Arrangement of components on rack

Thanks. I spy Nobsound. The good news, lots of low hanging fruit. Turntable on top of stack, top of the list. But, there is like one mini monitor, two big floor standers, and where do you listen? 

Ouch! I feel your pain. Well that is all spilt milk under the bridge. What matters now is you are setting a new course. Maybe this can be like a case study or something in how to execute a turnaround save? 

I notice you don't have a system page. Neither did I for a long time. Until one day someone asked, and I took some pictures. Even though I am old school enough, never was on FB even, the whole thing felt sort of neurotically narcissistic. But hey, turns out to be one of the best things I ever did. Even though it is my own system I look at it a lot differently now, literally looking at those pictures helps me understand what is going on. 

So think of it as self-help. Don't have to be National Geographic quality, or even Architectural Digest, any old snapshots will do. Just so they show all the components, where they are, how they are connected. It really helps to make sense of things. People can write and write, when one photo can tell the story. 

Also you get the comments on your system page, and it can become sort of a log of what progress you are making. That anyway is my idea for now. And now the system is warmed up, my steak is digesting, time to go spin some vinyl. Cheers!

manogolf, I have always recommend a minimalist setup built around an integrated amp, with speakers in the mid-90dB sensitivity range. There’s probably at least a hundred posts on system building, how to budget and plan, etc. Sounds like you just bought a lot of stuff, and now are looking to optimize or maybe even upgrade what you have?

@millercarbon Thanks for the great advice!

You're welcome. A lot of it was stuff I read once upon a time long long ago, and at the time thought probably it would make little to no difference. To tell the truth, some of this stuff I was doing for years without ever really being sure it was worth doing at all.    

The last few years though as my system has improved it has become increasingly obvious all these things really do matter. Not matter like theoretically, matter like it is easy to hear. Some of this stuff I was as shocked as anyone to find it really does make a difference.  

Even now though no one thing is night and day, make or break. None of it is for everyone, or every situation. It is more like having tools in the tool belt. The more you have and know how to use, the better prepared you are for when the situation arises.

A picture's worth a thousand words. Does that make it verbose?  
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

The better approach is an integrated amp to eliminate altogether a whole slew of interconnects, power cords, and Pods- or whatever vibration control devices you are using. Then locate the amp as central and close to speakers as possible to keep your speaker cable cost down. Then run your USB or whatever however far it needs to go. This will be a massive improvement, save a ton of space, and you will be very pleasantly surprised how much better the same amount of money will sound when allocated this way. 

I brought some of this up on the Facebook Tekton Owners Group. One guy, he took three pieces of scrap wood each about 3x5x1/4" and put them together in a triangle, like the way you would build a house of cards. He put a rubber band around the two upright sides, so it looked like an "A" with the speaker cable going through the hole at the top of the "A". Looked really dumb until you realized he just made a perfect cable elevator with rubber band isolation. The cable floated perfectly on the rubber band. Said it worked great.  

This is what I mean about being creative and making do with whatever is readily available and on hand. That way if it doesn’t work you are out nothing but a little time. But if it does work then you got something for nothing, and all you have to do now is figure out how to make it look better. Along the way you get to hear and learn what does what. Repeat this process a hundred times or so, you too will know your stuff. ;)

You mention dusting, but not cleaning contacts. That is the reason things sound better, simply unplugging and plugging in again swipes and cleans things a bit. Cleaning with any contact enhancer, or even plain alcohol, will be even better. Use something like NPS1260, take it to a whole new level.

The act of disconnecting and wiggling wires around upsets their equilibrium resulting in a sound that is etched and grainy. Depending on your ears and system this might combine with your meager cleaning to produce a feeling of improved detail. Clean and give the system a while to settle in, then you will hear improved detail.

Where components go, and where wires go, definitely does make a difference but this is a judgment call you just have to experiment to find what works with your particular components and setup. In general it is good to keep sensitive components like a turntable or phono stage away from great big transformers. All the wires, not just power cords and interconnects but all the wires, should be kept as far away from others as possible. When they cannot be kept away it is better they cross at 90 degrees than run parallel.

But what matters even more is vibration control. Biggest bang is if you can put all components on Townshend Pods. Except speakers, where Podiums are even better. As for wires, they should all be suspended and isolated from vibration. The improvement compared to wires in a tangle laying on the floor is not subtle! Do all these things and it will be like you got a whole new system.

Since you will be doing this right now, and since Townshend cost big bucks, here’s what you can do right now for next to nothing. Use Q-tips and 100% cotton cloths to clean all contacts with alcohol. Do not try to go inside the IEC or RCA but do clean all the outer exposed bits, including the little prongs inside the IEC receptacle on the component. Put everything back trying your best to keep big transformers away from sensitive components. Do not stack one component on top of another. Do your best to route all the wires so they are at least a couple inches apart from each other, as well as being a couple inches from other components. Electromagnetic field strength declines as an inverse square function. So if you move from 1" to 2" that doubling of distance reduces the field strength to 1 over 2 squared or 1/4. So big improvement from even a small change.

Now the big one, elevators. For this time anything will do. The cardboard tube inside paper towel or toilet paper rolls is great, or paper cups- anything that can be fashioned to hold cables up and apart. Bonus points if you are able to incorporate rubber bands into this. If the cable rests on a rubber band so it bounces then it is isolated and that is what you want.

If you have a turntable pay special attention to where the phono leads come out. Route this cable so it has a stress-relief bend near the arm and is suspended on rubber bands. Because if this cable touches anything, anything at all, vibrations will travel right up the cable to the tone arm. Same thing happens at the phono stage end, but not nearly so critical here for obvious reasons.   

A lot of this probably sounds pretty goofy. I got a PM a week ago from a guy saying he read one of my posts like this and it was a lot of work but he tried it expecting maybe a tiny little improvement but he was writing to say Holy Cow this is amazing! So, like Nike used to say, Just Do It!