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Any good recommendation for a decent audio rack with cable management and with isolation control without breaking the bank? I need atleast 5 shelves, running tube gear and ss. Please provide links, thanks again!
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How about Lovan rack? you can look at www.rackandstand.com
If you decide to use Lovan rack, I would recommend the following:1/ skip the factory MDF boards. You usualy have to pay for them separately, and you pay an arm and a leg for bunch of cheap, crappy, 3/8" thick MDF boards. For about the same price, you can probably get nice solid maple boards or granite cut to your specification. Shop around as prices varies quite a bit. I got quotes from $150 to $500 for three (3) pieces of 3/4" thick granite. The best place to shop for granite is your local granite shops that caters to the kitchen countertop. They usually have a pile of cutouts (for sinks) lying around the shop. They'll sell them to you for cheap. The trick is to find thick pieces and then ask them to cut it to the dimensions you want. They will charge extra if you want the edges polished.
2/ use a glue gun and seal the gaps around each of the legs and then fill them with sand or lead shot.
3/ Because I replaced a few with granite, I ended up double stacked the existing MDF boards and use a vibration damping sheet in between. The "sandwiched" contraption actually works half way decent.
FrankC
18x24x3" granite surface plates are only about $125 delivered. I use them for my TT base.Jim N
Second thought:I would probably go with 2" or 3" thick maple wood with feet, and put it on the floor. timbernation.com is a good place to look at. I believe there are other places too. Or look at A'gon for Sblin stand, but it's a bit pricey.
Hmm, sounds good to me but is granite a good isolation option. Was told that it was not, same as glass. Wood especially maple works well but I am no expert. Thanks!
Yes, I forgot to mention that I use sandwiched method for the granite as well. Two sets of granite/maple board with a sheet of vibration absorption vinyl in between (for turntable and CD transport). The other one just have a vibration absorption vinyl taped to the bottom side. (for DVD player)
Iso...
Iso who?...
Iso frustrated by vibration in my system.
OK, its early here and I'm still on coffee...
Yes, granite rings and is far too dense for many people as its loading mass into an area where you might not want it.
On the other hand if you damp it by gluing it to something else you can use it effectively.
And it looks nice.
Personally I wouldn't under-rate the feeling of having a very nice looking rack in a nice room when you want to feel good and listen to music.
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!
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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