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

HRS damping plates on Audio Aero CD players

[And here we answer another question, this time about HRS damping plates on Audio Aero Capitole CD players]

Dear Sirs,
I contact you because I´ve just bought an Audio Aero Capitole Classic CD Player (Similar to the Capitole Reference without preamplifier section. I Attach a photo).
I red that you strongly recomend the HRS Dampening plates. (you wrote: “The player’s sound was somewhat improved with a mid-size damping plate centered on the top of the unit especially with respect to the detail and articulation in the bass extending up into the midrange.. Unfortunately, this requires moving the damping plate every time the door is slid open to put on a CD – but putting the damping plate on the side of the unit resulted in a diminished soundstage and incorrect imaging.”)
As you saw, my AA Capitole Classic doesn´t have the door problem as the Capitole Reference.
I want to know if you still recomend the mid-size damping plate for my AA. I saw other AA owners that use many damping plates.
I will apreciate your recomendation.

Hi X,

The optimal position and number of damping plates on top of the Capitole, or any component for that matter, is usually only found through a process of trial and error. I think this may be because the vibrations found at the top of a component is so unpredictable, depending on the chassis and other aspects of the component, as well as the feet used under the component, as well as the equipment rack itself. The top of a component is kind of the end of a ‘vibratory chain’:… floor -> rack -> feet -> component -> top of component…

We usually recommend that you start with the HRS Nimbus (feet) first. an HRS Isolation Base (if your budget allows) and then tune the final result using the damping plates. The Nimbus feet give an immediate, predictable, no fuss improvement in just about all aspects of the sound – especially under the Audio Aero players.

That said, around here we occasionally do still use damping plates on the Audio Aero players. However, we use them much more often on the much less expensive Audio Note players [at the bottom part of their line] which have lighter weight chassis than the Capitole.

Hope this helps!
-Mike

in Audio Aero / High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / HRS 1 comments