[yyz]

I broke down during the Christmas holidays and bought a set of Thiel SCS4's to listen to in my small apartment. I was going to leave my stereo components in hibernation for 2 more years while I waited to move to a bigger house (and buy Thiel 3.7's). I have already spent 2 years without music and enough was enough.

Now I have a problem to solve. My component rack (TV stand) is now filled with a Blue-ray player, tuner, DAC, preamp, and cable box. My 7B-SST's are on the floor separated from each other.

I have a Torus 15 on order and it will be arriving shortly. I probably shouldn't have bought this before I moved and got the Thiel 3.7's but I was concerned with the electricity in my apartment.

I would also love to bring my SACD/CD player out of hibernation and add it to the component mix since it is way better than the Blue-ray player.
What would be the optimal setup for my constrained situation?

1)   7B-SST’s stacked on top of each other. Torus on the side separated from everything else.

2)   Torus on top of 1 amp and the other amp separated from everything else.

If I were to setup the SACD player, it is the Sony SCD-1, and it weighs 54 lbs. On what component could I stack it on (if any)?  Would the torus stacked on 1 amp and the SACD player stacked on the other amp work? I am thinking I should leave the SACD out of the mix but it would be such a waste.

[Mad Mr H]

A this is a 'temp' situation and the gain is to have music rather than none, then I would suggest the following.

ALSO based on the SCD-1 being a top loading player.


So with that in mind.......

I would keep you current main tv stand as it is, no point of change for the sake of it, AND with staying the same you can always remove the 'newer' kit and go back to what you had with ease.......


If I get this correct your main TV stand has above list of kit and hen you have two 7B on the floor apart from each other.

On TOP of ONE of the 7B I would place the SCD-1, the one that gives you best access to load cd/sacd.

On the other 7B (or below it) I would place the torus....

Job Done - Enjoy the music !

Until you buy another toy  aa , Now you have started........

[srb]

The amplifiers need clearance room to dissipate heat, particularly on top.  If you absolutely must stack components on top of the amplifiers, I would use spacers to give them 3" of clearance.
 
Steve

[yyz]

Thanks for the advice. I will try both approaches. I need to figure out what to use as "spacers".

If your Sunday morning funnies were just not good enough you may want to check out my system setup for some additional laughs. 

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=2639

I also have speaker stands arriving shortly.

[1ZIP]

W/R to spacers for a temp situation I went to Lowes/Home Depot and bought four PVC couplings, spray painted them with textured black paint and put some cut to fit felt pads, with adhesive backing, on both ends.  They looked like they were part of the equipment, couldn't scratch anything and allowed for cooling.

Just a suggestion!

[srb]

Thanks for the advice. I will try both approaches. I need to figure out what to use as "spacers".

You may not need 3", perhaps 1" or 2" would suffice.  I have used PVC/ABS 1-1/2" or 2" pipe for spacers.  You can cut some rubber gasket material for the ends, or perhaps find the right size large rubber washer at a hardware store.  You can steel wool for a brushed type finish, or spray paint.
 
Going a step farther, I used 1-1/2" PVC for my A/V rack column supports and stuck no. 8-1/2 rubber stoppers in the ends trimmed with an O-ring for the 1/8" of exposed rubber.  Wood blocks would certainly work, but these look uber-modern and industrial.  I spray painted mine with textured paint as well.
 

If your Sunday morning funnies were just not good enough you may want to check out my system setup for some additional laughs. 

The TV that was not centered on the rack gave me more pause than the corrugated speaker stands!
 
Steve

[Mad Mr H]

The Outer chassis of the Bryston is the heatsink,

So its really the left and right edge that need space.

The PMC demo rack has four amps in a vertical stack each with 1.75 inches between them, the rack is solid sides but about 100mm clearance from the amps.

3 inch would be better if possible.

As this is temp you could cut tennis balls in half?

wood blocks,

Torus if it fits is better under the amp.

Andy.

[srb]

As this is temp you could cut tennis balls in half?

And spray paint them black!  The tennis balls cut in half would give you about one inch spacing, with compression.  But it would be better than stacking direct and be quick and cheap ($2 + paint).
 
Steve

[yyz]

"The TV that was not centered on the rack gave me more pause than the corrugated speaker stands!"

I am moving things around still and the speaker stands are on the way. I will make things perfect after I get everything finalized.

I only got this up 2 days ago so it is a work in progress. It took me quite a while to get my heavy Virtual Dynamics power cables to fit into the spaces.

After 20 hours of listening (radio) the sound is surprisingly nice, very clean and clear. I am glad I did this. Another 100 hours should really open things up.

[srb]

Looks like a BAT preamp and Dynalab (?) tuner.  Can't make out the DAC, but you have an assortment of very nice equipment and I know you'll be even happier when you get it "finalized".
 
(Does this audio obsession every let us finalize our setups?)
 
Steve

[95Dyna]

A this is a 'temp' situation and the gain is to have music rather than none, then I would suggest the following.

ALSO based on the SCD-1 being a top loading player.


So with that in mind.......

I would keep you current main tv stand as it is, no point of change for the sake of it, AND with staying the same you can always remove the 'newer' kit and go back to what you had with ease.......


If I get this correct your main TV stand has above list of kit and hen you have two 7B on the floor apart from each other.

On TOP of ONE of the 7B I would place the SCD-1, the one that gives you best access to load cd/sacd.

On the other 7B (or below it) I would place the torus....

Job Done - Enjoy the music !

Until you buy another toy  aa , Now you have started........

Definitely place the Torus under the 7 using the spacers others have suggested since the Torus' heat vents are on the top of the unit (CS15).  I have both and can tell you that the Torus generates less heat than the 7.  The 7 doesn't generate alot of heat but if you block its heat sinks the temp may rise significantly.

[bmckenney]

I would be just as concerned about the magnetic flux from the toroidal transformers screwing up components above/below, assuming the transformers are lying flat, core on the vertical.  From a sonic's perspective, I would be way more concerned about this. 

I just got an RM20-BAL and the Plitron is massively gigantic.  And my LSA group integrated amp has two big 700VA transformers in it.  I keep my amp on the rack but the RM20 is sitting on the floor well away from everything else.  The magnetic flux from the RM20 could suck the heat sinks off a big Krell.

To be honest I have not listened to how bad stacking equipment sounds.   I just do my best to keep them away from each other because I have heard that it is not only bad from a physics theory point of view but I've heard of it making/breaking the sound of systems.

Bryan

[werd]

Hello

Try and stack as little as possible. And definetely move the amps off the carpet. You will zap your amps .... buy buy to those guys. Stack your least expensive gear and avoiding stacking your amps on top of one another. Just imo.

[yyz]

Looks like a BAT preamp and Dynalab (?) tuner.  Can't make out the DAC, but you have an assortment of very nice equipment and I know you'll be even happier when you get it "finalized".
 

My gear is as follows:

1) Benchmark DAC-1 + Bolder Modified SqueezeBox (from Audiocircle)
2) Magnum Dynalab MD-102
3) BAT solid state pre VK-42SE
4) Pioneer Blu-ray BDP-51FD (after many firmware updates) This was a freebie with my TV so I cannot complain
5) Bryston 7B-SST
7) Sony SCD-1 SACD/CD player modified to Level 5+ by http://www.warrengregoire.com/hifi-stereo-sony-sacd-mod.htm
6) Audience Au24 interconnects, Bryston interconnects, Virtual Dynamics power chords, recently purchased AudioQuest granite speaker cable for the Thiels.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I did another examination of my situation and realized I cannot move the amps anywhere from where they are. This is due to the lengths of the various wires I have (I am maxed out). When I had my now discarded stereo rack at my old place I did not need long wires but today longer lengths would have served me well.

 I am thinking of using hockey pucks as the spacers first. If that does not work then I can try some of the suggestions listed above.

I would be just as concerned about the magnetic flux from the toroidal transformers screwing up components above/below, assuming the transformers are lying flat, core on the vertical.  From a sonic's perspective, I would be way more concerned about this. 
 

This was my main concern but I will have to try and see what happens.

[Mad Mr H]

I would be just as concerned about the magnetic flux from the toroidal transformers screwing up components above/below, assuming the transformers are lying flat, core on the vertical.  From a sonic's perspective, I would be way more concerned about this. 
Bryan

100% agree but thats another topic and one I don't often mention as it is very difficult to work round when you large amounts of kit........

As this is a temp system better to worry about actually getting it running to start.......

BUT more talk about the topic you raise is an excellent thread topic.

[vegasdave]

I have my BP6 preamp stacked on top of my Onkyo DX-7555 cd player. No problems here!