The best way to stack audio equipment
The best way to stack audio equipment
Racks? Vibration kits? Stacking one atop another? What’s the preferred method of stacking audio components? Have a question you’d like Paul to answer for you? Go to http://www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/ and post it.
Start at the bottom of ur Cabinet.4" Wheel’s or +. U Will B Thankfull…
Come on Paul . Give us the one we all need to hear . Please give us a breakdown on what % of your audio budget would you spend on your components . What % of your budget would you invest on amplification , cables , speakers , source , etc. Please put us on the right path . Many thanks .
Paul, that grumpy guy down the street from you peering out the curtains, was it Abraham Lincoln?
I stack mine in a cabinet according to size. Being the 5 disc is the biggest it sits on the bottom followed by my receiver. On top of that I have a AC Infinity cooling system that sucks air out of the receiver and blows it out the front of the cabinet. then the rest on top of it.
I don’t have PS audio but for my system spliting instead of stacking made huge improvment. I don’t know why but it did. I tried stack/split several time and I could clearly hear the difference. It was better when each component was on its own sufrace. The same thing is written in guide for my equipment. But I wouldn’t pay huge amount of money for the shelf/rack.
Paul’s childhood antics was the genesis of a future engineer. Ingenuity is as well suited for revenge as it is for designing electrical signal pathways.
Good advice.
Racks are best for keeping vibrations and digital equipment away from turntables & phono preamps.
In fact digital is best turned off for a vinyl only evening.
PauI, hope the neighborhood kids don’t find your home ( speaking of isolation 😉
Paul… I’m constantly made fun of because I tell some stories more than once. As a member of the post half century club I think we have earned the right to forget that we’ve told a story already. Besides I enjoy listening to your experiences, thank you for sharing.
Great stuff Paul .
I noticed you mentioned nothing about heat. Power amps produce heat, and need more space, as in not putting other boxes directly on top of them.
The ol’ Monoprice RCAs photobombing the shot again. 😉
how much pot do you ingest prior to filming these vids?
If you ever stack audio components, make sure to NOT put anything directly on top of the power amp, integrated amp, or receiver, that blocks any of the amps ventilation holes in its top cover, otherwise you run a good risk of overheating your amp or receiver, even if only listening at low to moderate volumes, because power output components such as those need cooling for not just just the actual power output stage, but also for the relatively large power supply componentry inside their chassis’ also! That’s why most amps run relatively warm even when in "idle" mode with no signal… Class D amps produce MUCH less heat than Class A/B or especially Class A amps do, but even Class D amps STILL need to breathe good when being played at a normal to high level!
Most DVRs and Satellite receivers and Cable boxes also get really hot if not allowed to breathe, (mainly due to the processing CPUs they have in them, like a computer), so don’t block any of those components’ vent holes by stacking anything on top of them either!
Most source components run cooler than the above stuff does, and pre-amps (if applicable to your system) can vary significantly, depending on its design and type. (tube or transistor, etc.)
So basically, you just have to keep the hotter running components on or near the top of any component stack you do make, that way the heat from them can rise and dissipate without them overheating, OR overheating any components above them either!
you will never use your legs again
Dear, Paul, lately the audio level has been varying too much, causing frequent hard clipping. Possibly the lavalier mike is too close to the skin or whatever. Please, look for a more neutral position of it. Thanks anyway; it`s always a great pleasure to attend your posts.
Great Info !
You should have rolled his yard…
I believe casing vibration can introduce interferences of those not high end gears. So I use weighted decorative objects sitting on top. I also use glass (should be granite or cheaper marble) to separate them with spikes. Some high density rubberised materials are also used for damping out vibrational energy. It is simple, cheap and feel good. Why not?
HEY NAPERVILLE ILLINOIS I live right by there
My neighbours hate me. Sometimes they launch rockets and mortars on my land. In return I drop bombs on them. I live in the Middle East. it’s normal here.
What, no plinths? Their materials & important sonic properties? What gives?
Bring back the wooden side panels.
Egg my house you will be mazed
I am planning to buy one of you DACs and Amp in the future- but I will probably fly to Colorado to meet you in person and listen to your audio room- really like your videos
I can’t believe that you also had an old man who yelled at you for playing ball!!!. We had on too! Everytime a ball would go in the tiny front yard of his NYC house he would take them and put them in a milk carton right next to his front door. SO we got a bunch of dynamite and taped cigarettes to their fuses after my dad without question showed us how to lace dynamite and we put it behind his front door so that when he opened it to yell at it it would be right behind the door about a foot away from him. We threw a ball in his yard and he took it and we kept yelling at him to keep him next to his door until the 4 sticks went off. Well we got all of our balls back and he never bothered us again……………Good times!!!!
Hi Paul Will you be at the Montreal Audio Fest in few weeks? I see Ps Audio products but I wonder if you will be there. If so what room? Regards!
"Dumped a ton of gravel in his driveway"….lol… that is a good one Paul! Fairly inexpensive, harmless, just a lot of work to clean it up, good on ya Paul….
When I was a kid. We always made hand churned homemade ice cream during the summer. We had the mean old hag that hated us children for no cause. So we wrote HAG in her front lawn with rock salt. Now as a mature adult, I do not condone vandalism of any kind. Vandalism is a delinquent criminal act as a child, and a cowardly, criminal, immature act for an adult.
Little hooligans you guys were.
You do talk in big chunks,but that’s what makes your sharing knowledge from a storyteller’s view so pleasurable.
I’ve always tried to keep the amplifier on top of other components to avoid heating up the component above.
I do like the idea of having the important things close at hand, having the source close to the seating position is a natural outcome, this includes a mini/bar fridge next to that same seat.
Hey how do I apply for a job ?
does your surge protector flash to the eye? might wana check it out?
Dear Paul, Robert Deutsch mentions in his review of the M700 mono blocks (stereophile Feb 18) that they sound better when they are not stacked on on top of other. I had a hard time understanding why that maybe. So, somehow, in that review, stacking mattered. Whats your take?
Paul are you that old "crow-mug-in" now? JK … Love these videos keep them up.
When stacking equipment there are a couple of things to watch out for. Anything that runs warm has to the top component so it can shed the heat without affecting another component. The second thing is not to put anything heavy on top of a CD player because anything more than 7 or 8 pounds might distort the cd mechanism causing it to lose focus. A little weight does help in some cases because less expensive cd players have pretty flimsy steel cases, a little damping does help but not to much.
I found that out when my old NAD 5335 cd player had a cassette deck, tuner and preamp (Conrad Johnson preamps are a little chunky)on top of it. After a while the cd player began to skip. I brought it down to the bench and it worked fine until I rested something heavy on it, the weight was distorting the chassis enough to cause the cd assembly to warp. I made the cdplayer the second from the top in the stack and it worked fine for another decade.
Who the fuck would spend 2000 on a dac when a prozor dac works great no noise and 15 bucks from Walmart
I put my equipment at the opposite end of the room from my listening position. By doing that I have avoided having a lard ass.
So.that is where all that dang gravel came from…You good for nothing Jitterbugging kids…
I have cheap RTV rack with shelves nade of tempered glass. CD and amplifier are placed on separate glass shelves do i dont have problems with overheating Amp.
My question is, why do companies at an audio show put thousands of dollars worth of amps and equipment on the floor, convenience? Please clarify!
I remember when living in Canada and this guy living about 20 houses down and shot at us with a shot gun loaded with salt. Yet we were not on his property but on the street. But maybe my memory fail me.
I was going to buy Naim but Paul is so friendly that he is making me consider PS Audio as well.
Great story about kids and Gravel, lol. 🤣we all did dumb shit.
Isn’t the purpose of a rack system is to help protect your investment, keep it organized and convenient?