New rack in the house

[Stuart Polansky]

Beautiful work Paul!

[Pelliott321]

Thanks Stuart
I think the cherry supports are a bit horsy, but I wanted it to be solid

[Stuart Polansky]

Thanks Stuart
I think the cherry supports are a bit horsy, but I wanted it to be solid

You are welcome. You mentioned in the post regarding the Ethernet noise reducer that everything makes a difference, even the rack, to paraphrase. I know this to be true.

I was wondering if you heard any changes from your previous rack, what the previous rack was, and how you'd characterize the changes heard using the new rack?

Stuart

[Pelliott321]

My previous rack was the very cheap and crappy Pangea that was lent to me.
Since I knew the rack was terrible I did things to dampen and isolate the equipment.
I have discovered that the rubber feet under most equipment is the culprit. I use hard wood blocks underneath everything. And I dampen casework.I also add mass where I can.
So I am not going to say the new rack sounds better, because I still do all those other tweaks and I can not imagine much change

[tomp]

If you can, you might consider moving the equipment to another room where the airborne vibrations are much less. Except for my turntable and preamp, I have most of my equipment in the basement with speaker cables coming through the walls. The rack photo shows the three amps used in the tri-amp configuration, the speaker protection unit, the power supply for the preamp, the AC power monitor and soft start circuit, the crossovers, the wireless link for the IR remotes, the DEQX Express II, the 2 NUC music servers, the DAX88 whole house music system controller, and the UPS for the NUCs. Not shown is the recent addition of the noise filter between the NUC switch mode power supply and the NUC.

Tom

Attachments

[SoundMods]

The best rack -- is none at all. My house is my rack.

Attachments

[Don Diego]

If you can, you might consider moving the equipment to another room where the airborne vibrations are much less. Except for my turntable and preamp, I have most of my equipment in the basement with speaker cables coming through the walls. The rack photo shows the three amps used in the tri-amp configuration, the speaker protection unit, the power supply for the preamp, the AC power monitor and soft start circuit, the crossovers, the wireless link for the IR remotes, the DEQX Express II, the 2 NUC music servers, the DAX88 whole house music system controller, and the UPS for the NUCs. Not shown is the recent addition of the noise filter between the NUC switch mode power supply and the NUC.

Tom

Tom,

What are you using for speaker cables and what is the approximate length?

[tomp]

The cable I used in wall is from Belden and has a CL3 fire rating. If you are going to use in wall wire you are not supposed to use cable designed for in room use. It is 12 ga two conductor. The runs were about 15 feet to the left speaker and 20 feet to the right speaker. The wires were terminated to wall plates that had Speakon jacks. From there I used regular 12 gauge jacketed cable to the speakers that also have Speakon connectors. Here is a link to the in wall cable.

Tom

https://catalog.belden.com/techdata/EN/ ... chdata.pdf

[Don Diego]

Tom,

Thanks. I was going to try some 10 gauge speaker wire from Amazon like:

https://www.amazon.com/InstallGear-Gaug ... 825&sr=8-5

Since I am operating in the dark, I assumed I would have to test several long lengths (30-40 ft.) of different speaker wire before installing the best and affordable one in the walls, so any recommendations are welcome.

My current speaker cables are 12 ft. MIT Music Hose from the 1980's.

[tomp]

You can get the Belden in 10 gauge as well. It is CL2 rated. The difference is CL3 is rated to 300 volts and the CL2 to 150 volts. Either should work for you.

Tom

https://www.parts-express.com/Belden-5T ... 2-102-1190