Audio Rack - DIY

I’m planning to build my own iteration of the Naim Frame.

Something compact and tailored to harbour my 7 boxes system.

At the moment I’m designing it with SketchUp (nice software!).

But I need some help with certain dimensions (in mm).

I’m looking for some dimensions:

Thank you for your help
Thomas

3 Likes

I am planning to do the same but will just buy the cups and balls. They are not expensive.

1 Like

I order a cup and a ball, and will use a them as a template. But will use brass cups and silicon nitride balls.

At the moment I just need certain dimensions in for my SketchUp drawings.

My Neo-Fraim will be a compromise.

As compact as possible, but regarding some points/details it’ll outperforme the Fraim. Perhaps… :laughing:

I’ll post a drawing when finished.


I am planning on using stainless steel thumbscrews with 22mm mdf sandwiched between them. Countering the tops of thumbscrews to locate spikes (which will be changed from photo version Stand offs for legs. I already have glass. Should cost me about £200 and a nice lockdowwn project to replace the lack of gigs!

1 Like

Are you manufacturing aluminium legs?

1 Like

A = 19mm
B = 23mm
C = 12mm

Approximately. It’s not easy to line up the tape measure close to the components.

It’ll be MDF, steel and glass.

This is the general idea:

The design should be in the same vein as mine:

And should be technically close to the Naim Fraim, while taking advantage of a sufficient gradient of sound velocity between materials (MDF, steel, brass, silicon nitride, glass)

1 Like

Thanks! :smiley:

Dimension A is not fixed, to be accurate you would need to be certain the glass was absolutely centred, which on my Fraim it almost never is. It might be better to work with the width of the glass shelf and distance between the centre lines of the cup & ball on each side.

It may be my natural caution but I’m always a tad circumspect with the 4-point designs given the weight of the kit - albeit, I suspect there is an argument for 4 points to spread the load of something like a 500 head unit.

I measured 20mm for dimension B, the wood being drilled at 22mm.
This worked for a friend of mine who did use FRAIM parts on his rack.
MArco :cowboy_hat_face:

Thomas,

The FRAIM cups are not just simple cups. Their base is hollow, making them rest only on the rim, and the “hole” is triangular, making the balls touch only on three points (making the assembly isostatic).

17a36df2d96e7f91ef4b3df62db234ba
Marco :cowboy_hat_face:

2 Likes

Thanks AlcideNikopol (nice nickname btw),

I just ordered a cup and a ball bearing from Cymbiosis (UK) and will use them as templates in order to manufacture my own.

The cups will be made out of brass and the ball bearings out of silicone nitrite.

Cups + balls will place on a steel structure. I’ll place two 2 cm thick glass shelves on top of that, like so:

This is my first draft of one piece of the structure.
SketchUp is a nice tool, but I still need some practice (started today) :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

might be worth reducing ball diameter and its holder if redesigning

Yes, I’ll probably do that. But not to much. We need some material in order to take advantage of the sound velocity delta between material.

I’ll probably use silicone carbide (13006 m/s) ball bearings instead of silicone nitride (11000 m/s).

Information found here:
–> https://www.signal-processing.com/table.php

And thanks to @Xanthe for the idea of using ceramic balls and brass cups instead of steel :pray:

Should you ever visit the Naim factory and speak to Jason, or indeed Richard, you’ll hear of the hundreds of hours of research that went into designing the Fraim, including the choice of materials to get the best balance of performance. Of course, it’s perfectly possible to knock something up in the shed, but it seems an odd thing to do when the cost is clearly not an issue. But maybe you know better than Naim. It’s always possible.

2 Likes

Come on HH, of course I don’t :joy:

It happens the Fraim doesn’t fit my needs. So I design my own. It is that simple.

4 Likes

2cm thick glass should be interesting :thinking:

That’s what it’s used in my current rack. Not sure it is any better than 1 cm glass in terms of isolation, but it looks nice :smiley:

Are you talking about the size of Fraim, or needing the glass front to keep kids and pets away? To me it looks like you could fit two stacks of Fraim between your Magico’s.