The shelf's rating is per cube the same as it is for the Eket, except the Eket
will only hold half the rated weight of the other two. Laying the Kallax or Expedit on their sides defeats the purpose of being screwed from the top not from the sides. The best way for a horizontal 8 cube length is two , 4 cubes placed side by side if not braced from behind or within. Think of how a wall is constructed with a plate across the entire length top and bottom and the outer joists sitting ON and OVER the plates.Take those studs on either end and support them into the ends of the bottom and top plates and the wall is no longer supported at the ends or tied across the full length of it and all those other studs. A Header is useless tied into a kingstud without a jackstud to support the load on its ends. Same principle here. If you stay in the weight the shelf wont deflect and push the ends out which is why having them on their sides makes them fail .I'm NOT knocking the Eket as a choice at all, or stating the Kallax is a better choice, just stating the facts and how to avoid the failure of not setting them up properly and using them within their capabilities. I really like the look of the Eket on those platforms they sell. I have quite a few friends who hate either of them simply because they can't read the spines and/or refuse to alphabetize and sort albums in genre and like to flip through them like the record stores used, so they can see the covers. With a large collection and the space that would take and the absolute need to be rigidly fastened to a wall when weights shift outward, for me makes them impractical.
If I had a smaller, or some might say more sane record collection, I would , space permitting prefer flipping through them covers out.
One of the thriftiest and smartest uses I have seen for storage and audio rack combined was using the Expedits. A friend came up with this idea because of space and finances after a divorce. I thought it was brilliant and the end result
was a good looking , functional and vibration greatly reduced rack and album storage, that saved a lot of time and costs for the end result. He got four of the white Expedit (kallax) units on sale and arranged them side by side along the long wall in his living room. We got a sheet of 12 ft. long by 4 ft. wide no void maple veneered one side ply and I cut it so it ran full length of four units , one piece across top of 4 units and one for bottom. Measured and drilled exactly where each of the 4 long bolts was located on the top and bottom of each piece of ply. Put the bolts back in and 4 units were now a solid single unit you could stand /walk on. I fastened 5 pairs of feet on the bottom from Herbies with the damping and Teflon to slide easy he had bought. Tipped it upright ,wrapped the exposed edges with maple veneer , sealed it and load it up. Room for 800 albums , he has his turntable on a sand box, and integrated tube amp, small footprint phono pre (Graham Slee Reflex) and cd player all sitting on herbies footers I had and were not being used, with monitors toed in and the TV wall mounted . I made him some doors for each individual cube to finish it off , and with the leftover ply 2 shelves either side of his TV wall mounted for his CD's and it looks great, his system sounds great and was really inexpensive for all it does. It put the whole necessity is the mother of invention thing back into perspective again for me in regards to practical vs. how carried away we can get sometimes....
I'm sitting on top of 2 fully loaded Expedits in my living room in the profile pic I added to show, stacked together with my 185 lbs, 400 albums weight, and the weight of a drawer with about a hundred sacd's sitting between the Expedits,.....
I wobble more than the shelf ever will ...
will only hold half the rated weight of the other two. Laying the Kallax or Expedit on their sides defeats the purpose of being screwed from the top not from the sides. The best way for a horizontal 8 cube length is two , 4 cubes placed side by side if not braced from behind or within. Think of how a wall is constructed with a plate across the entire length top and bottom and the outer joists sitting ON and OVER the plates.Take those studs on either end and support them into the ends of the bottom and top plates and the wall is no longer supported at the ends or tied across the full length of it and all those other studs. A Header is useless tied into a kingstud without a jackstud to support the load on its ends. Same principle here. If you stay in the weight the shelf wont deflect and push the ends out which is why having them on their sides makes them fail .I'm NOT knocking the Eket as a choice at all, or stating the Kallax is a better choice, just stating the facts and how to avoid the failure of not setting them up properly and using them within their capabilities. I really like the look of the Eket on those platforms they sell. I have quite a few friends who hate either of them simply because they can't read the spines and/or refuse to alphabetize and sort albums in genre and like to flip through them like the record stores used, so they can see the covers. With a large collection and the space that would take and the absolute need to be rigidly fastened to a wall when weights shift outward, for me makes them impractical.
If I had a smaller, or some might say more sane record collection, I would , space permitting prefer flipping through them covers out.
One of the thriftiest and smartest uses I have seen for storage and audio rack combined was using the Expedits. A friend came up with this idea because of space and finances after a divorce. I thought it was brilliant and the end result
was a good looking , functional and vibration greatly reduced rack and album storage, that saved a lot of time and costs for the end result. He got four of the white Expedit (kallax) units on sale and arranged them side by side along the long wall in his living room. We got a sheet of 12 ft. long by 4 ft. wide no void maple veneered one side ply and I cut it so it ran full length of four units , one piece across top of 4 units and one for bottom. Measured and drilled exactly where each of the 4 long bolts was located on the top and bottom of each piece of ply. Put the bolts back in and 4 units were now a solid single unit you could stand /walk on. I fastened 5 pairs of feet on the bottom from Herbies with the damping and Teflon to slide easy he had bought. Tipped it upright ,wrapped the exposed edges with maple veneer , sealed it and load it up. Room for 800 albums , he has his turntable on a sand box, and integrated tube amp, small footprint phono pre (Graham Slee Reflex) and cd player all sitting on herbies footers I had and were not being used, with monitors toed in and the TV wall mounted . I made him some doors for each individual cube to finish it off , and with the leftover ply 2 shelves either side of his TV wall mounted for his CD's and it looks great, his system sounds great and was really inexpensive for all it does. It put the whole necessity is the mother of invention thing back into perspective again for me in regards to practical vs. how carried away we can get sometimes....
I'm sitting on top of 2 fully loaded Expedits in my living room in the profile pic I added to show, stacked together with my 185 lbs, 400 albums weight, and the weight of a drawer with about a hundred sacd's sitting between the Expedits,.....
I wobble more than the shelf ever will ...
