Rack

I tried a Hifi racks rack once and found that it made the music slow and leaden. I’ve also owned Fraim and it’s a superb rack. It’s a bit of a pain to keep set up right, and to keep clean though. 

Fraim has some decoupling of horizontal vibrations between levels if setup right so that the cones sit on the flat area of the cups without touching the sides and again with the balls under the glass. Isoblue is slightly wobbly side to side so is half way there. I don’t know about hutter but if the metal posts aren’t firm in their sockets maybe. All these racks are reputed to work with Naim, does your rack decouple or is it rigid?

It has metal spikes screwed into the base of the feet on each level which then sit on separate metal spike shoes (not integrated into the top of each level). So it is all decoupled (so to speak) but no where near the level of engineering sophistication of fraim.

A bespoke rack is always an unknown quantity, and it might be fantastic. The only way to know about whether Fraim is a significant improvement is to ask your dealer to borrow some for a few days. When I got my 272 about two and a half years ago I got a Quadraspire bamboo SVT at the same time. I’ve found it to be very good, easy to set up and easy to clean. The ‘Bronze Upgrade’ works really well, and this might be a rack to try as well, if you like the looks, which not everyone does of course. 

I've quite recently bought a Fraimlite and I was amazed at the sonic improvements it made to my system. Having said that my previous system support was an old Ikea Coras cabinet. So I guess the improvement was fairly inevitable. 

Ian.

Indeed Nigel. Given that the cost would be circa £4K (I’d need two base levels and two standard levels in each base) I’d want to know that it improves things. So a trial would be ideal. Do dealers tend to loan fraims for testing? It’s not something I’ve done before. My local dealer is AudioT in Bristol.

I must agree with the comments made by HH. I recently changed my original Quadraspire QVM which had the Bronze upgrade to a SVT2 in Bamboo also with the Bronze upgrade the improvement was quite staggering hard to believe a rack could make so much difference.

Easy on the eye and easy to maintain and keep clean, one thing that did surprise me is my NDX which is on the top shelf runs so much cooler due to he slots in the shelf.

I was lucky recently as my dealer just happened to have  2 base units and 2 sets of shelves per base that had come in from someone downsizing to a flat in a London. Cost me £2k, and we’re mint. When I was looking around the web Audio t had some second hand, if not, they might do you a deal ex demo, worth a try.

Any decent dealer should loan you some Fraim. You can simply take the glass and balls off and put the shelves in the car. It doesn’t need to be completely dismantled. When I tried mine I assembled it in front of the existing rack and simply moved the CD player from one to the other, rather than moving all the electronics. 

I shall make enquiries of my dealer and see where we go....

I have HiFi Racks Racks, and like some others I find they do the job sonically and cosmetically. I have never tried Fraim.

What I was told on a November factory visit was that Fraim was designed to deal with the vibrations produced by the speakers. That being the case the siting of the speakers, and the room as a whole will have a profound effect on any sonic change you notice.

A demo is the best way to decide. Note, that you may alter the cable dressing in the process which may be origin of any change.

In my experience a much larger spacing (tall legs or 20” between racks) is much better than just enough. The power amp PS is a particular culprit and the pre amp is sensitive to nearby power supplies. 

Phil

I have an NBL about a foot and a half from a stack of fraim with an unsuspended turntable on the top shelf of Fraim Lite, both on a wood on battons floor. There are Fraim chips under the cone feet of the turntable so it is really just Fraim isolating it from the speaker and I have no trouble with feedback, though NBLs are very good at not exciting the floor.

David

I can relate to your situation exactly. I had a custom built solid Oak rack, design like HiFi rack with all the bells and whistles. This was mainly due to my other half not liking Fraim. When it came time to change a decision was agreed that we could have Fraim ! (it had been a few years of working on that one )

The Install of the Fraim (full) was a revelation, I was not expecting as much as i got, it was as good if not better than most black box upgrades.

hope this helps with context.

Rob

I must admit I was surprised the difference the Fraim made, some instruments that were buried in the mix, now became more obvious and enjoyable. My kit was on a metal and glass av stand, so I expected some improvement, but not as much as it turned out.

Crikey Rob! That is helpful but - in a way - I wish you hadn’t said it as I can feel myself hurtling towards a very expensive upgrade!!!

I wonder whether Fraim Lite (which is half the price) might be the more prudent way to go although the old moto “buy cheap buy twice” - or three times in my case as I originally bought this homemade rack to house my Uniti2 thinking that was all I’d ever need (how naive) and then just kept adding shelves as the system expanded  - may apply particularly if I look to upgrade the electronics down the line....

Having said all of that the rack does look beautiful as is and compliments the Naim boxes  very well. More thinking to do.....

David

It's a lot to swallow, especially without a demo. I bottled it and bought Fraim Lite, later to add a full fat shelf for the CDX2, which somehow made it's way under the superline after a while and refused to come out so more FFFraim ensued. I should have bit the bullet in the first place but at least I had enough Lite for a second system when i needed it.

S3 posted:

Crikey Rob! That is helpful but - in a way - I wish you hadn’t said it as I can feel myself hurtling towards a very expensive upgrade!!!

I wonder whether Fraim Lite (which is half the price) might be the more prudent way to go although the old moto “buy cheap buy twice” - or three times in my case as I originally bought this homemade rack to house my Uniti2 thinking that was all I’d ever need (how naive) and then just kept adding shelves as the system expanded  - may apply particularly if I look to upgrade the electronics down the line....

Having said all of that the rack does look beautiful as is and compliments the Naim boxes  very well. More thinking to do.....

David

Apologies 

I would say go for full fraim. look at used maybe some good deals around.