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confused about equipment racks

I have been considering either a commercial or a DIY rack for my components.
The problem is do you isolate or couple?
I'm good with speaker spikes which couple the speaker to the house.
But what about a CD player? Isolate? Couple to something massive? Why do I read about Maple butcher block?
I've read about people who swear tennis balls are good. Others use hockey pucks or handball balls, whole or cut in half.
Steel shot, lead shot, cat litter and a host of 'custom' ($$$$) products to fill tubing.
All sorts of weird (to me) theories about resonance / damping / microphonics and related phenom.

Any opinions or stuff I can READ to try to straighten this out. Please, not too much advertiser hyperbole.

thanks in advance::
magfan

Showing 4 responses by magfan

magfan OP
1,583 posts
 
Just as I thought.
No consensus, plenty of choices from DIY to stratospheric.

Not as 'hot button' as say... cables / interconnects or powercords, but still lots of variability.

I will watch this thread for some more info, than go with my DIY plan, which apparently is quite unlike most of what I see.
magfan OP
1,583 posts
 
Thanks for inputs::
Seems I've got some reading to do.
So far, however, I 'lean' towards all thread for the uprights, nothing hollow since I'm not going to open THAT can of worms!

I may experiment with tubing later. My fill idea is to use expanding foam with steel shot. The foam will increase the rigidity of the tube while the steel adds mass.
magfan OP
1,583 posts
 
The Stereophile article is what? 9 pages, a bibliography and a couple sidebars.
Please give me till next week to finish that!!!
magfan OP
1,583 posts
 
Make that 11 pages!

It is obvious that racking is of paramount importance for TTs and tubes. The theory and practice is in place with audible effects demonstrated. Anyone who ever heard a TT 'howl' or dropped a tonearm and had a woofer eject itself out on the floor knows.
I still have trouble with SS amps a preamps, though. Nobody has yet explained how this works.
The upshot of the article is that it is 'obvious' and everyone knows it makes a difference....but no explanation was offered for some of the more.......esoteric....claims.
Any help here?
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