Why?
That’s the question that many will ask about the new Grand Prix Monza equipment rack, prices for which start at $19,000 for a four-tier, 42"-tall rack and can even stretch to $29,500 for my review sample, which comprises a double-width, fourtier, 42"-tall rack (two side-by-side stacks of four shelves each) with two matching Monza amp stands. Why spend all that money when a solid oak table, built-in shelving, or Great Aunt Tillie’s antique cabinet might do the trick?
Alvin Lloyd, owner/designer of Grand Prix Audio, has an answer for you. “Much like room acoustics, you need to have the fundamentals, and a good stand is a fundamental,” he said during an in-person interview after he had set up, in my dedicated music room, the support system described above.
“If you bought your rack early, as you assemble your system, you might save yourself a lot of money because you could better hear what each piece of equipment and your cables are doing. But people tend to buy it last because it doesn’t directly make sound.
“Our products are based on Newton’s law of equal and opposite that no one has gotten around. Energy will go where it’s going to go, in both directions. Whatever energy is not completely absorbed, ie attenuated, is going to turn around and come back in again. If you’re trying to construct something that efficiently moves energy through something that has very little mechanical impedance—something that’s very stiff and strong—it will be very inefficient. Although a little bit of energy will get wasted as it moves through, the rest will just zip through it, turn around, and come right back again. That’s why we use materials to dampen vibration, the primary one being Sorbothane viscoelastic.1 They are essential.”
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