Shelf Material

Dekay, I tried using a very thin steel wire, coated in nylon, with a breaking strain of 90 lbs. I did this roughly first - as per my nylon experiment, and then used it to suspend a shelf properly. The results were fine except for the Transport, which needed a soft footer between it and the shelf or it sounded hideous - and I mean unlistenable. Finally I have found a use for the Vibrapods! I will have to experiment further, but I can tell you there really was a very significant difference between the nylon and the nylon coated steel. There is certainly an advantage in that the steel wire did not stretch at all, so I will try and make it work if I can. Garfield - I have found in the past that a welded steel rack is very important, and so employ one in both my systems. I find thick guage steel like 3mm is better than the flimsy store-bought racks. I also find that if you have a concrete floor (as in my beach house) then filling the stand with sand and lead shot (or something else) is a good thing, but if you have a floppy floor (as I have at home) then leaving the stand empty is preferable. So I have followed both of these in the present. It is in the area of shelves and footers that I don't feel I am getting it right. The best shelf I have come across is a low density board with a very hard veneer. It is very light and rigid and is fast and detailed, but sounds a bit crisp and crunchy - and it is not unlike how I remember the Torlyte shelf I owned many years ago. If using this board, I prefer using cones rather than soft footers, else the sound gets muddy. The other strategy I use is to put bladder products on the same board. This gets rid of the crisp and crunchy sound, but has a suck-out that tends to fall in the bass region somewhere, depending on the mass of the component and the bladder product used. Either way the suck-out tends to take away some of the propulsion that bass instruments provide to non-classical music, and therefore the rhythm suffers. There is also a slight impact on pace - probably due to the mass of the bladder products. Currently I use combinations of the board I refer to, Townshend Seismic Sinks and cones from Walker and BDR. I own soft footers but do not use any of them. Vantage audio, I have tried all kinds of ideas with MDF, including using a thick and hard lacquer, without success. One possibility is that our locally made MDF is just not the same as you use in the US. I once had a pommie rack and its MDF shelves were harder and denser than what is made in NZ. The Corian has finally arrived and I slipped a piece under each of my monoblocks - and I kind of liked it. It will take me a little longer to figure out what it does with the line level components given the gantry it is now all suspended from, but will report back soon. I have a feeling it will work better at the beach house sitting on a damped heavy rack, because this Corian stuff is very heavy indeed and has a ping a bit like marble and is more 'live' than perspex. Garfield - maybe it is the floppy floor at home that has caused me to suffer extreme structure borne vibration, and hence an obsession to deal with it.

Redkiwi, You mention that you once had a TATA Torlyte(assuming Russ's original design).Could you elaborate in more detail what you remember of it's sonic character for my own information?It might give me a better handle on the specific "sound" you are after.I have a small range of voicing capabilities with Neaunce that might possibly be applied. Best, Ken

lol.damn keys keep movin' late at nite. (RATA & Neuance) Ken

It is a long time ago that I used the Torlyte shelf Ken and it was under a Linn Turntable, which was just an ideal match. By memory the Torlyte was great with light components - say under 15 lbs, but sagged with anything heavier. Also spikes pierced its surface. It sounded fast and agile, if a little light in the bass. There was a slight thunk to the middle of the midrange and a slight crispness to the top end. Not nearly as bad as the crispy crunchy stuff of my current board. That Torlyte board I had would have trouble with my heavy Theta gear. I have been listening to the Corian and hear none of the dynamics or other problems that Recres reports above - this may be due to either the racks being different or the footers used. The Corian is not perfect - there is a slight recession of the mid-range, a slight flattening of images and a bit of grain. But it has wonderful bass and hardly any smearing of highs. Selection of the right footer or damping of the Corian may give decent results. But right now I would say tantalisingly close, but without some improvement in harmonics in the midrange, it would be hard for me to live with. A bit like marble or perspex, it has something going on in the mids that lets it down, but it is definitely better than either marble or perspex.

Playing around with the Corian yielded some good results. I have the Corian shelves sitting on up-pointed spikes, and don't have any plans to try any alternative means of support. But sitting the components directly on the Corian is not great, as previously indicated. Using BDR cones is better, but still not liveable. But using soft footers like Vibrapods gives very good results - something I have not experienced before - I almost wish I hadn't given away so many of the things in the past. Interestingly the Vibrapods were much better than using bladder products under the transport, but the bladder products were a bit better (very close call - perhaps it will change after a recount) under the other equipment. Currently the sound is pretty damn good, but with some small vestiges of whitening and grain in the midrange. The huge bonus is a very powerful, fast and articulate bass, regardless of which footer is used. This may be what I live with for a while until I get to try a Neuance shelf from Ken (Caterham1700 - is that the racing car engine Ken? I used to race Lotus Europas and a S2 Seven, some of which had Caterham engines.), and get a good freight deal on bringing some Maple butchers block into the country. I have also begun to design what I am deducing is an ideal rack for putting the "stereo on a string" concept into practise properly, but I expect that to take some weeks before I will have a result to report on. One of the advantages of living in NZ is the low cost of getting stuff like this made up.