How important is an audio rack?

Jaxwired, to say there is no impact of racks is ridiculous, but I agree that to spend more on the rack than the speakers is ill advised.

To say hi end racks don't work period and solid state electronics can't benefit at all from isolation or vibration reducing tweaks is insane. You probably never tried I'm going to try and remember these names so I can never take anything they say about audio on this forum seriously.

Ejlif - if you start that now you are going to have a long list of names! :-)

It is much easier to set down the names of those who do know something; saves a lot of paper or electricity also. Whatever you place your gear on has an effect on sound quality; as do various suspension devices. I demonstrated this to a couple of skeptical friends recently. A simple method is to separate the responses of those who have actually tried something from the ones who "KNOW" in advance what would happen. Many companies do their best to isolate their products from mechanical vibration; my Naim Superline's circuitry rests on springs for isolation; some of Conrad Johnson's preamps do something similar; external crossovers are generally conceded to give the best sound. All good racks and isolation devices do is to apply damping externally rather than internally. Unlike some audio accessories it is quite easy to make measurements of vibration; that such vibrations have no affect on sound quality is simply as assumption that is contradicted by the experience of many of us.

I in fact use, and was a dealer for, the Star Sound rack that Studiosoundman refers to. I don't feel that this biases me terribly as 1. I have never sold any and 2. they are not currently being produced. They are quite effective but there are many others which use various methods of construction which work as well. My Linn LP12 sits on an old Russ Andrews Torlite stand which proved better FOR IT than the TT shelf of my rack [just as Linn predicted it would]. Either high mass or low mass stands can work if they are properly designed and built. I was using slate platforms under my TTs in the early 80s so I was an early adapter of vibration control. If you are into DIY there are many effective possibilities out there.