World Premiere!
Harmonic Resolution Systems SXR Equipment Rack
With M3 Isolation Bases
Applying extraordinary engineering and design to
equipment racks.
Review By Jules Coleman
Click
here to e-mail reviewer.
When putting together an audio
system, you want to find components that work well together with one
another to produce an experience that is consistently rewarding. There are
many obstacles to achieving this deceptively simple goal the least
appreciated of which perhaps is that your system 'lives’ in an
environment that is in several respects inhospitable to it.
The room itself may flatter or flatten the sound of your
system. Either way, it will make its presence felt for no matter what else
it does it will be a constant and nontrivial source of unwanted
vibrations.
We can distinguish between two sources of unwanted
vibrations: structural and air borne. The main differences between the two
have to do with the manner in which they are transmitted to your audio
system, and not the source of the vibration itself. The sources of
vibration are many: household appliances — especially refrigerators,
dishwashers, washers and dryers — as well as video and audio components.
The worst offenders are loudspeakers. Loudspeakers literally shake the
room, which is the environment in which the rest of your system lives. The
vibrations created by the loudspeaker, including those internal to it, are
fed back into the system through the room only to resurface as part of the
output from the loudspeaker, and so on in a vicious cycle. Worse, given
that most structure-borne vibrations in audio systems have broad frequency
ranges, the prospect of finding matching natural frequencies with the rack
system and audio components is high; the consequence is that non-musical
energy can be significantly amplified.
The phrase 'air-borne vibration' refers to any source of
vibration within the audible range of the playback system. Again, the
greatest sources of air-borne vibrations are loudspeakers. These
vibrations reach the outer skins of components and the equipment racks,
floors and furnishings that support those components. Some of this energy
is dissipated, some reflected and the rest is transformed into mechanical
vibration that, like structure-borne vibrations, wind their ways through
your system, often being amplified along the way.
Vibrations
are non-musical information and they can affect the performance of your
system either by subtraction or addition. On the subtractive side,
vibrations can cause smearing and in doing so mask nuance and fine details
— especially subtle shades of tone and micro dynamics. On the additive
side vibrations are likely to find signals of sympathetic frequencies and
in doing so amplify non-musical information in the form of distortion.
The problem is not just that the room in which your
system resides is an apparently endless source of noise that will
adversely affect your system’s performance. The system itself is an
enormous source of noise, though thankfully several manufacturers have
recently turned attention to reducing the non-musical mess that their own
components make and which can undermine their performance. This
non-musical energy, as I have previously noted, creates smearing which in
turn obscures low-level detail. Musical attack and leading edge are
blunted, harmonic structures inadequately resolved and decays truncated.
Bass, which is hard enough to reproduce accurately under most conditions,
will be less resolved and tuneful, and overall accuracy and musicality
will be reduced. Timing suffers dramatically. High mass components in
particular — think many modern turntables — that are inadequately
isolated will sound sluggish.
The detrimental effects of vibrations are not merely
theoretical possibilities that one is unlikely ever to experience when
playing music in the home. Nor are their effects likely to be drowned out
or swamped by other features of musical playback. Skeptics, even those who
acknowledge the non-musical consequences of unwanted vibrations, may
nevertheless question the order of magnitude of the problem. They may
believe that the impact of the distortions created by unwanted vibrations
are subtle at best. The mistake here is failing to appreciate that when it
comes to musical reproduction, the devil is in the nuances. The subtle
differences are the important ones: at the end of the day, that is
precisely what we audiophiles and music lovers are paying the big bucks
for.
The case for a well designed audio stand or rack is
pretty straightforward. Many of us spend non-trivial sums of money to
create a music playback system in our homes that we hope will bring us the
joy, excitement, satisfaction and sheer emotional engagement we experience
with live music. For many of us, the key to the systems to which we are
drawn is their capacity fully, coherently and naturally to resolve the
fine details and nuances that distinguish music from mere sound — that
allow us to identify and engage the artist’s intentions. Of course, too
many audiophiles confuse increased resolution with the cacophony of
non-musical, artifacts — from belches to burps — that are likely to
excite but not to endure. But an excellent system really does have the
capacity to resolve the finest details, the shadings and sense of the
music, the tone and timbre, the dynamic shifts and turns — and to do so
while presenting the music as a whole and not as a set of individual
events in space and time. The more this is what you seek, the more
important resonance and vibration control is. There is to my mind
absolutely no investment more important to protecting the investment you
have already made in your system than a well-designed equipment rack or
stand. The bigger the investment you’ve made in your system, the more
important your investment in your rack. It is the last place you should be
looking to save money. It is the insurance policy that protects your
investment. Not investing wisely in a high end audio rack is the
equivalent of spending eight hours a day on your feet and another eight on
your back asleep and looking to buy shoes from a street vendor and a
mattress from the Salvation Army store.
I am not telling you to buy a state of the art rack when
you have invested 5K in your system; but the investment in your rack
should mirror the investment in your system. Once you have a good $20,000
to $30,000 in your audio system, the last thing you should be doing is
cutting corners on your rack.
And when you have determined that you need to protect
the investment you have made in your audio system with a rack that is up
to the task, there are a precious few manufacturers whose products you
will want to investigate. This is when Harmonic Resolution Systems should
enter your thinking.
The HRS Approach
Harmonic Resolution Systems manufacturers a variety
of products designed to eliminate vibrations and control resonances. These
include damping plates, nimbus puck like devices (both designed for
controlling resonances of particular components); an analog record disk;
isolation bases; and equipment racks/stands. I have a great deal of
experience with HRS products. For several years I have owned the HRS, M1R
equipment rack. Indeed after initially reviewing the rack upon its
introduction in 2004, I bought two of the racks. (see my original review
here). I had owned and tried several well-known racks prior to auditioning
the M1R. The truth is I could not wait for the initial review period to
end so that I could publish the review and then purchase the rack. Once I
heard the difference the HRS rack made, there was simply no going back.
As a reviewer, I have had the good fortune of having a
number of wonderful components in my home and over the years many of my
friends in audio, the academy and the music world have passed through. In
all this time, there are two components more than any others in my
reference system that my guests have not merely lusted after, but put
their money where their hearts resided: the Shindo 301 Garrard turntable
system (I believe something like seven or eight visitors to my house have
purchased one after hearing it here); and the HRS M1R (at least that many
have purchased racks or individual isolation bases).
I
am not one to change my reference system wholesale, and I make even
marginal changes reluctantly. For four years now my main system has
included the aforementioned Shindo/Garrard 301, the Shindo Catherine all
tube two chassis full function preamp, and the Shindo 300B Ltd monoblock
amplifiers. The other component that remained intact has been the HRS M1R
racks. The only equipment rack that worked as well with the Shindo
equipment was the one favored by Shindo’s importer; and as a reviewer, I
needed a rack that I was confident would work well with components from
other manufacturers. And the M1R worked flawlessly with every other
turntable and digital component I had in for review. In fact, two of the
turntable manufacturer’s whose tables were in for review — Brinkmann
and Redpoint — have HRS make special isolation bases designed
specifically for their tables. So it is not just me — not by any means —
who is enamored of the magical qualities of the HRS approach to
eliminating non-musical artifacts owing to structural and air-borne
vibrations.
Soon after its introduction, the M1R rack garnered broad
acclaim in both the national and international press, and the M3 isolation
base which is integrated into the rack system but which can be sold
separately became something of an instant classic. Neither product was
inexpensive. One might have thought that Latvis’ next move would have
been to try to introduce a product that achieved a healthy percentage of
what the MR-I could do but at a price point that was more accessible to a
larger percentage of the audio enthusiast population.
That’s not what Latvis did. Instead of turning his
attention to producing a marginally compromised design, Latvis went in the
opposite direction. He produced a 'no-compromise’ rack — the MXR —
that ultimately replaced the M1R. His goal was to take the general
principles at work in the M1R and implement them without compromise. The
net effect was a rack that improved vibration control and in an even more
luxurious package featuring even more exotic furniture grade finishes with
marginal improvements in convenience. This rack is an industry
standard.
Having optimized the engineering features of the
principles at work in the HRS approach, Latvis turned his attention to
solving some design and cost problems that were not addressed in HRS racks
to this point. His ambition was to build a maximally flexible design that
could achieve roughly the same results as the state of the art rack at a
significant savings in costs in production — costs that could be passed
on to the consumer. The result is the SXR rack and S-series isolation
platforms which are just now being introduced into the market.
Mike and I have remained in touch since I first reviewed
the original M3 isolation platform when I was breaking in as a reviewer
for Ultra Audio. We check in with one another periodically as Mike heads
down from his headquarters in Buffalo to set up racks for his customers in
the greater New York area and to visit his dealers between NY and DC.
During a phone call prior to this past January’s CES Mike indicated that
HRS was about to introduce a completely newly designed, basically modular
equipment stand and that were I available he would like to talk to me
about it at CES.
We met at CES though various conflicts kept me from
seeing the prototype in person. As it happened my wife and I were
embarking on a remodeling of our home and we were going to convert the
furnishings in our large family room that houses my reference system from
a traditional to a much more contemporary design. I was anxious to see if
the new design had a more modern look than the M1R and when I was informed
that it did, Mike and I agreed that I might want to have a listen to the
new rack and see how it stacked up against the M1R. We arranged a review
and Mike came to my home in early Spring to remove the massive M1R racks
and replace them with the SXR.
It may be nice to note at this location that all your
HRS M3 Isolation Bases from the original M1R moved without any
modification to the New SXR frame. This is part of the HRS design
philosophy to give customers as many options as possible to upgrade or
change an existing system. SXR are still there and
for as long as I own high end audio equipment they will go wherever I do!
The SXR System
Someone interested in the HRS SXR system should want
to know the answers to the following questions:
- What
is distinctive about the SXR system?
- How
does it differ from previous racks manufactured by HRS?
- How
does it compare with those racks, in particular, the M1R with which I
have a lot of experience?
- How
much does it cost?
- Should
I buy one (or more)?
Before answering these questions, it might be helpful if
I review briefly the basic approach to vibration control that is pursued
in all HRS racks. Since I have discussed the physics of resonance control
and the HRS approach to it in my long and detailed review of the M1R, I
direct the reader to that review for a full discussion and will instead
briefly outline the approach here.
The main goal of all HRS racks is broadband noise
reduction. The practical problem is that achieving noise reduction at
lower frequencies at one point in a system does not guarantee that you
will not excite higher frequencies at that location or at other locations
in the system. I have heard this effect from several racks. There is a
sense of increased tautness and weight in the bass — including better
pitch definition — and an increased sense of upper frequency detail. The
effect can be quite seductive and exciting: and striking at first. The
problem is that the tonal balance is not true to the music, instrumental
timbres are askew and in time what was once captivating and wondrous
become irritating and unlistenable. Truth to tone and timbre are sine qua
non of an enduring musical experience in the home. Artificial spatial
effects and high frequency sparkle and 'detail’ are musical distractions
— maybe not at first and certainly not to everybody — but in time and
almost without fail.
This is one reason why one should be careful about 'isolation
bases’ for speakers. It is one thing to use spikes to connect speakers
to the floor. Spikes minimize contact area by coupling to the floor at
very small and specific locations which almost always makes sense and has
desirable consequences. It is quite another thing to try to improve bass
response by placing a speaker on an isolation platform. There is no doubt
that a well designed isolation platform can improve bass response, but it
is very unlikely that it will treat all the frequencies even-handedly. An
improvement in the lower registers more likely than not will throw off the
tonal balance of the speaker.
In any case, to achieve broadband reduction, one needs
to produce a mismatch between the overall system’s excitation frequency
and its natural frequency. Since all the components in the system have
their distinctive excitation and natural frequencies, you need a rack
system that is capable of creating mismatches throughout the entire
frequency range. Not so easy to do.
The HRS approach relies on three separate but integrated
elements and their relationship to one another: the frame, the brackets,
and the bases. The frame of the rack is the structure that houses
everything else. It has to be maximally rigid and is the first line of
defense against structure borne vibrations. The footers are connected to
the frame on which the isolation bases rest. Components rest on the
isolation bases. Each element is designed and engineered not merely to do
its task but to work in concert with the other elements to increase the
overall impact of each on noise reduction. I take this up in much greater
detail in my review of the M1R but an example might be helpful. The
isolation bases are constructed of many different parts including 7
different materials including proprietary HRS polymers. The two primary
structural elements are a frame and a granite slab. Granite is favored by
many who employ a 'kill the noise by mass approach’ which is not the
basic principle of the HRS approach. HRS does take advantage of mass, as
well as many other engineering principles, but it does so in a way
designed to leverage the impact of mass on system performance. The frame
is aircraft quality billet aluminum and is designed with several
mechanical chokes and resonance control stages. The frame, chokes,
resonance control stages, and granite work together to make sure that it
is not excited by efforts elsewhere in the chain that would significantly
shift the frequencies of the unwanted vibrations. The construction of the
frame relative to the construction and location of the brackets and
footers under each isolation base are designed to act in concert with one
another to maximize overall performance.
The overall HRS approach is based on creating a
significant mismatch in resonant frequencies between the frame and the
isolation base. This puts enormous pressure on engineering the brackets
and the footers. The brackets and the footers are the only connections
between the frame and the isolation platforms and they are designed to
interface with a near zero surface area connection to the frame. The
result is a broadband isolation system with high mass and a near zero
surface contact with the outside world. As a result, there is the least
path possible of vibrations from the frame to the isolation platforms. In
addition, the bracket/footer approach substitutes for long horizontal
connectors that are both sources of additional vibration and are likely to
amplify unwanted vibrations many times over.
Latvis began his engineering career reducing vibration
and noise in a number of industrial, military and aerospace applications.
He is unquestionably a first rate mechanical engineer who continues to
consult for audio, aerospace and control systems companies. He is also a
stickler for details. There is nothing about any of his designs that is
left to chance.
One key to the overall design is the rigidity of the
frame. Latvis’s approach is committed to a maximally rigid frame. And
herein lies the great manufacturing and production obstacle that he faced.
The two previous racks from HRS — the M1R which I owned and the better
still MXR— were constructed around an incredibly rigid and beautifully
finished one frame. The M1R’s frame was basically unibody in design,
whereas the MXR is modular and comes apart but, at least until this point
in time, can only be expanded horizontally. One could secure the
performance Latvis wanted with very few different sizes of these frames —
the heights and widths could vary, but not very much — and in any case
the frame itself was basically one indivisible piece for the original M1R.
This fact about the frames created at least two issues
effecting overall costs. First, the frames themselves are very expensive
to manufacture (and then finish in wood veneers or in premium painted
finishes). The second is that the lowest price for a rack with two shelves
was not going to be much lower than the high price of a rack housing four
shelves. The reason is that so much of the cost is in the frame and the
frame had to be of a certain size to work optimally, so there is no real
savings to be had by buying a smaller rack and then adding on. The entry
cost is unavoidably high.
The design goals for Latvis’s next project were
therefore pretty clear. Design and produce a rack that possessed the
vibration control properties of the others, but which, unlike the others
was both modular and less expensive. The SXR was his solution.
The Basics
The SXR differs from all previous HRS racks by the
fact that it is completely modular. There is no fixed frame. Instead, and
this is truly amazing, there are 11 different kinds of parts that go into
an SXR frame and out of these 11 parts one can literally construct
equipment racks of any size — height or width, single wide or
double-wide or more, of any number of shelves. And because of the
engineering of the component parts, the rack one configures will perform
equally well at reducing vibrations.
Just think about that for a moment. The original system
worked optimally around a fixed unibody frame. The new system has no fixed
frame yet in virtue of the engineering and design of its component parts
it can achieve the same level of performance by parts substitution as it
grows in height or width or in the number of shelves. This required
considerably reengineering and the SXR had to be designed from scratch
with the goal of achieving the same level of noise reduction through a
different implementation of the same general principles.
At the same time, in order to provide maximum
flexibility and choice for the end user, the new SXR is designed to work
with the original M3 isolation platforms. And that is exactly how I used
the SXR. I just took the isolation bases that were part of my M1R system
and used them with the SXR. The M3 bases have been upgrades through the
years and the S1 is based on the same principles as the M3 but designed to
a lower price point.
The lower price of a full SXR system in relationship to
either the MXR or the M1R is based on the fact that one can build up the
system one shelf at a time. The price of each is the same and the starting
price is the cost of a one component frame with one platform; and that is
the price of each additional shelf. The modular design means that there is
no high initial base cost or entry fee one has to pay to get in. The
initial price is the cost of the basic rack: it is the sum of the price of
the components necessary to construct that rack; not the price of a fixed
optimal frame. All marginal price increments reflect actual marginal
changes one makes in the rack; one pays precisely for the parts one gets
and the rack one constructs thereby.
One consequence of the modular approach is that the SXR
represents a completely different aesthetic than the M1R. The M1R had a
high quality traditional furniture look. The wood finishes were luscious,
but the overall look was a bit bulky and heavy. The word 'sleek’ did not
leap to mind. In a room with fine furniture and high ceilings, an M1R
could look nicely at home. In my review of it, I mentioned that the M1R
would not have looked at ease or even welcome in our NYC apartment which
is furnished with several large works of contemporary abstract and
expressionist art and Italian furniture that is angular and emphasis
geometry over comfort.
The SXR has a much more industrial look. The two I had
in for review were finished in black (the official color of restaurant
week and MOMA in NYC) though the SXR is also available in silver. The
profile is leaner and lower: in a word, sleek. The look is not for
everyone, of course. Bear in mind that we are talking about an audio
product here, the vast majority of which are aesthetically challenging and
pose as many problems for marriages and other serious relationships as
they do for a decorator’s aesthetic. I have a big room with many
contemporary and traditional elements — including a baby grand piano
from the 19th century — and the SXR works very well
aesthetically. It would have worked just fine with my older furnishings as
well, but it will look its best when surrounded by contemporary
furnishings. Of course, most audiophiles have no money left for
furnishings; and if the hours they spend on the forums are any indication,
I would be surprised if most focused on the overall aesthetic of their
rigs.
How Does It Sound?
The engineering and design of the SXR are
extraordinary and it is wonderful to see what a creative mind can do in
solving a set of manufacturing and cost problems. Still, at the end of the
day, inquiring audiophile minds want to know whether it works —
sonically, and not just aesthetically.
So how does it sound? A well-designed equipment rack
isn’t supposed to sound or to have a sound of its own. What it is
supposed to do is eliminate non-musical artifacts to allow your system to
reach its full potential. The sound you hear should be the sound of your
system, not the sound of the rack. The problem in evaluating the impact of
a rack on the sound of your system is that there is no Archimedean point
from which to determine what your system sounds like in the abstract. Your
system is always in a rack. If it isn’t in a rack then it is on a
bookshelf or a table or the floor. It is always somewhere, its component
parts sitting on something in some or other room or environment.
Taking the sonic measure of a rack necessarily involves
comparative judgments. In my case, I had two comparisons I could make: one
direct, the other indirect. I could compare the sound of the SXR to the
M1R directly. Because I had compared the sound of the M1R to other racks
before and since, I could compare the SXR to those as well. It helps
matters that much of my system has remained virtually unchanged since I
have had the M1R installed. In addition to the Shindo turntable, preamp
and amplifiers, I have had two pairs of speakers for the past several
years as my basic references: the Auditorium 23 SoloVox and a pair of
original 1953 JBL Hartsfields with down-firing woofers and a Shindo custom
made crossover. During the review process, I took in the Aspara Reference
Loudspeaker for review and I did the second half of my reviewing of the
SXR with that speaker in the system. (A review of that excellent speaker
will be coming next month or so). My digital set up changes more
regularly, but I do most of my critical listening on vinyl anyway. Even my
psychiatrist wishes I could be as stable in my psychological life as my
audio system has been.
Mike Latvis told me before we installed the SXR that he
was hoping to achieve results equal to those of the M1R but just shy of
the reference level MXR. There was no way, he felt, which given the
modular nature of the design that he could hope to achieve results that
equaled his state of the art design. For the first half of the review
period, I listened exclusively with the SoloVox speakers. I employed the
Aspara’s for the second half of the review period.
More and more often I hear audiophiles and reviewers
alike insisting on two claims that strike me as false. The first is that
as they advance in design, good solid state and tube designs are more and
more alike. Their sound is converging and differences between them are
harder to identify. The second is that as digital improves the sound of
digital and analog gets closer and closer, and once again they are
sounding more alike than different.
Both claims are false which is not to say that those who
make them are making assertions in bad faith. They are hearing correctly.
The problem is that the lack of differences they hear are artifacts of
contemporary speaker design — or so I venture. Most modern speakers are
designed in ways that result in an overwhelmingly homogenizing effect. To
my ears, music struggles to make its way out of a modern speaker. Even 'open’
speakers sound constipated by comparison to highly efficient speakers. The
music sounds like it is working overtime just to get from the source to
your ears.
If you don’t believe me, and you may well not, sit
yourself in front of a pair of super high efficiency (and I don’t mean
90dB sensitive; I mean 100dB sensitive loudspeakers — I would suggest
something like the Latours or the Aspara, something full range and very
well designed) and listen to analog and digital; tube and solid state. The
difference is palpable in every way. The first time I noticed the extent
of the difference between analog and digital — and I mean excellent
digital (the Reimyo CD player being my source at the time) was when I
first put the SoloVox speakers into my system.
Just yesterday I was visiting Matt Rotunda at Pitch
Perfect audio in San Francisco. We spent about three hours listening to
music at his incredible salon through the Latour loudspeakers. We listened
almost exclusively to vinyl: lots of mono and some stereo. Then we
listened to digital for a while and the immediacy was lost, the music
retreated and became less accessible. Neither of us could wait to return
to vinyl. We ended the session by Matt playing an LP of a new soul/funk
band he has grown attached to. After the side ended, I turned to him and
said, "Good music, but I’ll bet that was mastered from a digital
recording," and he agreed. We looked; it was. This is not a matter of
anything as pretentious as 'golden ears.’ All but the deaf can hear the
differences; and even they might.
So above nearly all else I favor unrestricted engagement
with the music: immediacy, accuracy of tone and instrumental and vocal
timbre, resolution in the sense of coherence and completeness, and dynamic
realism. I have no attachment to the visual artifacts of music
reproduction though I understand their seductiveness to some: soundstaging
and imaging are not high on my list.
What I can say is that the SXR equipment rack is
essential to bringing out the best in my system. It eliminates smearing. I
hear the finest details and nuances. The bass is taut and immediate. I
hear exactly what Shindo products are designed to create. The music has
flow; the timing is musically appropriate; above all else, the sound is
present without ever being in my face. Every other rack I have had in my
system is tonally deficient by comparison. The best of these have
tightened and deepened the bass response, yet tend to shifting tonal
balance to a brighter and artificially energetic top end. The worst have
just slowed everything down: taken the life out of the music, added pounds
around its midsection and loosened the music’s grip on me.
I cannot judge whether the SXR surpasses the performance
of the M1R in my room. My subjective judgment is that it at least equaled
the performance of the earlier design. It does so at a very reasonable
cost in a package that is infinitely flexible and modular, whose looks are
more suitable to my current aesthetic preferences. I just love it; and
needless to say, I bought it. Indeed, I bought two of them.
If you have a serious investment in audio equipment, you
really need to invest in a high end equipment rack. It is the only way to
improve the performance of all of your components and if you spread its
total costs over each of your components, it turns out to be a pretty
reasonable investment on a per-component basis. In fact, it may be the
least expensive insurance you can purchase for your system: insurance in
the sense of not merely protecting your investment but as a way of
insuring you get the best out of the system as a whole. An equipment rack
should not be an after-thought. After all, a bad one or a piece of
furniture with no resonance or vibration control properties can actually
undermine your investment.
I am in no position to say that HRS is the very best
audio equipment rack. I have not heard them all; and I certainly have not
heard them in my system. And different racks may well work very well with
some systems and not necessarily with others. But…
You want to look for a rack that is based on well
confirmed principles of mechanical engineering. The physics of resonance
and vibration control is not mysterious. The physics can be implemented in
a number of different ways, however, and the extent of noise control
effected accordingly.
What I can say is this: Mike Latvis, the chief engineer
and President of Harmonic Resolution Systems is a first rate engineer. His
designs are creative implementations of sound physical principles. He is
also a very imaginative production manufacturer. The SXR is amazing for
its simplicity and flexibility. It isn’t an inexpensive product, but the
manufacturing and the R&D behind it more than warrants the price.
Better still, the performance more than warrants the price. Plus, if you
are like me and don’t like to change out equipment once you have founds
a system that speaks to you, you will never have to replace your SXR with
another rack. You can add to it as you like, however. If you are not like
me, and you like to change equipment, well go right ahead. You can switch
out equipment as you like and be comforted knowing that whatever new
components you add will perform well in the SXR equipment stand. That’s
what designing on sound principles will insure.
One last thing: I have had the pleasure of knowing a
number of folks in the audio industry. The casual audiophile may be
surprised to learn how many of them are really good people, and not just
passionate about their products. No one I have met is a better 'guy’
than Mike Latvis. He is great at customer service. He will talk with
anyone who wants to know about his products or about resonance control in
general for hours — and he will do so patiently and never with
condescension.
If his experience or testing indicates that one of his
products is not optimal for your set-up he will tell you so. For example,
he bought a Shindo Monbrison preamp for his own use, then opened it up to
see how Shindo dealt with vibration control. He determined that Shindo had
adopted a rarely used but well known approach that led to a certain
voicing of the product that his dampening devices, which work well for a
majority of standard chassis designs, would likely not work well with any
Shindo preamp. And as a result he told me that while the racks would
likely work very well with my Shindo gear none of the component specific
products that he made would.
Mike
Latvis is more concerned to raise the visibility and reputation of his
sector of the audio business than he is to have his products labeled 'the
best.’ He feels his business will thrive the more he helps to legitimate
what serious designers of audio racks can accomplish. He wants to help
separate the real engineers from the snake oil salesmen. He figures that
everyone will do better and benefit once audiophiles and music lovers both
realize that a well designed equipment rack is not just a piece of
furniture but an important part of an audio system. This good will and
sense of decency has served him well. The fact that he continues to create
and manufacture superb products like the SXR doesn’t hurt either.
Specifications
Type: High-end equipment rack
Product and Prices as Reviewed
SXR-1921-4V dimensions are 27.2"width x 40.0"height x 19"depth (dimensions based on 8" component spacing). The frame price is $4995. The frame has a weight of approx 130 lbs. The system weight with four M3-1921 Isolation Bases is approx 340 lbs. The M3-1921 Isolation Bases have a price of $2395 ea.
SXR-1719-4V dimensions are 25.2" width x 40.0" height x 17" depth (dimensions based on 8" component spacing). The frame price is $4795. The frame has a weight of approx 120 lbs. The system weight with four M3-1719 Isolation Bases is 290 lbs. The M3-1719 Isolation Bases have a price of $2100 ea
Company Information
Harmonic Resolution Systems
2495 Main St, Suite 355
Buffalo, New York 14214
Voice: (716) 873-1437
Fax: (716) 873-1434
E-mail: info@avisolation.com
Website: www.avisolation.com