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The following equipment review appeared in The April, 1998 issue of Bound for Sound magazine. The Arcici Air Head Equipment Rack (Suspense) A stately, even majestic looking equipment rack if there ever was one. Seldom does equipment reach the status of "art", but in this case, the combination of redwood, black formed metal, and clear acrylic, make for a stunning appearance in a clean "art deco" package. The main attraction here, however, is not the striking appearance or the designer looks, but the unique use of air bladders to support and suspend audio electronics. At the top of this four shelf rack is a redwood box filled with four rubber innertubes.Upon the innertubes sits a steel metal plate of considerable weight, and upon that plate sits an acrylic damper that keeps the metal plate from ringing - and it really works. Now this is where it gets tricky. Suspended from the steel plate are four rods, one at each corner. The rods are inserted through round holes in the plate and then hang a good forty-eight inches down below the plate. These rods are the supports for four clear acrylic plates, each one almost three-quarters of an inch thick. The air bladders are therefore supporting five shelves, one above the bladders and four below. The arrangement is at once beautiful and uniquely effective at isolating and supporting line level equipment. It has long been my assertion that for an air bladder system to be effective, air pressure in the bladders must be relatively high, and the suspended weight must be substantial also. In other words, soft mushy bladders supporting lightweight components don't work. |
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On more than one occasion I have experienced dissipated highs and reined in dynamics with lightweight components sitting upon under inflated rubber tubes of various types. Arcici has taken care of part of the problem by placing the steel plate upon the bladders. I couldn't weigh the steel plate, for that required taking the entire unit apart; an educated guess would be a free weight of about ten to fifteen pounds. It's a guess of course, but you get the message. As I said above, the bladders suspend four shelves of clear acrylic. These shelves are free to swing to and fro, a design aspect that is probably a sonic positive. I measured the lateral resonance (rate of swing) and came up with approximately 2.5 Hz. Remember, that's the lateral resonance, and a very fine figure 2.5 Hz is, for that spec when it comes to isolation. The vertical resonance is somewhat more problematic to measure in that it is variable depending on how much air is in the four bladders. That's where the listening comes in. To a certain extent, the Arcici is a giant tuning device capable of changing the sound of the system depending on the amount of air in the bladders. But that leaves out an important variable in the formula - the weight of the components. The components weigh down the bladders, and the general rule is that the more the components weigh, the better they sound. Of course, it doesn't make sense to go overboard in this regard, but with a lightweight component, it's a good idea to use a little ballast to give it some mass. The set-up method I found to work the best was to put a little air in the bladders, put the components on the shelves and then start the listening process. Add a little air, take a little out, listen and compare. It's not as complicated a process as it may sound, and it may take a total of twenty minutes to get things right. After the Set-up is Complete Compared to some of the other racks on the market, equipment placed upon the Arcici tends to sound smoother, more liquid, and more transparent to the back of the stage. That analysis assumes enough air in the bladders -- too little pressure, and the energy seems to bleed off, the highs attenuate, and the bass goes to blubber. What really impressed me with the Arcici was the added transparancy. Not only was the back wall of many recordings revealed, but multi-vocal harmonies were fleshed out as if veils had been removed. Of course, reviews have claimed to be able to hear every voice in a chorus for years, and that's an accomplishment. But merely hearing every voice is not the same as fleshing out complicated harmoies with tonal color. With this rack, there was simply a blooming of tone and articulation that one seldom hears. In the total scheme of things, maybe this isn't all that important. But hear it, this clarity of tone harmony made clear, and natural detailing, then you realize that your electronics are better than you thought. The Arcici allows one's electronics to excel in many ways; that includes depth of field and image specificity. You will immediately notice the dimensionality; equipment simply seems to image well with this rack. Precision of placement, and the "holographic effect" obtainable with the clamping racks from Michael Green, are not so dominating with the Arcici. Equipment on the Green racks tends to project an image in a picture-like way, the images tend to be very visual in nature. The sonic image projected by equipment on the Arcici was less visual, but more tactile, more intimate, more likely to be felt than seen. I'd like to be more definitive and clearly state in my explanation of how these racks effect the equipment put on them. I'd like to use terms more a part of the normal audio lexicon and more objective in nature. But music doens't always lend itself to easy analysis, and there are times that the reviewer must depend on abstract descriptions to convey an idea that is actually very concrete in nature. That is the case here. Conclusion How is it, that an equipment rack can influence the sound of a system? Even though no electricity and no signal goes trough the rack, every electronic component is a slave to resonance. Music is nothing other than pleasant to listen to vibrations and these vibrations as they fill the environment energize the components themselves. If you think about it, it's a form of mechanical feedback. A well made equipment rack helps control the music made vibrations that in turn excite the resonances that change how a system sounds. First of all, the rack has to be made in such a way so that it doesn't resonate and then pass those resonances on to te equipment. In this way the Arcici excels. Its air bladders, heavy duty damping acrylics, and sturdy construction all keep it from vibrating the equipment - that's half the battle. The other half of the battle is benig a conduit (the diode effect), to bleed off vibrational energy stored in the components themselves. The music played energizes the air in the room, but it also vibrates the components making the music. Being able to run off that energy into the component rack is a plus. As long as the user of the Arcici makes sure that each component is securely coupled to the shelf it sits on (tip toes, cones, spikes, under each component plus a little weight on top of each chassis is the way to go) - energy picked up by the electronics can be absorbed by the rack. The end result is a component rack capable of getting the best from any given piece of equipment. Your gear will exhibit previously unheard tonal density and color. Dynamics will be similarly enhanced. But remember, ideally the rack isn't adding anything to the music. All a well designed equipment rack does is allow equipment to perform at its optimum, and with the Arcici optimum can be eye-opening. - Bound for Sound, April, 1998 Dec. '98 Addendum (and further analysis of the Suspense) I liked it then, but this month, I like it even more, and for that reason, the rating is being upgraded and corrected. It's like this. My initial review was based on my experience using the Arcici with digital equipment. That's what I use now, and for the most part, that is what more audiophiles are using too. But as that review was going out the door I had reason to install my modest analog system, A/B some vinyl against their CD counterparts. How the CD compared to the vinyl isn't important. What's important is how my Revolver record playing system sounded when perched upon the Arcici Suspense Rack. In the past, I've always used a Bright Star Big Rock, placed upon sand filled Sound Anchor speaker stands; the combo weighs in around two hundred pounds. And the performance associated with that combiation has always been everything I could ask for. I did not expect the Arcici to be an improvement over what I was using...but it was. I'm tempted to say that the Arcici is an analog lover's dream come true. Just how far I can go in endorsing analog "aid to playback" I do not know. After all, I'm not the world's biggest vinyl fan. But what my Revolver turntable with a Grado cartridge was capable of donig with the Arcici came as a complete surprise. All I can remember thinking upon that first sound test was that my Revolver was sounding like a Forsell Air Force One done right. Well, maybe it was a little short of that, but when something is locked-in, it sounds that way, it has a natural "rightness" about it that cannot be mistaken. I felt that I had that with the Bright Star, and probably did, but the Arcici is capable of something beyond good, or even great. At this time I'm calling the Arcici "Exceptional", and it shall be rated accordingly. But this is a story that is yet to be completed. The more I experiment with the Arcici, the more I learn about it. Small variations in air pressure make a difference, so varying the air pressure among the four bladders does some interesting things, as does using ballast in the form of frame weights on the top shelf, as well as the four hanging shelves. There are so many things one can do with this rack, and it's great because everything works wonderfully well right out of the box; but as you work with it, it just gets better and better. - Bound for Sound, December, 1998 PO Box 272, New York, NY 10024 Phone: (212) 579-4352 |