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Originally I had my components on the glass tv stand that came with my tv, but it sounded bad - glare in the upper mid range, small flat soundstage. I tried a few different types of footers (brass cones, herbie's dots, domes, and ebony balls) but these all still left slight glare in the upper mid range lower treble that made the sound fatigueing. I found the vibrapods/cones stacked got rid of the glare...but didn't have the detail and weight of the other footers, and the highs were attenuated the highs a bit. I ended up just placing my comonents on the bare carpet without any footers and got the most balanced sound without any glare. Its a sound a could live with. Unfortuantely the rest of the househole can't live the components on the floor, so I needed to get a rack for them.The lovan classic one ended up being the perfect dimesions for my space and looked like it could be a decent rack. It wasn't a real expensive rack, so I wasn't expecting much. I wasn't expecting it to be much better than the bare carpet, but I wasn't expecting it to be worse. I was hoping to at least get at least the same quality as on the carpet.
I placed the order last week and got it a couple days ago.... and man what a disppointment! The worst sound out of everything else I've tried. Glare in the upper midrange/lower trebel, dip in the upper bass, and very artificial sounding. I filled the legs with copper bb's to dampen the ringing, but with minimal improvement. I read of other tweaks that peoplebe done to this rack (i.e. dynamat, pe batting, chopping board shelves). Do these tweaks improve the sound significantly? Because filling the legs didn't do much, and if each of the other tweaks have the same amount of improvement as this, I'm probably just going to return this rack and look for something else. Any suggestions? On the tweaks or a better rack?
Follow Ups:
I have an older Lovan Classic rack, about 3 years old, and have filled the top shelf (for my TT) with BB's as you and the other 3 with sand. I can't say that its a good or bad sounding rack at all, but what i can say (with utmost confidence) is that the thin MDF shelving sounds terrible. I use Isoblocks, tonewood platforms and MS pointed footers under components on 2 shelves - TVC preamp and TT. My CDP and phono pre sit on the MDF, my amp is on a spiked maple plat on the floor.the difference between having the MS footers vibe into the the MDF versus into a 2" thick suspended timbernation maple plat is startling. i think this set-up alleviates most rack issues, given the gear is level and stable. the 2 drawbacks are cost and height needed per shelf.
The overall design & construction of the Lovan is on par with the price IMO.
In hindsight, buying a well engineered rack might have saved me some hassle...and $.
I only keep the Lovan since i don't need any more shelves and i've already invested $ in the MS vibe draining gear. My next rack won't have a thin hollow tubed frame...
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I'm puzzled about the BBs. Sure they add mass, but they are metal. I think sand would do a better job of damping the tubes.
They weigh 2x as much as sand...my rack won't budge even if kicked.Also, they are lead in the center and copper on the exterior and i'm pretty sure copper sounds better than lead. i'm not only trying to damp the legs but add mass WHILE increasing SQ. no clue if BB's fit the bill though...
the bad part about BB's is the cost & they are illegal where I live...quite expensive on ebay.
I presume you are still using some of them although you didn't mention it.
My evaluation was on the rack itself without the use of any footers.
... a system as tweaked out as you can to a basic rack?
That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Get some of the other stuff back in and see if you can tune the system to a higher level than before. I don't think the Lovan will produce miracles left to itself.
For that effect you would probably have to spend a lot... A LOT more money than that.
I'm comparing the system with the components on the bare carpet floor vs. on the rack.
For about $15 (USD), you can pick up an Ikea Lack table. If you are so inclined, you can go the full route of cutting down the legs, inserting cones to the bottom of the legs and stacking them to make a rack. Even without going this route, simply putting your components on a Lack table will be a significant upgrade and will cost you plenty to improve upon. Everything else (Lovan, Solid Steel, Sanus, etc.) short of an Arcic Suspense (around $2500) or a Grand Prix (about the same) will be a step backward.
i actually have a couple of these in my bed room that i bought a couple months ago. The legs seem as if they're hollow? Did they change the material from before?
There are two models of this table which differ in price: a cheaper model (currently $10 USD) that is black in color, has hollow legs, the more expensive model ($15 USD) can be purchased in a number of wood laminates, has very solid legs. Use the $15 model and you will not be disappointed with the results.
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