by Michael

HRS SXR double-wide equipment rack: changing the height (or adding a shelf)

The happy owner of a new HRS SXR equipment rack wanted to change the height of the first shelf of the rack, from 10 inches to 12 inches, so that he could put his Lamm ML2.1 amps on the bottom shelf.

So we ordered up some new posts and went over to swap out the 10″‘ers for the 12″‘ers. I brought my camera.

A lot of photos but this whole procedure only took about a half hour, though I did forget to time it… so I could be off by a bit [i.e. don’t feel bad if it takes you longer, and if you do it faster? The heck with you :-)].

These racks are like audiophile erector sets: you can, by screwing and unscrewing posts, make them taller, wider (single-wide, double-wide, triple-wide and on and on), add more shelves [we’ve only seen them go as high as 4 shelves, but…they go down to 1-shelf which is amp-stand height. In fact single-wide 1-shelf tall SXR racks are exactly that: amp stands. Everything is interchangeable, and everything is so tightly spec’d, it just all works, no matter what your assortment of pieces parts is].


We turned the rack upside down and removed the screw on spikes.


Next we remove the nuts that hold on the bottom shelf. Here we are using the wrench that comes with the SXR to loosen a nut.


Once they are loosened, once anything is loosened, the precision construction allows us to just use our fingers and spin the nuts up off of the post [this is actually quite fun, just make sure you slow down when the nut nears the top of the post so it doesn’t go flying :-)].


Next remove the special polymer washers. The polymer used by these washers appear to be similar to the polymers used in the feet of the HRS platforms and in the Nimbus Couplers [soft hockey-puck-like things that go under a component chassis to control nastiness-causing brightness-causing blumpy-bass-causing vibrations – it consistently works really really well unlike everything else we and our friends and customers have tried]


Lifting the bottom shelf off the upside-down SXR rack


No, it is not all that heavy, per se, but the tolerances are tight enough that you have to lift it STRAIGHT up.


Put the bottom shelf to one side…


Next is to remove the posts that connect the bottom shelves to the, in this case, top shelf of this two-self rack.


This orange doohickey wrench thing is a really cool thing:

1. It allows up to loosen the posts which are screwed on tighter than finger tight
2. It will not mar the posts in any way
3. It allows is to tighten the posts exactly the right amount, acting as a torque wrench [if you try and tighten the post too much, it will start to slip… i.e. the coefficient of friction of the rubbery material of the wrench is just perfect to allow us to tighten the posts p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y].

These are bigger than the wrench that was shipped with the early racks, and, along with the bright orange color you would think we would not possibly misplace it. Yeah, you would think that [we did find it but it took a minute of looking – and I do NOT remember it being underneath my chair that I spent most of this process lounging around in ;-)]


I went around and loosened all the posts. Here Neli was being fancy and unscrewing 2 at once.


All the posts have been removed.


These bolts sticking out of the shelf are the same as the bolts on the end of the posts. Everything works with everything else because of these kinds of consistencies and extreme attention to detail.


Screw the new [taller in this case] posts on the upside-down top shelf.


Next put a tiny amount of oil on the threads of the new posts so that everything goes together silky smooth [seems to work :-)]


All the posts have been screwed on.


The bottom shelf has been alley-ooped back on the rack…


After putting the polymer washers back on, we put the nuts back on with Neli then tightening the nuts with the special wrench [again, a lot of manly spinning of the nuts onto the posts like they were tops on strings or something. Great manly-man fun :-)]


After we screwed the spikes on to the posts.


Ta da!

Because the floor was actually flat here, unlike our built-by-guys-on-drugs mid-70s home, the rack was perfectly level and there was no need to adjust the spiked feet to level the rack.

Took about a half hour I think, with most of the time spent by Phil and I unwrapping the new posts and re-wrapping the old posts in packing material sufficient [forgot to take photos! :-(] to guard against…well….

You know, after WWIII and we are all dust and after the radioactive wastes cool down, our 6-eyed descendents will have some kick-ass equipment racks to play around with.

in Featured HRS Posts / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / How-to / HRS / In The Field 1 comments
 by Michael

Lamm ML2 amps on bottom shelf of HRS SXR equipment rack

In order to form a more compact system one can do several things, many of which, however, lead to a compromised system sound.

Compact systems are still desirable for a number of reasons: ease of use [being able to walk right up to the source components], aesthetics [components strewn about can result in a geeky aura around your system ;-)], and they just help make more room for other things in the sometimes all-too-crowded listening room.


Lamm amps on a SXR rack

Here is something that improves the sound AND reduces the footprint of the system components: Putting ones amps on the equipment rack itself.

Here is an example where we put Lamm ML2.1 amps on the bottom shelf of a Harmonic Resolution Systems SXR rack. The bottom shelf is 12 inches tall [it was originally 10 inches, but we ordered replacement 12″ posts and swapped them out in about 1/2 hour(?) – photos forthcoming]


Lamm ML2.1 amplifiers on a SXR rack

The reason this kicks ass is that the HRS amps stands [which have no peers performance-wise based on our experience with the top contenders to-date and work as normal amp stands that sit out in the middle of the floor], are the EXACT same components as used for the bottom shelf of the SXR.

So essentially we are morphing, Transformers-style, an equipment rack into a combination first-class amp stand and equipment rack.

And, because the amps are somewhat better protected by the rack, and more out of the way of the speaker sound waves, this is probably an even better place for them than the traditional amp stand location [a less sturdy rack, however, might itself pick up vibrations from the sound, and then transfer these negative vibrations to the amp through the rack, something a stand-alone amp stand would not do].

And it looks cool too.

And it takes up a lot less space 🙂

in Featured HRS Posts / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / HRS / Lamm 0 comments
 by Michael

Audio Note CDT-5 transport and Fifth Element DAC observations

This $185K (2011 pricing), 3-box (CDT-Five Transport, Fifth Element DAC and its Fifth Force power supply) digital front end is somewhat difficult to describe and put into context except to say that it is so clearly better in so many. many ways than what has been previously available – it is hard to imagine even those audiophiles with preferences out there on the very fringe not easily, EASILY preferring this player over other players and most turntables.

But, OK. Some details…

It is expensive. OK. Got that out of the way. 🙂

It is also unquestionably significantly better than other playback, and by so a large a margin, that it is easy for one to fall into this “Why would I ever want to play anything else?” attitude and just stop thinking about what it is doing. You stop thinking in terms of “Oh, I wish we had an LP version of this CD” and start focusing on the music [and finding out where it has hidden itself in your collection if your collection is as unorganized as ours is :-)]

This playback is better in all the areas, if we are going to slice and dice it, that audiophiles might feel are important: if you are a detail head, this playback has so much more resolution that it restores your faith in science [more on this later]. If you are a harmonics-head, … oh boy. If you are a sound-stage head, or imaging-head, or dynamics head [later, later]… everybody who focuses on their must-have attributes – they will be ecstatic because they are all there to the max, glorious in all their splendiferousness.

[later] This may be hard to explain to people who are not familiar with what LPs do so well compared to CDs… but let’s try. CDs are supposed to have a larger dynamic range than LPs, but this seemed true only when one compared the softest possible note that these media can manage with their loudest possible note. But with ordinary notes, CDs have always sounded compressed. Dull. Not as lively as an LP. I have always thought ‘more dynamic range’ was essentially marketing BS. But… with the CDT-5/Fifth Element, the difference in dynamics between CD and good LP playback is so small, I do not know now which has more dynamics [it is close enough, I am not sure I care all that much to see which ‘wins by a nose’ here].


(the Fifth Element DAC. The metal appears slightly red because the nearby sunlight is reflecting off our bright red leather couch)

Let’s compare this stack to the Emm Labs XDS1. No we are not eating our young here, we love love love the XDS1, but I think it might help to compare the Audio Note to this very different sounding player that we have so much respect for here at Audio Federation. Although the XDS1 is only $25K (i.e. one EIGHTH the price) it is significantly better than all other solid-state players no matter their price and no matter your sonic preferences [Of course, the same can be said for their little $11,500 CDSA player as well, but let’s not go there…].

It might be instructive to revisit the ways in which the XDS1 excels as a CD/SACD player. First, it has an amazing ability to render the various threads in a musical score without jumbling them all up – not just great separation of notes, but of separation of sequences of notes, various harmonics and of the instruments themselves.

Second it has an extremely black black background. When a note decays you can hear it… hear it… still hearing it… until it ends or the recording engineer turns the volume down to zero. This also allow us to hear very very fine subtle notes and note characteristics. This might be considered another side to ‘high resolution’ – allowing us to actually hear the resolution that is there as opposed to artificially shining a light on the note attacks in various regions of the midrange as is so common amongst the competition.

Finally [skipping to the end here…] the XDS1 just sounds less digital and more like music. I always find this amazing, when comparing this player in shootouts. The other players do not ‘sound digital’ until one hears the XDS1… and then it is “OMG, how did I not hear this problem before?”

OK.

Back to Audio Note’s Fifth Element DAC and CDT-5 Transport.

This is a tube-based solution and therefore you might think it has its natural advantages and disadvantages.

BZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzt! Wrong.

Well. You are right but…

…just not as right as you think you are 😉

The Audio Note digital source really excels in the areas where solid-state usually reigns supreme [love that word], it has higher resolution, better separation and Alllllmost as black a background in our shootouts [and, uh, maybe even a blacker background than the XDS1 – note-to-self we really have to move around some power cords to make this a little more fair].

In other areas it has [very very close!] the midi-dynamics of a good LP playback, it has a tonal truth that I have not heard ANYWHERE else [enough to make you cry when you realize just how poor our usual playback harmonics have been in this regard for the last 100 years]…. You can just add lots of etc.s here – but these are just some of the characteristics, the punching-me-in-the-face differences, of this digital solution compared with all others.

So…

It is 8 times as expensive as the XDS1… and 99% of all other players [many of which really, really suck – why do people buy this stuff? ]…

Is it 8 times as good?

It is this question, me trying to figure out what “8 times as good” means, that has taken me all these many weeks to understand [I could have written the above review in the first 10 minutes or so of hearing the Fifth Element/CDT-5].

One could approach this in this manner: The Fifth Element/CDT-5 is to the XDS1 as the XDS1 is to the…. well, I am not all that familiar with $3125 CD players. One could look at a used Audio Aero Capitole [$4K? a steal] or used Emm Labs CDSA [$5500K how do other solid-state CD player manufacturers stay in business…] or …

So, yeah. 8 times better.

One could also approach this as in “Where is the best place for me to spend $200K in my system?”

🙂

Well, it depends on your system and budget… and really, if you play CDs and want your CDs to sound their best and you just want to KNOW they sound their best and you don’t want to waste your life not listening to the best [which pretty much DOES describe myself, when I have the funds… (oh, and Neli? *sheesh*, she is more gung ho than me half the time)]


(the CD is IsoMike’s release of the Fry Street Quartet playing Haydn)

For the first time since Audio Federation started I started bringing out old OLD CDs. Old Cocteau Twins. Old Patrick O’Hearn, Old Pink Floyd live concert bootlegs [you never seen 3 people more hypnotized by the music – ever have a hard time blinking? – as we listened to an old version of Echos. Magic? Drug-like? How about Warp Drive-like]. Old Jefferson Airplane…

Let’s use Surrealistic Pillow as an example. A gold CD from 1985 or so. Sounds horrible. Seriously, seriously mucked up, man. Especially the complicated electric guitar sections – bright, confused, over-saturated, noisy, you name it. On the CDT-5/Fifth Element you could hear exactly how bad it is – but it wasn’t painful and there wasn’t any problem with listening to the whole CD. This digital playback is really good at stitching together the stuff it finds on CDs and making notes and stringing them together into music. This makes it sound nothing like a ‘digital sound’ with good CDs and makes bad CDs also not sound like digital, but instead like just good, but very badly recorded, music.

Typically, bad CDs are very painful to listen to because their badness, often very aggressive digital-sounding notes, is too hard for most players to handle – and those that can handle it, it is because they just dull and smooth the notes down to round blobs… which of course they also do to all kinds of music played, good or bad. But the CDT-5/Fifth Element does not sacrifice resolution or detail – instead one might say it is the over abundance of resolution, and perhaps especially harmonic resolution, that allows us to have our cake and eat it too i..e very well recorded music has all the detail you will ever be able to hear and bad music is actually listenable and to some extent enjoyable [limited in this case by our knowledge that we should be able to find a better recording of this if we could just get our lazy butts off of the couch :-)]

OK. Kind of a longish review. I won’t bore people with the “equipment has to go back, hate to see it leave, wish we could afford it” end-of-review cliche.

Instead, I will mention a way we use to make us psychologically come to terms with this eventually having to go back to the continent [it is AN’s show digital]. We could just not play music for a couple of weeks – and let the memory dim. We could throw a tantrum and stomp our feet [Oh, I so much want to do THIS!]. We could close Audio Federation, sell a lot of demo stuff off the floor, and just order them up.

But, another perspective is… we now know what the best digital is. No question. And there is nobody else really trying to make the best digital [though they are good at making the most EXPENSIVE this or that out there, and, with the press, the most hyped]. So we put it on The List, we look at the budget, and when we can afford it we will get it back. The hardest part – the analysis and getting to the actual buying decision, is done. And meanwhile we can enjoy other digital, hearing some issues they may have but that is OK. The CDT-5 transport, Fifth Element DAC and Fifth Force power supply are on our (capital ‘L’) List, don’t you know?…

i.e. …They’ll Be Back.

[thanks Jim, I think I stole this perspective from you(?)]

in Audio Note / Featured Audio Note Posts / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Reviews 22 comments