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In Reply to: Re: Lots of options - what's your budget? posted by chgolatin2@yahoo.com on February 22, 2007 at 07:10:35:
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
Follow Ups:
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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