garmtz said:
Make a rack from plywood. Extemely good sonically and very cheap. Look for examples on the FAQ page of Lavardin:
http://www.lavardin.com
I still do not see where they sell racks, but found this:
http://www.lavardin.com/lavardin-faqE.html
What is the best rack to put the amplifier ?
The supporting board of audio components intends first to connect the component to a static and steady physical reference and second to be itself as neutral as possible.
Thus, puting component on resonating materials seems really a bad idea. Meanwhile, some materials at first non suspected for resonating do in fact much more than expected : glass, marble, even granitron and all minerals and metals have very poor self damping modulus and allow vibrations to stay in, be amplified and sent back to component.
The ultimate material is wood. Wood is made of oriented fibers that conduct energy and reduce it when energy has to pass from one fiber to an other. More, the plywood behave much better than solid wood because of its thin cross layers that allow a maximum spreading of the energy. Pressed wood and "medite" powder wood do not spread energy because they lost the fiber structure of real wood.
For these reasons, avoild any stand made completely or partially with :
- Minerals, glass, marble, granitron, ceramic : dry sound, much trebles, loss of nuances
- Carbon fiber, compounts, polyester, etc : like above
- Metal, steel, aluminium, .... : loss of nuances, agressive sound
- Pressed wood and medite : loss of detail and nuances
- Solid wood : not too bad in fact, but there is better for cheaper
- Springs, rubbers, magnets, air chamber : loss of trebles, detail and nuances
To our point of view, combinating minerals with metal with rubber and with every thing else passing by, is not a demonstration of know how...
Finally, if you have a solid, well build eavy and steady wood peace of furniture that could receive your equipment, it has much chances to sound far better than most of the Super High Tech Space or Formula One technology ( ! ) stands out there. And still, you can put a thick board of plywood under each component, for even better results.... CLICK to open a new window with full size picture (145kB)
These racks are based on our design recommendations. They are hand made. Because they weight much and because they are made of full solid materials and because they are difficult to finish, their industrial cost is higher than traditional hightech hifi stands using glass, metal tubes, carbon fiber, aluminimum ... They don't look impressive, there is no mad science behind, they just allow the best components to sound better.....