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Removing distortion is always only good. Take the same drivers and crossover components and merely upgrade from a resonant to a mechanically inert loudspeaker cabinet. Need I say more? Now mount the crossover into its own sub-enclosure to protect it from the high SPLs inside the speaker box. Now decouple especially capacitors with viscoelastic pads from however they're presently attached to the enclosure. Each step nets clearly audible dividends in clarity, intelligibility and time-domain cleanliness. Waterfall plots confirm this with faster mechanical settle times and less ringing.


This is exactly what also happens to components atop the Equa rack. Though our cautious predictions left the door open for certain negatives to manifest that were previously masked by mechanical intermodulations, actual experience shows the opposite. The audible results of addressing these vibration distortions are 100% positive. No liabilities! Brightness and harshness minimize or disappear altogether even though transients do become significantly more defined. Bite and zing of harmonics get sweet, especially notable on the complex actions of strings either plucked or bowed. Their layered events -- the initial physical contact of thumb, plectrum, nail or bow; the subsequent metallic response of the string; the response of the soundboard to which the string is attached; then the resonance of the cavity to which the soundboard is mounted -- no longer clump together by fuzz, blur and echo. They separate out. This makes string players and percussive events in general so much more realistic. You can literally see what's happening. It's instant, tactile and obvious.


It turns out that many evils blamed on unnatural resolution -- the popular whipping boys are hyped highlighting and edging -- are at least partially if not predominantly or completely the result of mechanical aspects. What else to think when one significantly isolates individual components from mechanical crosstalk and hears resolution going up while listenabilty and so-called musicality don't go into the toilet but skyrocket simultaneously? This begs the obvious question. Since EquaRack and competing solutions cannot prevent individual components from infecting the signal passing through them with self-generated mechanical distortions, what would happen if the same sound principles of vibration isolation/control were applied to electronics manufacture? Active components more often than not are housed in flimsy metal chassis with flexing circuit boards, humming transformers and vibrating capacitors. Cables suffer resonance problems as well, easily confirmed when you can feel bass pulses in your hand by tightly gripping your speaker cables. It you feel the heartbeat of your snake, there's a clear mechanical problem. Opportunity is pregnant then to systematically apply the true science of vibration isolation to electronic circuits and the enclosures that house them. Once such efforts commence in widespread earnest, we should expect further significant improvements that will all benefit our hobby.


But here's the deal for now. Vibration control in audio is still in its infancy just like performance cables were a few decades ago. While highly effective stands and platforms do exist now, their target audience at large remains either entirely ignorant of their existence, unconvinced of their contributions and/or belabors their cost. Serious endeavors in this genre are mixed up with rip offs and all manner of tuning products that work in entirely unpredictable ways. It's still a jungle out there. Most audiophiles feel uncertain about their personal abilities to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Now add that even professional reviewers seem disinclined on a whole to educate themselves sufficiently on the subject. They cannot distinguish between real engineering and BS either to conduct credible performance reviews on those products that truly matter.


It's a lot of work to be sure. Plus, anyone going gonzo on "unthinkable improvements" looks like a buffoon who's either been hoodwinked by swallowing a bunch of syrupy marketing hooey or has somehow gotten paid off to say things that are simply out of proportion. At least that's still the overriding perception. Until this genre of devices makes further inroads into public consciousness and the press to formulate clear rules of engagement (i.e. what is really required to make such devices work in predictable ways), confusion reigns. This very confusion enables charlatans to continue plying their trade. Their presence undermines the credibility of this sector and delays performance-driven audiophiles from investigating it seriously. Those are the precise reasons why I've spent significant virtual ink in today's review on generalities. Hopefully it will shed some light -- even if only of the pale reflected lunar kind -- on this contentious subject.


Comparisons. Despite more accurate weight matching (Grand Prix Audio's Sorbothane pads come in ca. 8 rather than the 3 lbs increments of the blue pills); perhaps by virtue of very similar broadband attenuation performance (impossible to quantify since EquaRack doesn't possess this information themselves); the above described effects were essentially identical with both stands. The difference of metal versus composites for the cross members adds variables that must offset the greater exactitude of load matching. Comparisons of electronic components often manifest as frequency domain shifts (more or less bass, emphasized or recessed midrange). This type of difference did not come into play between the Monaco and Model A. After all, everything I've described are effects of lowering the mechanical noise floor the signal passes through. This means minimized interactions, between the passing signal -- still in the electrical domain -- and the one that's emanating from your loudspeakers and already has been converted into the mechancial/acoustical domain. Naturally, these two forms of the same signal are offset in time if only by the most minute (actually, nanosecond) amount. By the time your loudspeakers produce sound, the electronic upstream signal has already changed. You do not want these two signals to meet and somehow interact and in the process, change. That's the whole brunt of the isolation concept after all. Let each component speak with its own voice without getting drowned out or influenced by the others to change its tune.

Both racks clearly operated in the same domain. They did the exact same thing just as they should if the science behind their designs was real. It simply came down to a matter of degree. How much of it did each do? They were actually astoundingly similar though small differences remained, in an area I did not expect: tone and texture. Picking "Gypsy Soul" by Talisman, a life cut of extremely virtuoso Russian trio playing between violin, guitar and button accordion [Russian Gypsy Fire, ARC Music 1789] and then "Tabor" which adds vocals, the Monaco made things sound a bit fleshier or wetter, to stay with a vacuum tube type descriptor. The Model A's backgrounds were perhaps even quieter still but texture and tone were drier by way of the same gesture. In the realm of dynamic peaks, the Monaco might have led by a small margin but this was very hard to reliably confirm.
If I was to wear my old marketing hat, I'd say the EquaRack had a small edge in clarity factor™ while the Monaco countered with somewhat higher tone factor™. That's the gist of this whole review right there. I cannot affix any other meaningful differentiators. I can also only speculate as to the reasons for the subtle distinctions, likely a slightly different score of attenuation effectiveness over different frequency bands. If you subtracted more or less mechanical distortion in, say the 80-160Hz range versus the 1,000-4,000Hz band, you'd expect differences in tone. Perhaps. This is the cause/effect domain I hinted at earlier. It becomes exceedingly elusive to verify here, especially when no hard accelerometer measurements are provided.

Curious how much the isolation bearings underneath the Consonance Droplet CD player contributed, I substituted the combination mounts for the simple viscoelastic ones. Needless to say, the top-loading CDP 5.0 is one massive ovoid bugger who cleverly avoids the usual rectangular box. A nearly 3" thick wooden base built up of staves and a 1" thick aluminum top plate sandwich the circuitry between them. This unusual construction could be considered a worst-case scenario to test between the two different EquaRack mounts. One would expect the largest differences with a player of flimsier makeup, not one this stout and organically shaped. Would preconceived notions bear out?
Affirmative in this instance. With the bearings below the stand already handling lateral isolation against floorborne vibrations, the upper bearings (presumably most efficacious against airborne vibration attacks) made no difference I could discern. This leads me to believe that their true usefulness lies with turntables and perhaps CD or DVD players of less overbuilt makeup than the $3,000 Consonance player.


In conclusion, EquaRack's 4-tier Model A performs very competitively against one of the known class leaders, Grand Prix Audio's Monaco. (How much more performance potential remains untapped in the Monaco with more Carbon/Kevlar upgrade shelves and using the Apex footers between shelves and components I don't know. It's not something I've experimented with to date.) Solutions by HRS, Finite Elemente, Silent Running and Racks of Silence were not in my arsenal to include in the tests. Regardless, based on the Model A's showing here, it seems only fair to include it in this shortlist of serious contenders by the industry leaders in vibration isolation.


One particular strength of the EquaRack approach is endless modularity and thus adaptability to component upgrades and system changes over time.
In this admittedly still emerging and thus presently still esoteric category of true performance racks, Joe Ciulla has now strongly etched his name next to those few who were already featured on the brass plaque that guards the gate to the inner sanctum. Audiophiles who are considering in favor of EquaRack over other available solutions can rest assured that they're playing in the top league and simply handpicked an iteration that serves their aesthetic and functional needs best. If capitalism is ultimately about choices, our kind just got a new choice to add to a mere handful. For a new kid on the block, that's perhaps the highest praise possible. So welcome EquaRack as the latest serious entry in the high-performance audiophile component support category. Bravo, this confusing sector really needed that!


PS: The concept of matching a load to the spring rate of a viscoelastic is vital in this context. Had I not replaced my old and worn Sorbothane pads with fresh and properly matched ones, the Model A would have clearly triumphed over the Monaco. I deliberately tried that experiment because it was easier to mismatch with the GPA stand. It takes three simple viscoelastic pads rather than multiple blue pellets. Another factor is material fatigue. It's something Sorbothane in the durometers as employed by GPA clearly suffers. When viscoelastics harden over time, they no longer function optimally and should be replaced. With regards to the life expectancy of EquaRack's blue material, its manufacturer states that in-house testing and 30-year experience in the field show stable performance without performance degradation over easily 15 years so it doesn't seem to be an issue for our audio application.
EquaRack comments:

Dear Srajan:
I commend you for making the considerable investment of time and effort in conducting this very thorough and insightful review. Your comprehensive and detailed reporting provides a rare opportunity for both the manufacturer and your readers. That you are personally committed to elevating the status and perception of the review process is abundantly clear.

I am particularly delighted that you are a fervent believer in the importance of vibration control and the essential importance of de-mystifying the underlying fundamentals of this science.

I worked very hard to develop what I believe to be the very finest vibration control systems and products offered today. I am therefore extremely appreciative of your findings and comments in this review!

I would hope those reading this evaluation may anticipate a similar level of performance from the use of my products with their own components.

Accordingly, I would be remiss if I did not convey my belief that my system was likely under-utilized by the components in this review, despite the very positive outcome. I take this position because of the unusual construction of the test components - namely, the 3-inch thick wooden plinth of the Consonance cdp and the wooden 'box frame' of the Déjà Vu amplifier.

My Multi-Mounts provide components with weight-optimized isolation from rack-borne vibration and damping of both component-generated and air-to-component vibratory energy. This is the hallmark of my system and what differentiates it from all competitors. But, the top disc of the Mount must make intimate contact with the typically metal (conductive) chassis of the supported component in order to facilitate expeditious drainage of vibratory energy into the viscoelastic pellets.

The 3-inch thick wooden plinth of the cdp presented a formidable barrier of energy-storing material. Likewise, the wooden frame of the amp upon which the mounts were sited offered similar 'resistance'.

I conclude these apparently fine components were the beneficiaries of the isolation properties of my mounts but they made very little use of the extraordinary damping the Mounts also offer. To the contrary, owners of typical components with metal chassis stand to realize the full potential of the Multi-Mount and the EquaRack system.

I'll close by wishing you the continued success you very much deserve!

Yours Truly,
Joe Ciulla
EquaRack
Manufacturer's website