Massif Audio Design racks incoming, and......

[ssfas]

Has anyone compared solid wood racks to all-metal racks (such as those from Sound Anchors)? Which one sounds better?

I have a rack made of ultra-rigid tubular steel (3mm thick, 25mm square), 10mm of slate on top. All welded, no moving parts except height-adjustable feet. It's as solid as a rock. Better than anything wooden. A couple of critical components are on Stack Auva feet.

As hifi for me should be heard and not seen. For many years I kept it in a cupboard. Alas this system needs ventilation and I had to replace a cupboard unit with this open frame. Besides being incredibly effective, it's cheap. Including getting the shelves veneered, the total cost was under $1,500.

I've used the same cabinetmaker for 30 years, he's almost part of the family, he's done most of our house, including my music room. He does lots of things with hand carved features, marquetry and sculptures. If I had any hifi I actually wanted to look at, which hasn't happened yet, with the possible exception of my turntable, it would probably involve little bronze men. He tries not to repeat things, I'd twist his arm somehow.

 

[marty]

@marty tweaked my interest a few weeks ago when he shared some experiments he did. There is no other way other than doing some preliminary experiments and hopefully it works as you think it will...

I have no idea what the hell you are doing my friend, but I know 3 things:
1) Stethoscopes are a useful tool for more than just listening to the heart and lungs! Auscultation of turntables and shelving platforms are not taught in medical school, but don't dismiss the humble stethoscope for that reason.
2) You just might be crazier than I am.
3) Your last sentence is the most important- just do the damn experiment and follow where it takes you!!

 

[John T]

I have no idea what the hell you are doing my friend, but I know 3 things:
1) Stethoscopes are a useful tool for more than just listening to the heart and lungs! Auscultation of turntables and shelving platforms are not taught in medical school, but don't dismiss the humble stethoscope for that reason.
2) You just might be crazier than I am.
3) Your last sentence is the most important- just do the damn experiment and follow where it takes you!!

You lit the damn fuse! Then set me on a course in unchartered waters! I forgot to tell you, what do you say to the FedX driver when he pulls in and see's some dude with a stethoscope listening to wood!

I neglected to add its hard to go wrong with @T Boost Massif Audio Design. Beautifully constructed/crafted, and aesthetically very pleasing...

 

[Salectric]

I am still very happy with my Massif rack and amp stands. They look great and sound even better. The Carbide Base footers are an important factor, not just the solid wood construction.

 

[ssfas]

I am still very happy with my Massif rack and amp stands. They look great and sound even better. The Carbide Base footers are an important factor, not just the solid wood construction.

Using solid woods is a complete pain in the butt. About 30 years ago I laid a floor with oak that we bought in France and had machined, as it continued to shrink over the next 20 years. I still have it in the music room and it’s still shrinking. About 20 years ago I laid about 50 m² of solid walnut, which is okay, but still shrunk a bit. The rear wall of my music room is a set of four bifold cherry doors with glass panels, in total about 9 feet high by 11 feet across. My cabinet maker made them oversize and they only shut after two years after they’d shrunk down.

With essentially flat surfaces it’s far better to use veneer on top of dense board or block, you aren’t going to get any of these shrinkage or cracking issues and you will have a far wider range of finishes available. It is also vastly cheaper unless, like me, you get your turntable plinth lacquered instead of varnished, which is about 20 coats taking about five weeks of spraying and polishing.

Solid woods don’t have any magical acoustic properties. The BBC did experiments in the 1970s in relation to the speaker cabinets and found it didn’t make much difference whether they used a solid wood or veneered board.

Of course, if you’re gonna do something interesting, then by all means use solid wood. like this table, for example, which my chap did.


I have nothing against natural wood, to the contrary, we collect various pieces, and some of the beauty of natural wood is how it cracks. this one is in front of me at the moment. It cost quite a lot more than my hi-fi rack. I have another piece by the same woodworker in my music room.

 

[howiebrou]

Has anyone compared solid wood racks to all-metal racks (such as those from Sound Anchors)? Which one sounds better?

How about ones with a mix of wood and metal like SRA?

 

[PeterA]

How about ones with a mix of wood and metal like SRA?

I combine stainless steel plates for mass with mahogany for structure and aesthetics. I can fine tune the plates and the top shelf of the main rack is isolated for the turntable. The combination sounds good, but it is extremely heavy.

 

[John T]

I combine stainless steel plates for mass with mahogany for struction and aesthetics. I can fine tune the plates and the top shelf of the main rack is isolated for the turntable. The combination sounds good, but it is extremely heavy.

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Beautiful! That looks like 1" SS, wow. I bet you got some weight there! A testament to Massif! Very interesting, if I were to use metal as a stand alone platform I would also use SS. Or concrete. However, when we tried SS as a center core between MDF and Wood we preferred Aluminum as the core. Naturally a lot lighter. Mephisto on 4" concrete, the method with the concrete is the same as making countertops...

 

[Mike Lavigne]

How about ones with a mix of wood and metal like SRA?

my Massif racks use 2 vastly different tone woods for shelves and legs like maple and bubinga; it's a simple and more attractive variation on constrained layer damping. Bubinga happens to be exactly twice as hard as rock maple. And has a totally different density and strength profile . The 2 woods in concert will work in that way. and then the Nordost Sort Fut footers for the rack/floor interface with a concrete floor.

and then under each gear chassis i use the Daiza's plus the RevOpods for my digital. and in other spots use the Taiko Tana/Herzan.

so lots of different layers of materials to eliminate resonance yet not overly damp.

 

[Salectric]

Has anyone compared solid wood racks to all-metal racks (such as those from Sound Anchors)? Which one sounds better?

You just can’t generalize conclusions about metal vs wood. All racks affect the sound, and metal racks don’t all sound the same and neither do all wood racks. However, as it happens I have compared my Sound Anchors rack with a number of wood racks, and I am happy to share my findings. I bought my Sound Anchors rack primarily as a dedicated turntable stand but I included two shelves underneath for electronics such as a phono preamp. The Sound Anchors is totally solid and rigid and, of all the places I’ve tried my turntable, it sounds best with a solid wood platform on top of the Sound Anchors steel rack. Unfortunately that’s not the case with electronics. Every preamp, DAC and FM tuner that I’ve tried on the SA rack sounds cold and edgy. That’s even true with the turntable’s power supply. So I use the SA rack with just the turntable on top, nothing on the shelves below.

I have probably used 6 or 7 different wood racks or stands for my electronics, mostly homemade but two commercial products—-a Box Furniture rack and the Massif rack. All of the wood racks sound quite different from each other but none of them has the cold, edgy sound of the steel stand. The Box uses solid wood legs and plywood shelves; the Massif has solid wood shelves as well as legs. The Box and Massif both sound good but I prefer the Massif.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i think another factor for sure is the floor. when you have a suspended wood floor then there is a mass loading factor which could be more at play to dampen the floor action. i say could be because you just cannot generalize just by looking. some wood floors have supports and shims underneath to remove the sag (which i did to good result in my previous home with my 600 pound Rockport Sirius III turntable). and every building is different.

so in Peter's case those steel plates might be doing much more than if he had a concrete floor. those steel plates are working with the wood rack to attain a result. obviously the AS-2000 is also doing damping of the floor. i cannot recall Peter's very beautiful and vintage wood floor story.

it's all at play and the floor is always a consideration. thick steel plates + a concrete floor might = different result (too dead). have to try it and listen. not plug and play.

 

[John T]

i think another factor for sure is the floor. when you have a suspended wood floor then there is a mass loading factor which could be more at play to dampen the floor action. i say could be because you just cannot generalize just by looking. some wood floors have supports and shims underneath to remove the sag (which i did to good result in my previous home with my 600 pound Rockport Sirius III turntable). and every building is different.

so in Peter's case those steel plates might be doing much more than if he had a concrete floor. those steel plates are working with the wood rack to attain a result. obviously the AS-2000 is also doing damping of the floor. i cannot recall Peter's very beautiful and vintage wood floor story.

it's all at play and the floor is always a consideration. thick steel plates + a concrete floor might = different result (too dead). have to try it and listen. not plug and play.

Absolutely the floor plays a huge role. I suspend my main shelf of of the log wall. The wall sits on the plate of the foundation and has limited contact with the flooring system. Even 2 X12, 16 on center floor joists with bracing, concrete columns, huge center girder, you get movement. That can be good or bad. Like you said Mike you can't just generalize. Open space may be more forgiving than a smaller space. I know guys who made wooden plates for under the floor joists, (positioned accordingly) and used Lally columns in crawl spaces. Not because they had issues, only to see if they could gain further improvement. Its truly a fascinating topic...

 

[PeterA]

Beautiful! That looks like 1" SS, wow. I bet you got some weight there! A testament to Massif! Very interesting, if I were to use metal as a stand alone platform I would also use SS. Or concrete. However, when we tried SS as a center core between MDF and Wood we preferred Aluminum as the core. Naturally a lot lighter. Mephisto on 4" concrete, the method with the concrete is the same as making countertops...

Thank you, John. Most of the plates are 1 inch thick. The ones under the turntable are 2 inches thick. Each plate took 40 hours to polish. Very intensive labor, but I love the end result. Stainless steel by itself in these dimensions rings, so it needs to be damped. This is where the fine-tuning comes in. What I like about the steel plates is that it allows energy and life to come through with the music.

 

[Tangram]

i think another factor for sure is the floor. when you have a suspended wood floor then there is a mass loading factor which could be more at play to dampen the floor action. i say could be because you just cannot generalize just by looking. some wood floors have supports and shims underneath to remove the sag (which i did to good result in my previous home with my 600 pound Rockport Sirius III turntable). and every building is different.

so in Peter's case those steel plates might be doing much more than if he had a concrete floor. those steel plates are working with the wood rack to attain a result. obviously the AS-2000 is also doing damping of the floor. i cannot recall Peter's very beautiful and vintage wood floor story.

it's all at play and the floor is always a consideration. thick steel plates + a concrete floor might = different result (too dead). have to try it and listen. not plug and play.

Having my listening room in the basement isn't my first choice, as it is not a very social space. But a distinct benefit of being a cave dweller is having my Massif Rack (with chunky spikes) sitting directly on a bare concrete floor in the equipment room adjacent my listening room. I can't really say if it is any better or worse than being on a suspended floor, but the sound I get from my Kuzma (which sits on an almost 2" thick Massif hardwood slab sitting on IsoAcoustics Orbea footers) is "rock solid".

 

[Salectric]

……..my Massif Rack (with chunky spikes) sitting directly on a bare concrete floor…..

If you are you using spikes on the Massif rack, you will probably get a nice improvement in sound quality by replacing the spikes with Carbide Base footers. Talk to Trevor about this. He is now the Carbide Base distributor for Canada. They made a surprising difference with my Massif rack and amp stands which are also on a concrete floor.

 

[mitch2+]

The Sound Anchors stands are simply a rigid frame that offer a wide variety of options for equipment support. You don't have to set the equipment directly on the steel shelves and you don't have to use their solid steel spikes. You can utilize any of a variety of footers on the equipment. You can support your equipment on wood or constrained layer platforms placed on the SA shelves, you can support those platforms on elastomers attached to the steel SA supports, and you can support the entire rack on a variety of footers including elastomers and other viscoelastic options. All of these options affect how things sound. I have never noticed my electronics sounding cold and edgy on my Sound Anchors rack or amp stands. However, my front end digital gear resides in a heavily reinforced wood rack and is supported on constrained layer platforms (Zoethecus Z-slabs) and elastomeric footers.

 

[Salectric]

The Sound Anchors stands are simply a rigid frame that offer a wide variety of options for equipment support. You don't have to set the equipment directly on the steel shelves and you don't have to use their solid steel spikes. You can utilize any of a variety of footers on the equipment. You can support your equipment on wood or constrained layer platforms placed on the SA shelves, you can support those platforms on elastomers attached to the steel SA supports, and you can support the entire rack on a variety of footers including elastomers and other viscoelastic options. All of these options affect how things sound. I have never noticed my electronics sounding cold and edgy on my Sound Anchors rack or amp stands. However, my front end digital gear resides in a heavily reinforced wood rack and is supported on constrained layer platforms (Zoethecus Z-slabs) and elastomeric footers.

Quite true about the different options for placement of gear on the Sound Anchors stand. I tried all sorts of wood and composite platforms and various footers before giving up. Evidently you found a combination that works for you and that’s all good.

 

[mitch2+]

Quite true about the different options for placement of gear on the Sound Anchors stand. I tried all sorts of wood and composite platforms and various footers before giving up. Evidently you found a combination that works for you and that’s all good.

Maybe I just never noticed the issue. My digital front end (streamer, DACs, peripherals) and my monoblocks are supported on wood racks/shelves, so it is only my volume control and unity-gain buffer and their outboard power supplies that are supported on the Sound Anchors stand, and my speakers are also supported on Sound Anchors stands. The VC and buffer that are on the Sound Anchors rack have large 2-inch oak platforms under them.

 

[T Boost]

I’m just going to place this here.

Massif Upgrade

A few years ago I was over at Jeffery Catalano’s home in NYC to see what kind of new toys he was playing with. With his help, I had purchased what has been my “endgame” turntable/phono pre setup (see my system description in my profile/signature) earlier that year and while I was there, I asked...

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