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In Reply to: Audio Rack with isolation? posted by chgolatin2@yahoo.com on February 21, 2007 at 23:28:42:
An inexpensive and oft-recommended DIY design is Ken Lyons' DIY Ikea Lyte rack. Do a search here for comments & details. It doesn't offer "cable management," if by that you mean hiding the cables from view, though you could rig something up.VTI has a rack that's inexpensive and seems to be designed with th same principles in mind as the Ikea Lyte.
Another DIY design is the Flexy rack. There's a recipe at TNT-Audio. Google this to find it.
Target and Apollo racks are ubiquitous, inexpensive, and easy to mod with different shelves, filling with sand, etc.
SolidSteel is another up-and-comer. Their lower-line models look to be a good value. Their higher-line models have been very favourably reviewed.
In any event, used is a good way to go - good values - so check out the Accessories/Stands category over at Audiogon.
These are some good places to start. Hope they help & good luck!
Follow Ups:
My budget is around $200 up to $500 but somewhere in between would be nice lets say $350 or so...
That's a pretty good range, actually, that'll put you in reach of a lot of decent racks. IMO, the structure of the rack's most important. Shelves can always be replaced.Names like Apollo and Target are well-respected. Another one I saw recently that looked promising is the BL-line of VTI racks, with individually spiked shelf sections, though I didn't see a five-shelf version.
StudioTech is inexpensive and decent too. I've used a StudioTech PS-5 myself (if you're interested in it, e-mail me privately).
See my other post to you for sites where you can find these racks.
If you're handy, you might try the DIY route too. It'll cost you considerably less than buying pre-made stands. TNT-Audio's site has the Flexy Rack and Ken Lyon's IKEA Lyte (aka IKEA Lack rack) rack are popular. Personally, I'd go for the IKEA Lyte rack. You have an IKEA right near Chicagoland in fact. Here are a couple o' links to whet your appetite:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1001889380&openflup&11&4#11
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/tweaks/messages/119775.html
http://64.154.92.195/audio/tweaks/messages/41964.html
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=tweaks&n=116313
I needed 5 shelves so I bought the BL 4 shelf rack and added a VTI amp stand to make the 5th layer. It worked fine and I had some custom cones made for it, filled the legs with lead, and used better quality wooden shelves with some sorbothane to decouple from the rack.
Ingenious solution, adding the amp stand to the 4-shelf rack. Good idea to tweak the shelves too. Have any pics to post?How'd that work for you? I'm particularly interested in the lead-filled legs. I've not used one of those racks. In looking at the VTI, it seems of the "light & rigid" school. That makes me think using expanding foam insulation, rock wool, cotton batting, or fiberglass insulation would be the ticket rather than mass-coupling with lead.
I no longer own the rack. A friend of mine saw it and wanted to buy it, so I sold it to him. I now use a rack from pARTicular.Your comments on the lead are interesting. For one thing, the joints at the legs and crossbars are not always sealed properly on the VTI, so lead can escape from the legs into the crossbars. The materials to make the legs and crossbars are also light and not thick walled metal. So perhaps using epoxy, foam insulation, or some other type of filler would be better. I do think the rack would benefit from some weight, so I would probably use epoxe if I had to do it over again. For the decoupling of the shelves from the crossbars I used Herbies black dots. They worked real well. I just used some 1/2" maple for the shelves instead of the flimsy MDF that came with the VTI racks.
I got the cones from Tate who makes Ultrasonic amp stands. The link is below. The other link takes you to my existing rack. It is the 4 shelf version but I don't have the wood trim.
http://ultrasonicusa.com/detail.asp?IDA=39
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