Finally... the "Enjoyyourshelf" racks

Tweakers' Asylum

Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

Hello DIYers and Music Lovers,
Eighteen months after starting the design and experimentation, I finally got to set-up and hear my "Enjoyyourshelf" racks yesterday.
I believe the "Enjoyyourshelf" rack is the world's first furniture with a fully independent suspension (on each shelf).
Fully independent, multiple axis, seismic isolation.
Fully-inde-multi-axi-seismic isolation.
(Reminds me of Supercalefragelisticexpialidocious.)
Each shelf utilizes a minimally inflated bicycle tire inner tube to support a "floating" platform. Atop each platform is a set of "Hip Joints" (my roller bearing design) which will support the individual components. The idea is the inner tubes provide isolation in the vertical axis and the Hip Joints provide isolation in the horizontal axis.
The racks arrived a week ago, fresh from my friend Bob's woodworking shop. I had two racks made, with three shelves each. As I've said before, Bob has a unique talent for turning wood into Art and it was my good fortune that he consented to build the racks for me from my specs. Once they were in my garage, I applied several coats of Watco's Danish Oil and spent the last week letting them "air".
For those with a bent for woodworking, the construction of the legs and side rails is solid maple with maple ply used for the shelves and the "floating" platforms. The shelves are dadoed into the side rails and the side rails are double biscuited into the legs.
In order to facilitate proper inflation/deflation of the inner tubes(and periodic changes in same), each shelf has a two inch hole in it through which access can be gained to a flexible valve extension which is permanently attached to the inner tube. This way, inflation can be changed with the gear in place (and playing music!) instead of having to first remove the gear, remove the platform, change inflation, replace the platform, replace the gear. One inflation is adjusted, the valve extension can be hidden by tucking it into the hole in the shelf.
I've taken photos of the racks in various stages of assembly. Once the film is out of the camera, I'll try to learn enough HTML to put them up on a web site somewhere.
Setting the racks up yesterday took a while becuase I wanted to pay careful attention to cable routing and finding the right place on each shelf for each piece of gear. I was really glad to have the ability to alter inner tube inflation while the gear was in place. Though I made my best guess on inflation as I assembled the racks (i.e. added inner tubes and platforms), it turned out some alteration was necessary on almost every shelf. It was quite gratifying to be able to leave the power amplifier in place and connected while I attached the bicycle pump to the valve extension and gave it a pump. I couldn't help but smile as I saw the amp rise up in response.
I turned everything on and let some music play for about an hour before making any evaluations. By this time I was pretty fatigued but did get to listen to several cuts and form some preliminary views of what the racks do.
The first thing I noticed was the quite appreciable expansion of the soundstage. Width and depth just "opened up" to a point I'd not heard from my system before. The enlarged soundstage was the first thing my wife noticed (with no prompting from me) when she came into the listening room to hear the "new" system.
A few other things jumped out at me during this first listen:
-the noise floor seemed to have dropped several decibels allowing us to hear "deeper" into every recording we played
-bass instruments seemed to be more articulate (not just more present but "snappier") and have more "weight"
-there was an overall sense of hearing more information from every record we played.
All this was based only on the first listen so I'm excited to get back into the music room and see what else there is to hear.
What I've learned so far has only reinforced my perception that seismic isolation is of primary importance if one is to get the most out of whatever components they have. Also, this can be done with simple, well conceived, mechanical low pass filters like air bearings and roller bearings.
It has gotten hard for me to think of equipment supports (air bearings, roller bearings and racks) as mere "accessories". I'm convinced their use has improved my system much more than a similar investment in replacing one of the "non-accessory" pieces of gear would have. And the smiles on our faces tell me I chose the right name for the racks too.
Happy Listening! (indeed)
Barry

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Topic - Finally... the "Enjoyyourshelf" racks - bdiament 05:20:41 06/03/02 (4)

Fullyindemultiaxiseismic isolation. - Rob Thomas 22:42:00 06/05/02 (0)

Re: Finally... the "Enjoyyourshelf" racks - Gene W 18:04:46 06/04/02 (0)

Super post. Looking foward to the photo's. - chisman 09:31:02 06/03/02 (0)

Great post, very informative! - dado5 05:24:59 06/03/02 (0)

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