Why are equipment racks so expensive?

For anyone who cares about how the music actually sounds, I’d recommend you stay away from VTI. They look nice enough, but not well made and the rack rings like a bell.  It will, and I mean WILL change the way your system sounds.

Oz

Ozzy:

I have no first hand experience with the 2 spiked racks I suggested that the OP research.

They were the only two inexpensive "spiked" designs that I came up with on a quick Google search.

The big hitters, when I was researching racks 20 years ago, were Symposium, Systrum (sp?) and Solid Steel.

There's another one as well, but I'm blanking on the name.

My main goal (@ the time) involved adjustable upturned spikes for each shelf and lighter weight (though rigid) construction.

Looking back I really only required the adjustable spikes for leveling the moving parts source gear.

I prefer to use the original footers (or something very close to that) on my TT/CD deck and the Neuance shelves.

I gave up on specialty footers long ago as the various designs SO GREATLY altered the sound/sonic balance of my source gear to the point that my Thorens and CAL were barely recognizable as being Thorens/CAL sound wise.

They were designed with stock footers (Thorens and CAL knew what they were doing, IMO) and the Neuance shelves maintained their "house sound" while @ the same time improving upon it.

My main problem with both units was the bass/midbass, and this was remedied, to my satisfaction, with the addition of properly implemented specialty shelves.

By the way, I used real speakers back then (you know with woofers/tweeters/crossover;-).

DeKay

To add to the audio jewelry quotient that is the high end industry.