Salamander Synergy Rack Experiences?

Bought the full rack setup and returned it the next day. It is beautiful to look at but when you actually insert the wood panels to the left, right and rear, it began to scuff the panels as you slide it into the rails.

Daniel, what did you end up with and how do you like it?

Quadraspire makes similar, I feel slightly better looking racks than the Salamander, I don't have them yet though...

I purchased a synergy 30 about 2 weeks ago after looking around for quite awhile. Zeothecus was out of the question for me so I felt these were the next best looking options out there. With the CD Player on the top shelf, which is not, as you know, isolated, and my tube pre and tube amp on isolated shelves, the intial sound was somewhat muddy. Also I am not using the unit with spikes to the floor so this intial starting point was as un-"audiophile" as you could get. With a little bit of tweaking - the sound has greatly improved. Given the incredible wealth of info on this site on footers and shelving material there is no doubt in my mind you'll be able to tailor the sound to your liking for not much money. (See the numerous posts involving Redkiwi.) I'll probably play around with things a little more, but for now i'm very happy.

Thanks Prfont. I have a Sonic Frontiers T3 toploading transport and VPI Aries TT. Unfortunately, this means that the top shelf is probably MOST critical for my system. Did you move your CD player to the inner shelves? What tweaks have you done that have made improvements.

The most noticeable improvement came from putting an extra one of the black inner MDF shelves I had between the CDP and the top shelf. I placed this on 3 hard sorbothane pucks(not the squishy ones), there are no footers currently b/t the CDP the MDF. Whenever I get the time I may do some juggling with the CDP "inside", and look into shelf materials. From what I've read, MDF is really not the ideal material. The point being, this has been a half-baked and very premilinary starting point - but the sound is very liveable. Tone is good, soundstage is good, and transparency is improving. I've heard moderately tweaked out set-ups(Solidsteel,BDR, symposium,) that were definetly better and I've heard overly-complicated/expensive set-ups where the results were way too "hifi"(read:sterile) for my tastes. I won't comment on whether this will work with your table as that's a different ballgame. Again, If you search the "isolation/footers" threads I think you'll see there are some real specialists(far more than me) in this area. While I'm at, i'll also say that getting the shelves level is a pain is the ass, but doable.

I have a fairly hi-fi all Krell HT setup and I love these racks. I use a seismic sink shelf on the top of the unit for dvd playback. I am not too much into tweaks but, this is a rack, plain and simple. I have 10 components so, go find me something that is audiophile tweaker ready that can hold them all. I couldn't so function came first, "sound" friendly furniture is not my strong point. I suggest you use the rack as it is intended and tweak around it with sorbathane, rollerblocks, symposium etc.. until you find the twek that wqorks best for your system. Or just leave it alone.

You can fill the aluminum supports if you want, but that should only be done if your shelves won't need moving soon. My Synergy rack works fine with the chrome feet. One of the shelves comes with a base for extra support. I put my amp on it. I bought another one for my cd player. No problems. I switched from a fairly expensive ($750) rack which was more style than substance and now have an improved soundstage with pinpoint imaging. The Synergy rack did help some, but good cable choices made all the real difference. Sure looks good next to my B & W 805's though (matching cherry wood). Has anyone tried filling the supports with shot or sand yet?

I own the Salamander rack for a secondary system and the Zoethecus in my main system. I'm happy with my Salamander rack and would recommend it. It is on chrome feet but I do use both isolation and absorbtion tweaks on the CD transport and Jolida. I'm sure if you spent a ton of time you could get just the right synergy between your specific rig and a particular rack but I don't know if it would be worth it.

I find my Salamander Synergy double extension rack to be exceptional well designed and engineered. It is sturdy, stable and nothing moves. The shelves are very strong and do not flex or vibrate at all. There is a a wide assortment of accessoriesto enhance the cosmetic appearance to suit most any interior needs.The price is reasonable for the high quality and extended longevity delivered by Salamander.