Shelf Material

Give that man a cigar! :^) Neuance has been described as a "Box filled with custard". This, of course, is not perfectly accurate as I prefer firm meringues instead. ;^) Best, Ken

At the risk of asking a really dumb question........I am not familiar with Corian. How does it compare to Formica (over MDF) as used here in the USA for counter tops etc? Thanks. Craig

Corian is available, mainly by catalogue and online in what dupont calls "hobbyist sizes". Dupont actually licenses fabricators, going to their shops and determining if they have the expertise to fabricate and install. It is sold through home centers only on an installed basis. Check the back of Fine woodworking, etc. for ads. As it is an acrylic based material in 1/2" thick sheets, there is no way it would span 24" with a load of 30lbs or more and not sag or even break. As a countertop it is bonded to 3/4 particle board. When the combination of corian and particle board is extended more than 10" beyond a cabinet side, for example as a breakfast bar, the fabricator is required to furnish supports at a minimum of 24" spacing. You may be able to purchase suitable sized pieces from a fabricator, just as you would buy small pieces of granite or marble, but keep in mind the necessity for the use of a substrate, the particle board. Working corian requires carbide tipped tooling for the router of at least 2 1/2 h.p. and the tablesaw, at least 5 h.p. The material safety data sheets stress the use of dust masks and dust control in confined (indoors) spaces; it makes a hell of a mess, extremely fine dust. At one time a dealer friend of mine was using corian as a replacement deck for the vpi hw-19 table with the encouragement of harry weisfeld, i.e., harry was selling him parts. The sound was awesome.

My understanding is that Corian is made of very dense acrylic polymer. It is a good deal heavier, harder and more rigid than perspex, and comes standard in 12mm thick sheets. I am spanning about 19 inches supporting a 40 lb CD Transport and there is NO sign of any bend in it whatsover - and this includes when I support the front of the Transport with a centrally located footer. I have played some more and tried damping the Corian. This means using cones is now best for footers. But I am not sure the sound is significantly better, just different. I do not want to hype Corian, but I probably have. It is certainly not ideal, I am just having fun exploring its capabilities and I am getting some good results. I am beginning to feel it has some of the characteristics of sand boxes - terrific firmness, extension and articulation in the bass, but a slight deadness creeps into the mids and highs - a slight absence of presence - hence whay I am feeling the need to play around with ways to remove the mid-band resonance with damping, either direct or by way of footer. Corian is used as a CD puck in CEC belt-drive turntables, and also as part of the cabinets in some very expensive speaker systems (eg. Pipedreams). I would only rate it 7 out of 10 for a shelf material, but better than anything I have yet tried. I would rate the suspension idea as more like 9 out of 10 so far.

OK - I know I have gone around in circles on this, but can now conclude my findings until some of the stuff I have ordered from the US arrives - probably two weeks time. Suspension - much less resonance than conventional supports, but need to use a non-resonant wire for best effect, heavy guage nylon fishing line is good - forward images are more forward, plus greater depth and 3D images, bass region is very clean allowing mid-bass to propel the music, everything is a bit more present, and resolution is enhanced. Corian - is a bit like other heavy supports like marble, perspex etc in that its bass is very strong, but that there is resonance across a wide band (ie. not peaky) throughout the midband which sounds like grain - this can be reduced by using pads instead of spikes to support the Corian, but is even better if suspended on wire - this resonance effect can be almost totally eliminated by selecting the right footer. After much experimentation I have concluded that Vibrapods are the best with Corian. I found that the use of soft rubber footers was plain muddy. I found that using cones or hard rubber footers was OK but had a slightly dead quality (referred to by Recres above), shades of what I hear in spades with sand boxes. Last night I got a bucket of Vibrapods and painstakingly selected the best model and placement until I had optimised the sound. The result was fantastic, and much better than my first attempts with Vibrapods when I was using higher model numbers than I wound up using last night. There is NO vestige of the dead quality now and the music is highly involving - that bass just propels things along beautifully. I have performed some more experiments with the Corian in terms of its ability to support heavy equipment and find I cannot agree at all with Kitch29 above, but my Corian shelves span 19 inches, not 24 inches of course. My shelves have no trouble supporting my 130W valve monoblocks and do not sag at all. For very heavy amps I guess you could be better to bond two pieces together. I am not saying Corian is ideal, but the combination of suspension, Corian and careful selection of Vibrapods is giving a result that is light years ahead of conventional glass or MDF shelves. I expect that the Neuance shelves, Polycrystal shelves, and Maple butchers are capable of even better results - but right now my shelf obsession has abated somewhat. I will report on these other shelves in a few weeks time when they arrive.