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Post by brucew268 on Oct 31, 2024 21:29:22 GMT
Trying some DC connectors, I found myself chasing my tail trying to balance the sound and at some point realised the shelves were playing an active part. At first I was focused on identifying any cable damping that might be occurring through cable dressing or plastic or rubber inserts in the DC connectors, and made progress, but then it became obvious something additional was influencing the sound and that was where components were placed on the shelves. My streamer, Mutec, and DAC all have external PSU’s which makes for six boxes that are not full width or depth. The shelves are anchored at the corners and the distance a component is from a corner makes a noticeable difference to: resolution, transients, dynamics, tonality, space, frequency balance, handling of complex passages. Since the shelves are only 12.5mm MDF, I thought that thicker stiffer shelves might resolve that so replaced them with 30mm bamboo, IKEA Aptitlig. They had a higher resonant frequency than MDF and so changed the sound a little, but still had the same issue. In the end I went back to the original shelves and played around with location until I seemed to have a good balance. All the PSU’s have soft sorbothane footers and I wonder if using proper isolation on all components would take shelf position out of the equation. I might experiment with this in the future. |
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Post by rexton on Nov 1, 2024 9:08:50 GMT
Spacing equipment seems to work and I have had some improvements with equipment leaking noise into the speakers, things always appear a little quiter. Perhaps your hearing could be sensitive to changes to hash reaching the speakers from your equipment? I went the bamboo shelf route a couple of years ago and have never looked back. I would probably remove any trace of Sorbothane from your system, horrible stuff that just robs the system of vitality. I used to be a Sorbothane lover thinking it would damp things, it only (in my system) made things worse. I went down the Townshend isolation route, it's expensive but has helped massively, especially coupled with the bamboo shelving. I have just tried the excellent Stack Audio products, which I returned! The Stack gear added a little extra vim and vitality to my Jazz system which is not what I wanted, hence the return. I think the Stack stuff would have worked far better in my more forensially inclined Technics / ATC system. It's all fun and games!
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Post by brucew268 on Nov 1, 2024 11:36:32 GMT
Spacing equipment seems to work and I have had some improvements with equipment leaking noise into the speakers, things always appear a little quiter. Perhaps your hearing could be sensitive to changes to hash reaching the speakers from your equipment? I went the bamboo shelf route a couple of years ago and have never looked back. I would probably remove any trace of Sorbothane from your system, horrible stuff that just robs the system of vitality. I used to be a Sorbothane lover thinking it would damp things, it only (in my system) made things worse. I went down the Townshend isolation route, it's expensive but has helped massively, especially coupled with the bamboo shelving. I have just tried the excellent Stack Audio products, which I returned! The Stack gear added a little extra vim and vitality to my Jazz system which is not what I wanted, hence the return. I think the Stack stuff would have worked far better in my more forensially inclined Technics / ATC system. It's all fun and games! I wonder if the bamboo worked for you because you have Townshend in between them and the components?
The sound difference in my system with the component moved just 1" is easily noticeable, I would imagine, by any of us. It's not a subtle change. But 1" hardly seems enough to make any difference to speakers a meter away. As far as space between components I do find that it's always helpful to have at least 1" between components and often go for 2-4" between.
I've found sorbothane footers' effects, positive or negative, to be highly dependent on their hardness and where they are placed under the case:
Most devices are actually a combination of component isolation and casework damping , which I rarely see acknowledged or taken into account. And a lot of devices are way too firm to do any isolation.
Yet, I can easily see Townshend, Stack Auva, Gaia, and Black Ravioli too doing much better than sorbothane. I found Herbies to be too hard for actual isolation, more case tuning devices.
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Post by rexton on Nov 1, 2024 19:03:47 GMT
I honestly don't know why things worked as they did, they just did! Shore density will have an impact on the damping effect but again I think it's more experimentation than science. I've long since stopped reading all the bullshit and pseudoscience, I'm afraid it's a test in the listening room and if it works, it works, else see yeah and let's try something else. I think you make some valid points especially casework damping and a choosen method of isolation, that's pretty much what I've subscribed to.
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