[mcbuddah]

Hello, Herbie. I am quite happy with the sonic improvements that come from using the giant cone/decoupling gliders under the Soundocity outriggers on my Genesis 6.1 speakers. I was able to play with the setup for about 2 weeks but then had to take my system down while the rest of the remodeling project continues. With luck, the carpeting will go in next week and I can begin to put it all back together on the best wall for the 2 channel rig.

With the end of redecorating in sight, I will no longer have the built-in dining room hutch for my components and will have to make do with a new 3-shelf super-wide rack from Steve Blinn. While going over the assembly instructions, it occurs to me that the best time to tweak it is before it is put into service. I will soon be ordering 4 more gliders to put beneath its cones, but I think it could use a bit more TLC. The rack consists of 3 nicely finished 50 lb. maple shelves supported by aluminum box-channel extrusions that ultimately offer up 8 1/2" rubber hemispheres that pop into holes formed in aluminum supports that are bolted, 8 per level, to the horizontal frame members. These supports are each 7/8" x 1.5". These little half-balls look, feel, and smell like rubber, and I think they need to be replaced right away. The heaviest shelf when loaded, will be about 320lb, including its 50 for the shelf. This means each mini-support will bear about 40 lbs. What do you suggest? FWIW, the other 2 shelves will be loaded with only about 100 - 125 lb and so may be able to donate some of their supports so that the heavy shelf has more points of contact.

Thanks for your help,
djmcc
 

[Herbie]

Grungebuster Dots (or Extra-Thick grungebuster Dots) are superb as a decoupling interface between shelves and shelf supports.

Steve
Herbie's Audio Lab

[mcbuddah]

I finally have my system back together in its newly remodeled location and it sounds fantastic. This was a major project for me to finally incorporate what I have learned about system setup and finally provide a nice home for everything. I made so many changes that no baseline sound id available and I have to start over in discovering the best sound possible. I bought and assembled a beautiful new Steve Blinn Super-wide rack allowing me to retire 7 maple block platforms and a welded steel 3-shelf VPI rack that I bought with the original TNT. I took Steve's advice and built the rack using Thick Fat Dots to replace the rubber balls provided, and I ordered four Titanium Fat Glider. The fully-loaded rack now weighs an estimated 625 lbs and I can still move it on the gliders on brand new carpet and pad!

As I mentioned earlier, there is no way I can get a baseline to compare how much sound improvement can be credited to either the dots or the gliders without tearing it all down and reassembling the system with the rubber balls while adding and subsequently removing the gliders, but I certainly can attest to the gliders' improvement of the sound of my speakers as I put my system back together after 6 weeks in storage. I had previously bought 8 of the big Titanium gliders to use under the brass cones in a set of Soundocity outriggers that I had attached to the bottoms of my new (to me) Genesis 6.1 speakers and I borrowed 4 of them to put under the rack to make it easier to load and wire and reset all the components on the new shelves. This meant that I needed to spend about a week with the new system with only the outriggers under the speakers. Now one thing that can be said for all Genesis' speakers is that they are versatile and they can be adjusted to work in many different rooms. Before the upgrade, the speakers had to be placed along a 10' wall in a stub dining room off one end of a decent-sized living room. One of the side walls fronted the outside brick walls of the house requiring me to eventually turn down the bass level to just above '2' on a dial where the nominal setting is '6' to provide bass down to 20hz or so. When I set them up along a 27' wall, but only on the outriggers' cones, I was able to coax clean-sounding bass all the way up to about '5' or so. A few days later I got the new gliders and put them under the cones and the bass cleaned up substantially, allowing me to now run with the control at nearly '7' before the room starts fighting back. The gliders definitely enhance the benefits that come from just using cones.

Thanks, Steve, for all the good advice along the way to making this project end so well. I think the next steps will be to replace the isoblocks under the 3 maple platforms I still use and I want to try some tube dampers for the preamp.

Cheers,
djmcc