Stacking power amps mono blocks

Thanks everyone. Seems as I am not the only one struggling with this. Since I do not like the empty shelf in the stand, it look weird with a hole and 8 inch of air. I need to look into one of two options.
1. Move the stereo so I can have one poweramp on each side of the target stand. Preamp on the bottom shelf. Interconnects of 3 ft will work.
2. Buy a stand that can take the ams and maybe has something like a 12 " space between the amp shelves.
Does and amp stand improve the sound? This is too much for me?

Amp stands will improve the sound of most tube amps (I haven't experimented with SS) even top of the line amps. I personally use long speaker cables (Dunlavy to match my speakers). I have my monoblocks side by side with amp stands on top of oak platforms isolated from the floor with inner tubes. There have been several good threads about isolation as well as amp stands.

Abstract, would you please explain? What do you mean by "routed and sandwitched with marbles"? I am thinking of using aluminium tubes of about 2.5 inches for the same purpose. Please enlighten..thanks

I agree that stacking the amps is NOT a good idea in terms of heat dissipation. If the amps are high bias designs, i would recommend appr 8" of free space above them. This lets the heat rise out of them unimpeded. In your case, not only is heat trapped in the bottom amp, what does rise out is only helping to cook the top amp. NOT a good thing in any aspect.

Unfortunately, I can't offer any good suggestions. I was also in that boat but ended up changing racks for similar reasons. Since all of my amps ( except two ) are all very richly biased and run hot, i didn't want then cooking to death. As such, i hated loosing a shelf or having a giant "dead space". To correct this situation, i ended up changing racks. I can now adjust the shelf height on several of my racks. This now gives me the ability to accomodate ANY situation or component AND the looks that i was searching for. Sean
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Detlof: I routed the aluminum plates, just two routes per plate. They are about 3/8" wide and almost as long as the plate, stopping about 1 inch from either end (long being side to side in this case--if that makes sense). Then you have one with the grooves on the top, put two marbles near the ends of each groove, then put the other aluminum plate with grooves downward onto the four marbles. That's my recipe for my aluminum marble sandwitch. As to the concerns of heat dissappation--these concerns are probably correct for tubes or other types of amplifiers which do not have the heat sinks located to the outsides as mine do. Also, the ambiant tempurature and air flow around the units play a significant role. My units are only about 2" separated, which is adequate, although I have been considering increasing the flow under the bottom amplifier. In this situation it's really how much airflow you can get around the heat sinks--how much heat dissapation per hour. With tubes, this is probably much more difficult to accomplish since the heat generating device is located centrally in the amplifier--rather than on the external sides with massive heat sinks. I should have considered this with my original post.