Glass or no Glass?

Wenger, I also had an interesting conversation with Alester from Quadraspire I've been using one of their racks for a number of years adding the Bronze upgrade last year with the installation of my new system.

My local Naim dealer is also a  Quadraspire agent when they installed my new 300dr a few weeks ago I did ask about the new X Reference rack and they said it was rather good but also recommend the Bamboo racks with the Bronze upgrade. 

Of course they would say that bamboo is by far the best and glass is no, no, no. Not exactly an objective answer from a manufacturer that just happens to make bamboo racks.

Glass is present in very good racks. I think it is down to the design not the materials used. My mana racks are an example of a good design using glass, asis the fraim.

It's very likely about whether glass is an integral part of the design and if not, whether the base design benefits from the addition. As mentioned above both Mana and Fraim use glass and both are fine racks. The Isoblue is solid wood, and in my experience is improved by adding Fraim glass and balls. To me it was an improvement and not simply different.

I use a bamboo Quadraspire SVT with the bronze upgrade and it works really well. I have not tried adding Fraim glass and will not be doing so, because I like the rack just as it is, in sound and appearance. That's not to say that adding glass wouldn't improve it though. 

By itself glass is kinda of weird choice for racks as it's very prone to HF resonance. Back in the day when it came out I couldn't believe the Fraim could sound any good with all those hard materials and support points (glass & steel). But it does and all my kit is on Fraim ever since. 

Every now and then I wonder what would happen if you place the entire Fraim on a heavy slab of stone (marble for instance) and put that slab on isolating feet. But it's too much hassle to try... 

My gear is sat on wood and I like the way it sounds. I did play around with glass once, but didn't feel it did any good. These things really do need to be designed well. Due to various factors (cost, looks, size) I won't be looking at a fraim. So I'll be sticking with wood. 

I am curious about what others think about the use of glass. I took the step to buy Fraim cups and balls together with getting tempered glass cut to the specific dimensions that the Fraim glass is cut. My plan is to attempt to replicate a Fraim at a fraction of the costs. The glass has yet to be delivered but once they are, I will put them all together and see what happens. 

Whilst visiting a number of the Rooms at the Bristol show, I noted that their were a few companies using Naim, a few Quadraspire,  Attacama , a few from what I would call the Mickey Mouse range, one in particular was on a very dodgy IKEA Coffee table with a bow in the shelves under the weight of the boxes on it, they were showcasing the new  Revel M16 range, but surprisingly they sounded superb, one of the best...   when questioned about it the comments came back, 'it works', and it certainly did...

Glass is not just glass. Wood is not just wood. Metals are just not metals etc. 

Has been a few racks I have noted made from cast concrete. Surely the final arbiter 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the other component in the system design...

The electronics boxes!

How a system performs depends on the interaction of resonances of all the parts of the system.  Naim's anti resonance design in their components seems to protect more against MF and HF resonances, so glass seems to work well as an intermediate material for Naim components on wooden shelves.

Also as others have pointed out, in addition, personal sensitivity may come into play - some people are less sensitive to some acoustic effects and more sensitive to other effects.  If the glass substantially improves aspects that are of little import to you but causes even a small degradation in an are to which you are sensitive then you'll almost certainly be better off without the glass (even though 'nominally' the glass is an 'overall improvement' - that is if there could ever be an objective definition of what constitutes an improvement!).

Richard Choong posted:

I am curious about what others think about the use of glass. I took the step to buy Fraim cups and balls together with getting tempered glass cut to the specific dimensions that the Fraim glass is cut. My plan is to attempt to replicate a Fraim at a fraction of the costs. The glass has yet to be delivered but once they are, I will put them all together and see what happens. 

I have done this, but using M10 cap nuts rather than Fraim cups and balls.  On my original system (ND 5 XS and Nait XS 2) on a Alphason Rack, this was a considerable improvement to definition and dynamics.

I haven't re-tested using my current Naim boxes (my system is greatly changed now - NAC-N272 + Cuddly Toy XSP / NAP300(DR)) so I really need to do the re-test when I get the time and energy.

Has anyone out there demo'd a bamboo quadraspire against a Fraim?

I'm interested in the SQ question and obvious SQ/£$ answer.

I agree with Tobyjug in that glass is not just glass and glass is as different as Lead and High tensile steel are both metals. The Fraim glass is toughened and that's to say nothing of it's otherwise elusive spec. It's probably full of the 'unobtainium' that's listed an an ingredient in Oakley sunglasses.

following is a bit of a  ramble...

The standard quadraspire racks look to be tuned monocoques compared to the loosely assembled stack or balancing act of the Fraim. So the question of material use in them is quite different. However the Bronze upgrade seems to change the nature of their connections to a stack like the Fraim. I realise you are referring to the potential combining of glass and your Quadraspire designer naturally suggests that a glass topping shelf wouldn't sound better any better on top of his bamboo shelf, but it looks like he's just taken his monoque and cut it to pieces to perform the Bronze upgrade, so maybe he's still smarting from that :-)

As an architect working in a highly seismic region, I see hifi racks as analogous to building structures. For seismic resilience it's about having the right amount of connectedness combined with the right amount of ductility. There's very different complexity in accommodating hi-fi electronics in metal boxes one piece over another, in an a way that sounds good.  In buildings successful approaches range from rigid structures that are properly 'tuned' to deal with the resonance they encounter either through their overall make up or by damped junctions, or bases, to relatively flexible or loosely assembled structures that rely on the detail of the junctions to hold them together and provide the right amount of damping.

With hifi racks, I don't pretend to understand all the forces at play, however I can see how a composite structure would be good to meet various demands of the rack. Airflow, electrical isolation etc.  When I started looking at hifi racks recently (having thought I would design my own) I was surprised to find that glass is successful as an element in a rack. However the way it is used in the Fraim as bearing / screening level in a composite stack, where the primary structure is a timber plate cut to almost three beams and (presumably) tuned in it's shape for both resonance and airflow, sitting on metal columns, each bearing on relatively loose, hard point connections down to the next timber structural beam. The ball bearing and cups giving a minimum of three ball bearings between one shelf and the next.

I'm tempted to start my racking with Fraim glass shelves, balls and cups sat on my oak sideboard, before savings allow a full rack. It seems like a good starting point until I move house and discover where in the new design a rack will work.

Concrete is not just concrete...

Hi Holmes,

Watson your rack?  (Sorry I just couldn't resist that!)

Another point which comes into play when dealing with higher frequency energy, is reflection at boundaries of different materials (different storage and loss modulus and differing resonant frequencies).  Considering energy transmitted into the rack structure, there will be energy reflected back at the interface between the wood shelf and the metal Fraim cup (or equivalent) and again from the metal Fraim ball (or equivalent) into the glass.  Of course the reflection / transmission spectrum of the energy at these two interface will be different resulting in a complex (X+iY) frequency dependent filter arrangement.

Holmes posted:

Has anyone out there demo'd a bamboo quadraspire against a Fraim?

I'm interested in the SQ question and obvious SQ/£$ answer.

I agree with Tobyjug in that glass is not just glass and glass is as different as Lead and High tensile steel are both metals. The Fraim glass is toughened and that's to say nothing of it's otherwise elusive spec. It's probably full of the 'unobtainium' that's listed an an ingredient in Oakley sunglasses.

following is a bit of a  ramble...

The standard quadraspire racks look to be tuned monocoques compared to the loosely assembled stack or balancing act of the Fraim. So the question of material use in them is quite different. However the Bronze upgrade seems to change the nature of their connections to a stack like the Fraim. I realise you are referring to the potential combining of glass and your Quadraspire designer naturally suggests that a glass topping shelf wouldn't sound better any better on top of his bamboo shelf, but it looks like he's just taken his monoque and cut it to pieces to perform the Bronze upgrade, so maybe he's still smarting from that :-)

As an architect working in a highly seismic region, I see hifi racks as analogous to building structures. For seismic resilience it's about having the right amount of connectedness combined with the right amount of ductility. There's very different complexity in accommodating hi-fi electronics in metal boxes one piece over another, in an a way that sounds good.  In buildings successful approaches range from rigid structures that are properly 'tuned' to deal with the resonance they encounter either through their overall make up or by damped junctions, or bases, to relatively flexible or loosely assembled structures that rely on the detail of the junctions to hold them together and provide the right amount of damping.

With hifi racks, I don't pretend to understand all the forces at play, however I can see how a composite structure would be good to meet various demands of the rack. Airflow, electrical isolation etc.  When I started looking at hifi racks recently (having thought I would design my own) I was surprised to find that glass is successful as an element in a rack. However the way it is used in the Fraim as bearing / screening level in a composite stack, where the primary structure is a timber plate cut to almost three beams and (presumably) tuned in it's shape for both resonance and airflow, sitting on metal columns, each bearing on relatively loose, hard point connections down to the next timber structural beam. The ball bearing and cups giving a minimum of three ball bearings between one shelf and the next.

I'm tempted to start my racking with Fraim glass shelves, balls and cups sat on my oak sideboard, before savings allow a full rack. It seems like a good starting point until I move house and discover where in the new design a rack will work.

Concrete is not just concrete...

Interestingly Alcester from Quadraspire, actually came across extremely well in comparison to many at the show, he explained that he had done a direct comparison test with the Naim full fraim....no need to guess which he preferred , one of the main reasons was the glass..... 

That said apparently quadrasphire do supply glass for their racks but they don't recommend it...?

Just don't use Bamboo under your LP12 - awful

Huge posted:

Richard Choong posted:

I am curious about what others think about the use of glass. I took the step to buy Fraim cups and balls together with getting tempered glass cut to the specific dimensions that the Fraim glass is cut. My plan is to attempt to replicate a Fraim at a fraction of the costs. The glass has yet to be delivered but once they are, I will put them all together and see what happens. 

I have done this, but using M10 cap nuts rather than Fraim cups and balls.  On my original system (ND 5 XS and Nait XS 2) on a Alphason Rack, this was a considerable improvement to definition and dynamics.

I haven't re-tested using my current Naim boxes (my system is greatly changed now - NAC-N272 + Cuddly Toy XSP / NAP300(DR)) so I really need to do the re-test when I get the time and energy.

Just a note that it's worth experimenting if you're doing this sort of thing.

I have no expertise here, but just thought I'd try sorbothane hemispheres against dome nuts, and found I preferred the sorbothane under my 172/glass. Different rooms, setups etc.

For the sake of a couple of quid, worth a go.

glevethan posted:

Just don't use Bamboo under your LP12 - awful

That's interesting because it didn't have a negative effect at the Quadraspire Demo....maybe that's one of the problems with demo's, everything sounds different then with your own gear, in the home environment 

Must be a hard life eating bamboo all day everyday as a panda. Perhaps some clever constrained ply using panda poo with something phenolic could be the ultimate material to use.

TOBYJUG posted:

Must be a hard life eating bamboo all day everyday as a panda. Perhaps some clever constrained ply using panda poo with something phenolic could be the ultimate material to use.

Sounds like a great idea, I'm just going to nip over to the local zoo to do some research