Audio rack _ DIY

I’m going to make a new audio rack according to the increasing equipment.

**blue sound node - NDX - supernait - hicap DR **
nac72 ( would be) - nap140

Because of nac72 without remote control, I bought a volume-adjustable blue sound node .
Compared to the streaming part of NDX, it’s incredible
.
I tried rendering it before making it.
It consists of several pipes, a solid wood and spikes.

By the way, I bought a nice nap140, but I haven’t bought the nac72 yet, and I’m having a hard time finding it.
Here in Korea, it’s harder to find it of nice condition, so I search eBay every day.

Do you have any advice on rack?

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I can’t offer advice, other than to say that’s a delightful looking set up you have.

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I like your style.

As an aside, and in relation to your comment, “Because of nac72 without remote control,” I have been quite tempted to make a base to sit beneath a non remote controlled pre-amp or integrated with a small battery operated servo motor built in to drive manual volume control knobs via a discrete drive belt. The servo would be remote controlled vis a conventional Infrared remote. This way the pre/integrated requires no modification and volume knob can still be moved by hand.

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Somewhere between two and three years ago there was a thread where someone had done almost exactly that…

About half way down this thread…

You may want to see the threads on isolation, but in the meantime: -

  1. Provided that you avoid obvious things like rattling shelves or electronic boxes, most designs will do a decent job for your electronics. Materials matter, but so does how it looks and whether you can keep the various boxes a decent distance apart (e.g. no stacking please).

  2. Many of us reckon you can improve sound quality a little with a more dedicated approach, but what works for one room/ system/ pair of ears/ typical volume level/ tastes won’t work for someone else. Room resonances and bouncy/ solid floors can be particularly relevant considerations.

  3. Spikes under everything are not a panacea and neither is anything else - a good protection against one frequency of unwanted vibration may not help much with other frequencies.

  4. Turntables are different from electronics, and suspended and unsuspended turntables have different best/ worst supports. However, for almost any TT, the usual guidance is ‘light and rigid’, and improving on the common wall shelves from Rega, Pro-ject, Targett and the like usually takes a lot of effort, even if it is possible.

  5. You can go as far as you want with this.

I have my electronics on a spiked unit with solid oak legs and granite shelves. HRS Assemblies (i.e rubbery feet) sit on the granite, with electronics on that. The HRS feet improved things, but even without the feet I regarded the sound as at last as good as I could get from a higher-end rack.

My turntable is on a wall shelf. The TT itself sits on a ‘light and rigid’ laminated glass shelf that sits on more HRS feet, which sit on another chunk of granite in the wall shelf. I

t too sounds better than it did on the Tergett helf alone, but the original reason for getting a wall shelf was feet bouncing the needle as I walked, as I have bouncy wooden floors. If my floors were concrete, I suspect that the ‘right’ answer for my turntable might have changed, and recent experimentation makes me suspect that a different floor would change what I liked best under the electronics too.

  1. Most others on this enjoy great sound without going as far as I have. Others buy a Naim Fraim and equivalent and never look back. However, some people who started out with similar approaches seem to have ended up with a normal-looking rack, but with isolation platforms under the key electronic boxes. Of course, no two platforms sold seems to work in quite the same way or use the same materials, and there are plenty of spurious claims made.

  2. In other words, there are few hard likes here to rely on - try some sensible ideas and let your ears tell you what is best/ worst.

Good luck!

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Keep it as simple as you can. Ideally you want a fit and forget solution.
The more you go into material science, the more you will get involved in how and what contributes to how things can make a difference to how things end up sounding - which is a great learning curve - but, will more likely get you wanting to tinker instead of relaxing and enjoying a good listening session.

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There are people on this forum who have done that. Forgot the name though.

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That’s good to know, I like their ingenuity and freedom from norms

Here you go, Roog:

I didnt use xs3, but ibe owned 282-250-hc, and I like SN 1 sound more than them.
so, I want to listen to a set of olive or chrome.
the only concern is remote volume control, and I thought node that could control volume remotely.
thanks for the link

many thanks for your kind reply.
Actually, I’m not a person who wants to listen to music analytically.
However, I want to make a minimum effort, and the visible appearance is more important than that.
I don’t know how high the sound quality can be, but I don’t want to do it if it hurts the design.
.
stacking… I started this work at least to avoid it.
thanks again…

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I totally agree with you, thanks~

Yup that’s a nice job, I like it.

Even a superficial survey of the variety of commercial racks on the market makes it clear that there are many different approaches in terms of overall design, materials used and mounting hardware such as spikes or various alternatives. Many of these designs have reputations as sounding very good.

In my opinion there are very few racks, if any, that isolate hi-fi equipment from the environment. A rack is basically a mechanical filter and resonance tuning device. It modifies the sound of your equipment according to its specific tuning. All racks sound different. If they were all just isolating your equipment then they should all sound the same, assuming they are competent.

I have heard the opinion expressed that all racks add something undesirable and artificial to the sound and that hi-fi equipment is best placed on ordinary items of furniture such as tables or storage cabinets. These will of course affect the sound but because they are not specifically tuned to do certain things the overall result will be more natural and musical.
I believe that at least one hi-fi manufacturer places all their equipment on wooden side and coffee tables at shows rather than specialist racks.

I use a Quadraspire SVT Bamboo rack that to me sounds very good and is convenient and looks nice. If I wasn’t using a commercial rack I wouldn’t bother designing or building a DIY version. I would just place my equipment on some nice looking pieces of furniture and be done with it.

A word of warning with DIY racks. Many items of hi-fi are very heavy and could cause serious injury if a shelf or rack were to collapse. Bear this aspect in mind - safety first.

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I’ve been looking into this as I had to repurpose the sideboard in I was using for another room and am thinking a DIY something. I bought a cheap S/H rack and it definitely sounds better - but it’s sinful to look at and to be honest I’d rather just have a decent price of regular furniture and live with the fidelity compromise…

If someone made decent technical racks hidden inside regular sideboard/credenza looking units I reckon they would sell truck loads. It’s a very understanding significant other that is genuinely happy to have a Double stack Fraim in their living spaces!

That’s a great looking system. Where are all the wires?

this is rendered image :blush:

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Including colour differences for the olive fascia’s! Well done.

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Take a look at the TNT audio flexy design. I made one a number of years ago and it works very well

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We can even add isolation platform, home made or not, and efficient isolation feet.

That’s a my current temporary rack.

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