Hi End rack really deliver?

Haven't read all the posts here, but I'll chime in for a quick second to say that racks definitely influence sound.

I've never owned a nice rack, but I used to have my system on a cheapo tv unit... Moved it to another cheapo Ikea tv stand...the thing looked nice, but was hollow on the inside. Well, wouldn't you know it, the system took on a 'tubby', 'hollow' sound coinciding w/ the rack on which the equipment was sitting. Upon switching everything back to the old rack, everything snapped back into place audibly speaking. I further experimented by putting equipment on tempered glass and lo and behold, the system took on a bit of a sharper edge.

I am a firm believer that the item on which equipment rests influences its sound character beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Yes, isolating one's components, reducing vibrations is very important.

Semi. The Adona shelves are made of combination of MDF material joined with granite. Yes, they are solid, but also scientifically enginered (check out their website). I'm not financially in your leauge. I've heard what the Grand Prix's can do and I would buy them in a heartbeat, but the $1000 I spent was well worth it for the Adona rack. Good listening, Jeff L

You bet you can hear the difference!

I went with the Mapleshade solid 4inch thick maple racks. The difference was far from subtle. If I had to quantify my gains in percentage basis I would say somewhere between 10 to 20 percent better depending upon which individual characteristic your talking about. It was literally jaw dropping how much better it sounded than sitting on a concrete floor and a mediocre salamander rack.

When I switched to the Copulare racks, http://www.copulare.de/english/home.html I found that the music was more intimate, more detailed and the bass more solid, all of this was missing on my ad-hoc home made wood platforms. I was balancing the edge between the Finite Element and the Copulare, until Mr. Copulare came to my house personally and let me test several products, and lelft them with me for about 2 weeks to experiment, well I was sold after that.

V/r
Audioquest4life

The fact is, any type of rack system with good decoupling, good damping and offering a somewhat solid build will be a benefit then a standard piece of granite on cinder blocks or pieces of Ikea cutting boards on cinder blocks, not exactly what I had before, but close, haha. I still like the looks of the Finite Element stuff and might experiment with the amp stands to compare to the Coppulare.

There is no doubt in my mind that a good rack will upgrade the quality of what the listener is hearing in better details, accuracy and lower backgroud noise. Then of course, you can further experiment with spikes, anti-coupling absorbers and the like until you go crazy.