WHF Credibility

[jaxwired]

professorhat:

I think it's fair to be skeptical until you've tried it out for yourself (then you'd know one way or the other in your own mind). However, you also suggested that WHF's credibility was at stake because they found a difference sonically between racks. I've seen quite a few posts on here of people who've upgraded their hi-fi racks and stated they noticed the difference. Is it placebo, is it something else, I've no idea, but I would be wary of criticising someone who has tried it out if I had done no such trial for myself...

Well, frankly, I've never heard of any audio retailer given rack demo's, so I don't know how this would be possible short of buying multiple racks.

I really don't entirely agree with your premise that I have to try it before I can criticise the product. That's probably a wise practice most of the time, but some claims can be addressed without research using common sense. Audio racks would seem to fall into this category. I won't insult you by making up a ridiculous claim about sound quality to make my point...

 

[Andrew Everard]

trevor79:I also see great sensitivity and a big reaction by the What Hi Fi team which puzzles me. What politics and undercurrents that are going on here I do not know, but is there more to this than meets the eye?

None, and no.

 

[professorhat]

Well, let's think about one very basic aspect of sound production. Many people agree that hard drives are capable of reproducing music better than CD players because they allow for several reads of the music to be made before playback, thus ensuring the playback is as error free as possible. So if we look at a CD system sitting on an audio rack, a well built rack with good isolation and vibration absorbing properties should result in less vibrations within the internal workings of the CD player, and thus result in less errors during playback. This in turn, according to the theory above anyway, should therefore result in improved sound quality.

Okay, if you don't agree on the first statement, you might not agree with this theory, but as you can see, it's not really a giant leap to come to a few fairly sound conclusions (no pun intended) on why a stable, well built rack which has good isolation properties can make a difference to sound quality. It's the same premise as speaker stands and everyone seems generally agreed that these can indeed help in improving sound performance (as far as I'm aware anyway!).

 

[Anonymous]

Yes I agree, a well built rack gives much better sonic stability to your system.
The other thing of course is the louder the music is played the greater benefit there is with decent de-coupling.

On my system playing music off my Hard drive recorder is as good as my CD player, AND better when the music has deep bass extension to it. The sonic vibrations don't effect the HD at all!

 

[RodhasGibson]

trevor79:Yes I agree, a well built rack gives much better sonic stability to your system. The other thing of course is the louder the music is played the greater benefit there is with decent de-coupling. On my system playing music off my Hard drive recorder is as good as my CD player, AND better when the music has deep bass extension to it. The sonic vibrations don't effect the HD at all! Yep got to agree with that statement, I"ve found the same benefits as you Trevor.Well worth the Spend imho.

 

[Big Aura]

For the record, I'm not questioning "credibility", just was curious (as someone relatively new to all this) how a rack can have such an apparently marked impact. My (uneducated) opinion is that if a rack is doing its job, its effect should be none whatsover. The reviews suggest that they have a positive effect on certain elements of sound. If WHFS&V want to send me several racks and some high-end hi-fi, I'm happy to potter around with it for a few years and perform extensive tests. I can report back by 2015. No need to thank me.

 

[Andrew Everard]

And with that shameless blag attempt, this thread has run its course...