Redwiki - About racks, shelves...

Rushton: I forgot to mention that I had previously been using Mapleshade brass cones and Vibrapod soft footers with Maple platforms (a three decker stack). This was the best that I was able to come up with (per my equipment and tastes) after trying different isolation footers and non-Neunace platforms. These were used in combination with a furniture cabinet that holds our CD's as well as many other items and which weighs in at 400 pounds plus. Anyway, this is where I am coming from. I do not know if Ken applied a discount or not, but my custom shelves did not cost any more than the price range noted at the Neuance website. I did get the impression that they do a lot of custom work as I offered to use four sided shelves that did not extend to the side edges of my rack and was told not to worry about it and they went ahead and made them in the odd shape that I mention above.

Dekay, are you using one of the Studio Tech racks that has spikes extending from each of the four corner posts to support the shelves? Such as the Studio Tech PS-6B 6-shelf model shown here:
http://www.globalmartcameras.com/audvid/access/furniture/studiotech/ZR-06B.htm
I'll be interested to hear your comments once you've had a chance to live with the Neuance for a while longer.

Hi Rushton: The photo at the website looks different than my rack, which I think is a PA-04 (I have the model # buried in emails somewhere). Mine had four side rails(with four upturned spikes) for each shelf. I also had the rack mig welded into a one piece frame (so it is no longer a bolt together rack). Unfortunately when I installed the upturned spikes and shelves last week (three of the upturned spike assemblies (the horizontal posts) snapped off from the weight of my components (which are all under 20 pounds each and only one per shelf). I was not going to use the rack because of this, but ended up making a "safety net" for the three top shelves out of silk ribbon laced under each shelf from the side rails. I just emailed Audio Advisor, where I purchased the rack in February and requested 16 replacement posts (the spikes themselves can be reused) as I do not trust the other posts that came with the rack (would you?). The metal looks "chaulky" where it broke off and is obviously not capable of doing its intended job. Also without the posts, the rack is pretty much rendered useless. Because of this I cannot recommend Studio Tech until the problem is resolved. I wish that I had a direct line to the manufacturer, but we recycled the shipping boxes and I cannot locate the original paperwork (I just have the computer generated invoice from Audio Advisor). Anyway, if suitable replacement parts are available the rack will be a steal, but other wise it was just a waste of money, plus I now have custom shelves made for it. Hopefully this was just a bad run of parts and replacements are available. Neuance has a recommended rack list at their site, but had I purchased one of the racks on the list (as they are more expensive) I would not have been able to budget for the shelves.

Thanks for the description, Dekay. Sorry to hear of the problems you are having. The Studio Tech rack is so inexpensively priced, I was thinking to do as you are doing - buy it and then purchase custom shelves from Neuance. In my case, though, some of the individual components are quite heavy. Among other items, I'll be putting an Aesthetix Io with two dedicated power supplies - at 50 lbs for each power supply, plus 30 lbs for the audio section itself - so I need something that will be quite dependable under a heavy load. Hopefully, your experience with the Studio Tech is just a bad run of parts as you hypothesize.

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.