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December 2008 / January 2009
Superior Audio Equipment Review

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.

 

Harmonic Resolution Systems SXR Equipment Rack With M3 Isolation Bases Unit  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 SXR Equipment Rack With M3 Isolation BasesHarmonic 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:

  1. What is distinctive about the SXR system?
  2. How does it differ from previous racks manufactured by HRS?
  3. How does it compare with those racks, in particular, the M1R with which I have a lot of experience?
  4. How much does it cost?
  5. 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.

Harmonic Resolution Systems SXR Equipment Rack With M3 Isolation BasesThe 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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     
 

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