Rack Advice


Yes it's me again fellow audiophiles and enthusiasts.

Rather than buying and rack stand for my growing audio collection my brother (a professional cabinet maker) has offered to build me one of my own design as my birthday gift. Obviously I know that minimal sides, back, etc are desirable to prevent resonances but I still have some questions concerning materials....

1. What type of wood? Maple, poplar, mahogany, paduc(sp) or some other?
2. Should the rack have spikes for feet?
3. Should the rack be standing on something other than my hard wood floor?
4. Any other advice you may have to offer.

Thanks!

Erik
ndmaitre
1) Maple ,beech and pearwood esp. in marine grade plys are quite good.
2) The support should have adjustable spike provisions at the feet and for decoupled support of the shelving
3) You can achieve greater isolation from vibrations transmitted thru the flooring by placing the rack on a spike isolated subplatform.
4) The major goals should be to make the rack framework as rigid and light as possible rather than the more inuitive heavy,massive and deadened approach.The maple/birch/pear shelving itself will provide the damping means for dissipating internal and airbourne energies and the spikes will minimise transfer of energy passed via the floor and house structure.
correction- 1) should read as maple,BIRCH and pearwood

an edit function would sure be a welcome addition to this board
Ken, we don't need no stinkin' edit function. We just need to make less mistakes : )

Actually, if you go back into the thread and nobody has posted after you, you can go back in and edit the text on your post. You loose the editing function once somebody has responded after you though.

Honestly though, thanks for responding to this thread. I'm still working on my series of "custom modified" racks and the suggestion of woods to use for the shelves will come in handy. These will have to make due until i can scrounge up the cash to look in your direction : ) Sean
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Sean the edit function only works for the dirtydozen. Everything else passes through the moderators & unfortunately those posts do not allow edits/reposting. Log yourself out, then post & you'll see what I mean...
ndmaitre: i quite agree with all the earlier posts re: decoupling, floating, etc. but suggest you scrap the idea of using wood veneered shelves. get some exotic wood for the posts and rails and use a resonance deadening shelf material, such as that available from neuance/greater range, instead. BTW, i do not own ANY neuance shelves but find them to be designed much like the zoethecus ones i do. (i don't recommend zoethecus slabs w/o zoetehecus stands.)
-cfb