As my dedicated listening space is finally nearing completion, I was looking for some advise on the stacking order for my brains & brawn Fraim stacks. I have 8 standard levels, 6 levels (including the 2 bases) are full Fraim & 2 levels are Fraimlite. I’m wondering what is the best stacking order to enable best dressing of cables? My gear is as follows:
252
300DR
SCDR
Bryston BLP-1 TT
Simaudio 310LP Phono
Simaudio Mind Streamer
Sonnet Digital Morpheus DAC
Thought was to have the Fraimlite shelves under one of the non Naim pieces. Was thinking 252 top left, 300DR head unit below, then DAC, with streamer or phono on the bottom. Top right TT, below that either the streamer or phono & then the SCDR & 300PS on the two lower shelves. Wasn’t sure if the SCDR or 300DR should be on the bottom, think the general rule is the larger power supply on the bottom (believe that would be the 300PS) but wasn’t sure if having the 300PS on the bottom shelf would cause cable dressing issues. So my initial thought:
Brain Stack
252
300HU
DAC
streamer or phono
Brawn Stack
TT
streamer or phono
SCDR or 300PS
SCDR or 300PS
I’d go with the phono on the bottom of the brains.
With brawn, it may be madness, but I have my SCDR below the 300PS on the basis it carries signal and will only get hit by interference from one side if the SCDR is on the bottom.
And before someone asks I have never been bothered enough to take the whole thing apart to A/B test. Think it would take too long to remember the difference anyway for me.
Thanks, I had two thoughts on the phono vs streamer location. I thought keeping the sensitive/low voltage phono further away from the power supplies a good idea but then also, I listen to digital more then analog so had thought maybe the streamer should be kept further away. As you say, probably start with the phono further away, nice thing is their an easy swap if I want to experiment.
Any other input? SCDR vs 300PS on the bottom of the brawn rack for best performance/cable dressing? Is it a good idea to keep the 300 head unit higher up/under the pre, or should it be lower? (thought higher up is easier for cable dressing, but being a heavier component, maybe better to be at the bottom but also think you get a bit better isolation the further up you are)
You can try it and check if you can actually hear a difference.
To my old cloth-ears, and in my system, SC’s transformer (and hence right side of SC) needs to be as far from pre-amp AND phono-stage as poss if it powers both.