My stereo rack

[jliedeka]

This is what I've been working on all summer. The rack is over 4 1/2 feet tall. The top 4 shelves use shelf pins, the two bottom ones are dadoed in for strength. It's made of 3/4 inch oak veneer plywood with solid maple trim and solid oak facing the sides and shelves. The adjustable shelves are 1/2 inch oak veneer plywood.

 

[mudrummer99]

Nice work, makes me want to make my own One day maybe, one day.

Mike

 

[Alex2507]

Cool! I like the fact that it's ply vs mdf and you made it yourself. For me the toughest part is the finish. What did you use for stain and varnish?

Any chance of some pic's with the gear in it?

 

[Adam]

Very nice. That's something that you can look at every day and be proud.

I like your speaker stand! I had the exact same "stands" for my rear speakers for years.

 

[EJ1]

I don't have any DIY ability whatsoever so more power to people who can build and do awesome projects. I'm forced to buy everything, haha.

 

[PSWii60]

Nice craftsmanship (is that the right word)? Or is it Workmanship? Anyway, GOOD WORK!

 

[jliedeka]

Cool! I like the fact that it's ply vs mdf and you made it yourself. For me the toughest part is the finish. What did you use for stain and varnish?

Any chance of some pic's with the gear in it?

I used Minwax oil based products. The stain is Provincial and the varnish was the satin urethane. I find those disposable foam brushes work best. I very lightly hand sanded the finish coats with 320 grain paper. Just enough to knock down the burrs.

I'll probably move my gear and run the new cables on Saturday. I had to get a 30' HDMI cable to reach the TV, a 25' subwoofer cable. I also got 100' of the 12 gauge Belkin all from Blue Jeans.

I'll take a picture or two when it is set up.

 

[jliedeka]

Very nice. That's something that you can look at every day and be proud.

I like your speaker stand! I had the exact same "stands" for my rear speakers for years.

You get 4 for $60. Not a bad deal for speaker stands. I don't intend to use the tray tables forever. Next year when I get new speakers, I'll figure out the stand situation. Leaning towards building over buying since I haven't seen a stand that is bottom heavy enough for my curious cats.

Jim

 

[jliedeka]

I don't have any DIY ability whatsoever so more power to people who can build and do awesome projects. I'm forced to buy everything, haha.

You might be surprised what you can do if you put your mind to it. I'm far from a skilled carpenter. I just spent a lot of time planning this out to work around my lack of talent. Plus, I've always believed you can do anything you set your mind to if you believe you can do it.

I really learned a lot in the process like the best way to make through mortises with a plunge router and the fact that you never want to trust that lumber is true or that any adjacent sides are actually perpendicular.

There are a lot of imperfections but overall I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out.

Jim

 

[jliedeka]

As promised, more rack porn. I spent all day re-arranging my living room and hooking stuff up. I should have bought banana plugs. Hooking bare wires to a receiver sucks.

I rewarded myself for my efforts by watching The Matrix, listening to one of my new favorite classical SACDs and caching a bottle of El Tesoro Reposado.

As you can see the bottom is empty. The idea was I might want to add an amplifier at some point. The other empty shelves are reserved for a BD playey and a phonostage once I get a turntable. I'm hoping to get something soon but that's the subject of a different post.

PS: The kitty's name is George. I have 2 black cats, George and Gracie.

 

[WmAx]

If you decide to talk about turntable choices, I would like to participate. It's a recent interest of mine, and I can recommend units based on technical performance, not audiophile hype, as you will typically get recommendations based upon. Example: A popular recommendation may be an entry level Rega or Pro-ject turntable. However, these are actually very low in build quality. Technically, a Technics professional table will be far superior in build quality, resonance and speed stability, providing a perfect/neutral base. Now, the tone arms on the Technics are not quite optimal, but these can be changed out with better arms quite easily. Despite the huge increase in quality, the Technics are not more expensive than the vastly inferior entry level range Regas/Pro-jects, etc.. The entry level rega with RB250/RB300/RB301 arms; the arms are quite good over all. But this is the only good part on the table. If you don't mind used, you could get a used Technics SL-Q2, SL-Q3 or SL-1300MKII for very low price(30-60 USD!), then make(if you do any DIY) or have a custom adapter plate machined up to fit a Rega RB300 arm. The decks mentioned are made from solid cast aluminum, have very substantial and superbly speed accurate motors, and incredibly low rumble/noise. Due to being a couple of decades old, and low popularity today, the price is very low in the market. Of course, these are very utilitarian looking. No fancy cosmetics here. This short discussion was just for example - and I look forward to a real TT discussion if you so desire.

-Chris

 

[jliedeka]

I have a line on a used SOTA Sapphire with a Sumiko MMT arm and a Grado Sonata cartridge for an unbeatable price.

If you have any recommendations for phono stages, I'd be interested. I'm leaning towards a Bellari VP129 but there are a few others I am considering.

Jim

 

[WmAx]

I have a line on a used SOTA Sapphire with a Sumiko MMT arm and a Grado Sonata cartridge for an unbeatable price.

If you have any recommendations for phono stages, I'd be interested. I'm leaning towards a Bellari VP129 but there are a few others I am considering.

Jim

That should be a good table, for sure. But I would most likely change the cartridge. I would avoid super low mass arms so you can use the Denon DL-110/DL-160, which works perfectly with moderate to medium mass arms. The Sumiko, I believe, is a moderate mass arm, so it will work fine with the Denon. The Rega RB300/301 arm is also a perfect match with the Denon, for example. But I am not sure how the Sumiko compares to a standard reference point(not the best by any means - just a well known reference point) RB300 in any functional regard. The reason I recommend the Denon(for ANY price range table) is because it is simply a neutral device, with superb tracking and flat frequency response and very low distortion. I don't think it's possible to improve upon it by any substantial degree, regardless of how much you spend, if the objective is accurate information retrieval from the vinyl. I also have a Virtuoso Wood by Clearaudio, and I prefer to use the Denon DL-110, as it's a simply neutral device(which is what I want - I want no coloration in my sources/amps/pre-amps).

While I believe that a very high quality mechanical system is needed to extract data accurately and without coloration(though, I do not see evidence that you need 10,000 dollar tables to do this effectively - I think everything gets to a level of B.S. eventually), as for electronic devices like pre-amp stages, I don't recommend anything fancy. Like pre-amps and amps, one does not need to spend much to get transparent performance - higher prices in these cases bring psychological factors - not real audible differences - unless a unit has a poor RIAA curve accuracy, then it will have FR deviations(coloration) and IMO is junk/trash.

The Creek OB-15 is a great value - has low noise and has dual gain modes(MM and MC) so you are not limited to the type of cartridge you can pick. The most I would go for, price wise, is the Music Hall PA1.2, which also has switchable gain stages for MM or MC cartridges.

I certainly do not agree with the Bellari unit you specified. That tube device only has the potential to color/degrade the signal. I am all about neutrality/accuracy when it comes to source devices.

-Chris

 

[jliedeka]

Every review of the Bellari I've seen has been a rave and it has the virtue of being cheap. I'm neither a tube bigot nor a solid state bigot so I'll leave that issue aside. The one concern I have about the Bellari is it only has 30 dB of gain. I'd probably be better off with at least 40dB so I don't have to crank the volume and add to the noise floor.

I'm reluctant to pay any extra for MC capability now. I've thought I might go to a Denon or Shelter MC cartridge down the road. In addition to finding a cartridge to match the medium mass arm, I'd also want to think about what sort of loading is needed in the phono stage. I'd probably build a SUT with parts from K&K so I wouldn't really need the circuitry in the phono stage itself.

What I really want is a clean, quiet, neutral MM stage with plenty of gain.

Jim

 

[WmAx]

Every review of the Bellari I've seen has been a rave and it has the virtue of being cheap. I'm neither a tube bigot nor a solid state bigot so I'll leave that issue aside. The one concern I have about the Bellari is it only has 30 dB of gain. I'd probably be better off with at least 40dB so I don't have to crank the volume and add to the noise floor.

I'm reluctant to pay any extra for MC capability now. I've thought I might go to a Denon or Shelter MC cartridge down the road. In addition to finding a cartridge to match the medium mass arm, I'd also want to think about what sort of loading is needed in the phono stage. I'd probably build a SUT with parts from K&K so I wouldn't really need the circuitry in the phono stage itself.

What I really want is a clean, quiet, neutral MM stage with plenty of gain.

Jim

How is the Creek OB-15 expensive? It's cheaper than the Bellari, and it has MM and MC mode. It's a solid state, flat response, neutral unit. BTW, the Bellari will pretty much rule out using Denon DL-110/160 cartridges. They may be high output MC - but that' s just a bit shy of what they need - you will likely have noise issues if you used a 30dB gain stage with the Denons, due to the large degree of gain you would have to add with the line level pre-amp.

-Chris

 

[croseiv]

Very nicely done! I like the color.

 

[haraldo]

Very nice furniture