Bought some new racks for the gear

Ron-P

Guess I'd better get some serious isolation pads going because this redesigned sub is amazing. Running AVIA I had no roll of at 20Hz, as far as AVIA would go.

TECHNOKID

madmax wrote: »

Its not about hearing the rattle, its about what the constant vibration at the resonant freqency does. Being able to hear it just means its really bad. It fatiges parts, especially if they are vibrating against something or worse, soldered to something.

Ron, nobody is kidding you here. Why do you think commercial, proffessional or permanent systems are installed on rack mounts? The 2 main reasons are heat dissipation and minimum contact of the gear with the rack. Rack mounted is usually the best solution but has higher cost and not always the best look thus the use of nice/fancy/efficient home type racks in combination with isolation pads etc. to minimise vibration, this is part of room treathment.

I had my own repair shop for a few years and madmax is totally right about parts fatigue. I could say a good 50% of shop repairs are cold solder and poor air flow which are mainly caused by vibrations and poor gear air flow spacing... and potentially 50% of remainding 50% (thus 25%) would be part replacement which would be caused by the above (cold solder thus peaks to the parts, overheating of the gear) and could be prevented since it is premature wear and tear. The remainder of the repairs 50% remaining from the 50% (THUS 25%) would be divided between poor management of the gear and actual terminated life span of the parts. The question you should ask your self: "Why someone's gear last 30 years +/- , while someone else's gear last maybe 10 years +/- ?". The answer is simple: "How does one care and manipulate their gear." Granted the above figures I am providing you are not coming from a study but ratter from my personal experience in repairs for over 25 years and I wouldn't be too surprise that if there were a study on such, my figures wouldn't be too far from the truth.


For example, look at rack stands that are specifically made for electronics IE: the below VTI stand is spiked between each shelves and as many previously mentioned, shelves are in MDF in order to isolate the gear from the metal frames.

http://www.racksandstands.com/asp/show_image.asp?pr=0&sku=VI1001&imgs=http%3A%2F%2Fcommon3.csnimages.com%2Flf%2F1%2Fhash%2F96%2F338322%2F1%2FBL%2BSeries%2B4-Shelf%2BAudio%2BRack.jpg

If you look in just about any sound management ressources, they'll mention your furnitures, the type of material they are builted with. ALL metal vibrates, woods NOT as much, some woods LESS than others, MDF & HDF are known to be best so far and affordable. IE: you never or rarely see speakers builted out of metal, right? Metal vibrates, affects the audio O/P and the mechanical and electronic construction of your gear. Plastic or composite is somewhat better than metal for that purpose however, wood remains the ideal medium. You will usually spike your speaker towers as recommended by the manufacturer, many will often place mat under their subwoofer to isolate its vibration to the floor as often recommended by the manufacturer. So should we think of isolating our gear from vibration.

Your rack is a great idea for saving some $$$ however, you should consider having some MDF shelf over each metal shelves. The best location for those racks would also be out of your room since the room audio waves would vibrate all those shelves meshing which is bad for your room audio quality and furthermore bad for your equipment.

Cheers!
TK

Sherardp

I would really look into VTI racks OP, just some food for thought. And leave the currect racks up to gear adrift, like for tools or something bro. VTIs are inexpensive and they look awesome when setup. Nuff said on my behalf, enjoy the tunes.

bsoko2

A couple of weeks ago, studio tech had a sale on their P6 compontent rack for 149 with free shipping. I jumped on that due to it being 299 regularly. Keep checking their site for deals:http://www.studiotech.com/products/component_racks/performance_series_ps-6/index.html.

Bill

TECHNOKID

bsoko2 wrote: »

A couple of weeks ago, studio tech had a sale on their P6 compontent rack for 149 with free shipping. I jumped on that due to it being 299 regularly. Keep checking their site for deals:http://www.studiotech.com/products/component_racks/performance_series_ps-6/index.html.

Bill

Looks like they too use spikes as an isolation medium. Good overall features and lifetime warranty!

Features include:

•Classic, rigid frame design.
•High gauge steel framework provides maximum support for equipment.
•Metal frame is finished with durable, textured powder coat paint.
•Shelves are made from high-grade medium density fiberboard.•Includes brass carpet spikes and vinyl glide feet for tile or hardwood floors.•Optional Casters and High Mass Steel Cone feet.
•Includes unique and easy to use cable management system.
•Assembles in minutes. No tools required.
•Lifetime Limited Warranty.

Ron-P

TECHNOKID wrote: »

Ron, nobody is kidding you here. Why do you think commercial, proffessional or permanent systems are installed on rack mounts? The 2 main reasons are heat dissipation and minimum contact of the gear with the rack.

Well then, these racks should be near perfect. Excellent air flow due to the fact they are wire and second, because they are wire, the gear is coming into very little contact with the racks.

Each wire is nearly 1" apart leaving the foot of the component to touch one, maybe two wires which are less then 1/16 of an inch in diameter. These, according to your post should be better then mdf racks where the entire foot of the component is coming into contact with the shelf.

These racks provide some of the best air flow and have minimum contact with the gear. I also plan to replace the threaded feet with some threaded spikes and put all the gear on vibra-pods. I think with all the being said, my gear is pretty isolated.

ben62670

The reason why MDF works so well is that it is not one material. If you made speakers out of real wood you would still have problems with resonance. The resins used to make MDF just happen to eat up vibrations very well. That is why you see nearly all nice speakers made with it. The steel in the racks absorbs vibrations and amplifies them at the resonating frequency. Not having a large contact area can be worse than having a small contact area. Even if there is no contact with the gear the wires are still putting off vibrations. I was kidding about using a bakers rack for my amps. The cooling effect would be nice, but again it can be detrimental to your gear whether you can hear it or not.

I wish I had a video of our non formal resonating frequency finding missing. If I do it again I'll video tape it.

cfrizz

bsoko2 wrote: »

A couple of weeks ago, studio tech had a sale on their P6 compontent rack for 149 with free shipping. I jumped on that due to it being 299 regularly. Keep checking their site for deals:http://www.studiotech.com/products/component_racks/performance_series_ps-6/index.html.Bill

That's a great deal. At some point I need to replace my rack. I would like six shelves as well. I wish I could build one like yours Ron, but I don't think they come in that size. If they do, please point me in the right direction.

brettw22

Better thread title: I bought my wife a new rack

(no offense to the ladies.......i'm just not quite awake enough yet to have my filter applied.....)

madmax

Ron-P wrote: »

Well then, these racks should be near perfect. Excellent air flow due to the fact they are wire and second, because they are wire, the gear is coming into very little contact with the racks.

Each wire is nearly 1" apart leaving the foot of the component to touch one, maybe two wires which are less then 1/16 of an inch in diameter. These, according to your post should be better then mdf racks where the entire foot of the component is coming into contact with the shelf.

These racks provide some of the best air flow and have minimum contact with the gear. I also plan to replace the threaded feet with some threaded spikes and put all the gear on vibra-pods. I think with all the being said, my gear is pretty isolated.

I think Ron is set on these racks.
madmax

Ron-P

Yes sir Max, they are keepers. I really like the way they look and there's no way I'm spending $350 or so on a rack like in the post up above. Way overpriced...it's just a rack. You could build that for so much less.

Well, this turned out to be a good, informative thread. I learned quite a bit about racks and vibrations, thanks for sharing the info guys.

At this point I plan to mod these a bit to help with vibrations. Although while watching some clips of Master and Commander last night testing the newly redesigned sub, the gear was nearly vibration free (from what I could feel).

I plan to replace the supplied feet with spikes. The legs are threaded so it will be very easy and inexpensive to do. Find the right size all-thread rod and grind down the ends into spikes. Second is to get the gear on isolation pads that are not on Vibrapods. And lastly, maybe even cut some MDF boards and set those on the shelf's and place the gear on top of the MDF. Doing those mods should pretty much eliminate the remaining vibrations fairly well.

madmax

I'll agree to one point, a $350 rack isn't nearly good enough.

You might want to ground the racks for safety.

madmax

TECHNOKID

madmax wrote: »

I think Ron is set on these racks.
madmax

I guess you are right, if he is happy that is the main thing.

And lastly, maybe even cut some MDF boards and set those on the shelf's and place the gear on top of the MDF.

Indeed it would as it would help pevent or slow all of the small wire meshing to vibrate. Have you ever heard of a tuning fork? A tuning fork is some small pieces of metal that are tuned to make it vibrate at specific frequencies and I believe it was madmax that tried to explain this to you. This is my last word on this as you really seem to be happy with those racks therefore, enjoy them

Cheers!
TK

TECHNOKID

madmax wrote: »

Its not about hearing the rattle, its about what the constant vibration at the resonant freqency does. Being able to hear it just means its really bad. It fatiges parts, especially if they are vibrating against something or worse, soldered to something.

Yes indeed it was!

A steel instrument consisting of two prongs and a handle which, when struck, emits a tone of fixed pitch. Because of their simple mechanical structure, purity of tone, and constant frequency, tuning forks are widely used as standards of frequency in musical acoustics. In its electrically driven form, a tuning fork serves to control electric circuits by producing frequency standards of high accuracy and stability. A tuning fork is essentially a transverse vibrator (see illustration). See also Vibration.


A tuning fork vibrating at its fundamental frequency.

http://www.answers.com/topic/tuning-fork

In this case (meshed racks), you are actually creating something that is unwanted

Cheers!
TK