Opinions on Glass Shelves

Some will tell you any glass shelf should be avoided.

Some very highly regarded shelving systems including those from Naim and Wilson Benesch use glass shelves.

Unfortunately you will get people on both sides who are convinced those on the other side are clueless. Sorry to be of no help but the effectiveness of things like shelves, footers, etc. are highly dependent on the equipment they will used with.

Buy used and experiment. Have fun.

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If the shelf is "cracked glass", chances are the shelf is a laminated unit of 3 seperate pieces of glass fused together with a clear rubber-like innerliner. The unit is heated in an autoclave to melt the innerliner and fuse the peices together. The "cracked" part would be a piece of shattered tempered glass in the center position. You could justify that the rubber innerliner could have dampening properties but that alone does not assure a good performance.

I have glass shelves in my system and unless I tap pretty hard there is no effect.

Take a look at slate. I believe it to be the ultimate constrained layer material. Sound travels though it slowly, and is actually changed along the way. The downside is its weight, but the payoff is excellent.

Glass reflects sound, and sound travels through granite faster than through water, so I wouldn't choose either of them. They do look nice, and may not actually be detremental.

Then, there is concrete and wood. Depending on the composition, one of them may be decent. Of course, there are the foam composite shelves that are engineered for the task, too.

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I have a Sound Organization rack with glass shelves. I replaced the top shelf with a custom made Neuance shelf for my TT. The other shelves have 12"x12" sheets of asphalt damping material applied to their bottoms. Not a high end rack by any means, but it works reasonably well.