves, you will find the bass is much faster, but you may find it lightweight compared with what you are used to. I reckon the Neuance is just more accurate, and the bass weight when using heavier shelves comes from the energy stored by those shelves being dissipated slowly - causing a perceived slowing of the bass. What you prefer will depend on whether you prefer the bass weight or improved PRAT.

The other issue with Neuance shelves is that the heavier the component, the more you tend to get a bit of unwanted warmth creeping into the lower mids and upper bass. I reckon that Neuance is trying to make a shelf that tries to optimise the trade-offs between each of light/rigid/damped, but that when the component gets out of the expected weight range it starts to flex a bit. That is probably why they make an alpha (for light components) and a beta (for moderately heavy components), and I think Ken is still working on a shelf for very heavy components. So it is a good idea to get the right grade shelf for the weight of the component to avoid the only slight coloration I can detect with the Neuance.

Gregm, I have tried the suspemded shelf idea and found it promising but eventually abandoned it. My main concern was that the wire used has a resonance like a guitar string and gets through to the shelf unless you do something to decouple it. Nylon coated wire was, in fact, the worst sounding that I tried (sorry). Solid nylon fishing wire of high strength is OK, and so is nylon rope. But their colorations were still quite evident. I even tried suspending the Neuance shelves but they definitely worked better sitting on top of point contacts. Therefore I conclude that the suspension idea would probably work best if you used a shelf like Corian or Perspex, where you decoupled the wire from the shelf by some form of rubber, polymer etc (which happens to be what the Arcici does using Navcom and Perspex), or with a more damped shelf like the Neuance if you found some way of ensuring the Neuance was suspended in a way that it sat on top of point contacts. I suspect there is merit in suspending racks rather than sitting them on steel racks, but that just as with a steel rack you cannot just let the shelf rest on the rack (ie. you need a soft pad or hard spike between them), then the same applies to not letting the shelf connect directly to the wire.

Gregm. Because neither the Corian or Perspex are totally neutral, you may get the best result using Corian on the source (and maybe also preamp) and perhaps Perspex on amp. Mixing different shelf materials together will hopefully avoid any too obvious resonances. I found Corian everywhere to be something of a problem. By the way I did find Maple Butchers Block to be OK too - it sounded slow and murky, but not nearly as much as MDF did. It was able to be improved with cones. I mention it because it may be OK with the very heavy stuff and provide still more variety to your tuning of resonances. I believe you have got my point on the steel wire - it sounded very much like there was a steel stringed guitar playing along with the music.

You're very welcome cobber.