Hanging Audio Rack?

I tried it and found some beneficial effects for resolution, but essentially whatever you use to suspend the rack ends up affecting the sound significantly - a bit like the twanging of a guitar string it depends on the stretchiness, rigidity and tension it is under as to the effect you get. By funneling resonances into one region you get significant smeering of that region. At a highish frequency you will get an irritating ringing effect, and at a lower frequency then PRAT suffers to some degree, in a very similar way as bladders cause the same effect.

I am not sure you guys are on the right path. If you sink concrete into the ground you are ensuring you get vibrations from one of the most likely sources, the planet we live on - it rumbles and grunts all the time, and transmits energy from passing vehicles. I still reckon that whatever you do you need to use a very light and rigid structure as the last step between your equipment and any supporting structure, with sharp point interfaces. I will not go further because I have already stated these opinions elsewhere and at length. If you will pardon me for a moment and hopefully accept I am not wishing to criticise, my general observation and generalisation is that Americans tend to veer towards over-building things and appear to inherently believe in using significant mass in anything they build. I could point to many American products as examples, and to the difference between reviews on either side of the Atlantic of such things as remote controls, where Americans want a remote machined from a solid piece of aluminium, and others want one that is light and easy to hold. I have often pondered that this seems to lead American audiophiles in the wrong direction a lot of the time when it comes to equipment support. Sorry for the gross generalisation - I happen to like your 60lb CD players with their half inch thick aluminium face plates.

Hi JD. I was being a bit provocative, albeit trying not to criticise "being American and all", by pointing out that I think "you all" (if I can use that term mate?) have a tad too much faith in throwing mass at an engineering problem. I do believe that light and rigid gets out of the way of the music better. I don't like much British equipment but their light and rigid approach seems to work. But I don't believe a floppy floor under the rack is good either. I really don't know the best way to bolster the floor as it is difficult to experiment. But I recall Caterham1700 (who knows much more about this than me) stating in another post that the biggest source of vibration energy muddying up the sound of our systems was in the ground under our houses. So direct coupling our gear to the ground does not sound right to me. If I am honest, I too have felt that a massive support must surely be less subject to vibration than something very light. But if you ponder on the physics theory you realise that the more massy support vibrates with the same energy as the light support, but holds on to that energy longer. There are times when I have been fooled into thinking a massy support sounds better, only to realise later that the music was robbed of energy and that there was smeering at low frequencies (which some like since it adds bass weight). The execution of light and rigid is also not easy - the principle problem being getting a shelf that is light and rigid, but also appropriately damped.

Sorry JD, been away on the boat again, and just saw your post. I like 3mm thick bright steel in an L-section and welded not bolted, from the playing around that I have done. I have tried aluminium and quite like it as a support for certain types of speakers - such as those British speakers that use Birch ply rather than MDF. But I was not so keen on it as an equipment rack. I have not tried either of graphite or brass, but would be doubtful of brass. Personally, I have stopped experimenting with supports because my only objective was to get something that worked very well, and that was not letting the rest of the system down - and I believe I have achieved that.