Equipment Rack Location

[sbnx]

Glad to hear it worked out.

 

[tony22]

I finally got around to running my own test by placing the equipment between the speakers. I listened for a couple of weeks and had my audio bud come over to listen. I then put everything back where it was, behind my listening seat (that took a few minutes!). The differences were obvious to us both. With the equipment between the speakers there was a lessening of image specificity and of harmonic balance between the speakers (one sounded different from the other). Tried moving them around, but at the end of it all, my room just sounded better without the equipment between the speakers.

 

[Brucemck2]

I finally got around to running my own test by placing the equipment between the speakers. I listened for a couple of weeks and had my audio bud come over to listen. I then put everything back where it was, behind my listening seat (that took a few minutes!). The differences were obvious to us both. With the equipment between the speakers there was a lessening of image specificity and of harmonic balance between the speakers (one sounded different from the other). Tried moving them around, but at the end of it all, my room just sounded better without the equipment between the speakers.

Exactly my experience. (Similar step up when I then added diffusion and absorption to the front wall)

 

[tony22]

So now here’s my dilemma. As it seems my room is telling me not to put the equipment between the speakers, I need to decide exactly where to put them behind me.

My room is planned for some work, both construction and electrical. I’ll get to that in a bit. Right now I have two racks - my old (which is an interim until I replace it with something better) wooden rack where all my small signal and digital gear is, and a sand and shot loaded VPI rack - with a 22”x32”x3” maple platform on it, and on top of that two more platforms - for my Avenger and its BLDC motor and my phono pre.

Here‘s a rough (not exactly to scale) drawing of my room with the speakers on the right, the main listening seat, and the two racks on the left.



Note the inset entryway. Here’s what it could look like when I’m done with the construction.




A bit of a change - I’m going to go with a single entry door. That will get me more wall length in the bottom left corner. So I could stick with two racks, but that would mean I’d need about a 16’ run of XLR IC from the phono pre (lower left) to XP20 (upper left). I’m already going to have to deal with a long XLR IC from the ‘20 to the monos, so that’s a lot of expense that I could in theory avoid.

However, that upper left corner? There’s a window on the long wall right behind that rack position. If I stick with two racks, that source rack would be short enough to allow use of the window. If I go with one larger rack, that is a problem. Also, if I put everything on one rack there, I’d have to pull it so far away from the wall on the right to be able to get on either side of the TT that I may as well not even have a window there. There are some WAF considerations I have to accept.

So it would seem the “right” place is the lower left corner in a single rack solution. With one entry door that gives me plenty of space to center the TT for access on either side, and with no height restriction I’m good there as well. But that means the cables to the monos have to run right across the entry threshold! So, is there such a thing as a “thruway” threshold cover that will let me run cables underneath it? Is this my best solution? As a reminder, it’s already decided the equipment will not go between the speakers.

 

[sbnx]

Tony, is this room used solely for listening? Could you give some dimensions?

 

[PeterA]

If I had a room like yours I would seriously consider a three person sofa with a very low rack behind it. That would keep the equipment closer to the speakers but out of the way of any corners and walls or speakers. There is a WBF member with his configuration in Europe and I always thought it looked very elegant.

it all depends on how big the room is and what else it is used for.

 

[tony22]

@sbnx and @PeterA , the room is 14’ wide and 16’ long (9’ ceiling). PeterA, in fact the one and only listening chair will be replaced with what Crate & Barrel calls a “chair and a half”, actually a small love seat suitable for three (if there isn’t too much excess weight ). So given this, what’s your thought on the equipment location?

 

[PeterA]

I like the side wall to the left of your listening seat as you’re facing the speakers

 

[tony22]

Hmm. That would put the equipment rack at about the first reflection point on the left side. The rack would come out from the wall by 24” (room for the cables behind it). My left side E SE‘s outer edge is 26” from that sidewall. A possible problem?

Oh, and yes @sbnx this is only a listening room. Finally!

 

[Ron Resnick]

. . . But that means the cables to the monos have to run right across the entry threshold! So, is there such a thing as a “thruway” threshold cover that will let me run cables underneath it? Is this my best solution? As a reminder, it’s already decided the equipment will not go between the speakers.

I think I have your exact situation. (Although my issue is the threshold between the listening room and the equipment room, not the entry door to the listening room.)

1) My floor is concrete slab, and cutting out channels of concrete to conceal the cables under the carpet was prohibitively expensive. Plus I did not like the idea of cutting into the slab.

2) Increasing the length of the interconnects to go up the side wall, across the top of the entry opening, and then down the other side made already long interconnects (50 feet) way too much longer.

3) I decided simply to drop the interconnects onto the carpet and place a walnut saddle over the cables and between the side walls of the opening to the equipment room

 

[tony22]

I think I have your exact situation. (Although my issue is the threshold between the listening room and the equipment room, not the entry door to the listening room.)

1) My floor is concrete slab, and cutting out channels of concrete to conceal the cables under the carpet was prohibitively expensive. Plus I did not like the idea of cutting into the slab.

2) Increasing the length of the interconnects to go up the side wall, across the top of the entry opening, and then down the other side made already long interconnects (50 feet) way too much longer.

3) I decided simply to drop the interconnects onto the carpet and place a walnut saddle over the cables and between the side walls of the opening to the equipment room

Ron, do you have a picture of the solution? I’d love to se it!

 

[Ron Resnick]

I do not have a picture, because I have not yet been able to arrange to have a carpenter I found on Thumbtack visit the house.

But imagine a natural walnut top which is about 6 inches wide, and sloping sides. This is an early, bad drawing.












The walnut saddle or threshold thing I'm talking about will cover the gap between these two sidewalls and cover the cables running through a plastic cable raceway.

 

[tony22]

Got it. Thanks @Ron Resnick!

I’m partial to using the lower left corner, and this sort of way to deal with the threshold could make it work. It will keep the equipment off either of the sidewalls directly forward of the speakers, which I think would be better.

 

[Phillyb]

Really unless you have a very large room rack between the speakers or off to the side both cause issues, so pick your poison, on the side wall you impact the width of the room and cause the sound of your rack to influence due to the acoustics changing from say wall with the rack and its depth compared to the wall across not have the same rack to match. It's ugly but the best way is platforms low to the floor with gear on them sans rack.