confused about equipment racks


I have been considering either a commercial or a DIY rack for my components.
The problem is do you isolate or couple?
I'm good with speaker spikes which couple the speaker to the house.
But what about a CD player? Isolate? Couple to something massive? Why do I read about Maple butcher block?
I've read about people who swear tennis balls are good. Others use hockey pucks or handball balls, whole or cut in half.
Steel shot, lead shot, cat litter and a host of 'custom' ($$$$) products to fill tubing.
All sorts of weird (to me) theories about resonance / damping / microphonics and related phenom.

Any opinions or stuff I can READ to try to straighten this out. Please, not too much advertiser hyperbole.

thanks in advance::
magfan
You’d be pleasantly surprised at how inexpensively you can have a metal fabrication shop build a rack to your specifications. With the money you save, you can go crazy to invest in the likes of Finite Elemente, Gingko, Black Diamond, Vibracone, Aurios, Stillpoints, and/or maple slabs to isolate or couple at will. Drill half inch holes, fill it with whatever you want, epoxy over the holes, spray paint it, and you’re good to go.
I believe in coupling the rack and decoupling the equipment(electronics).Check the "web" for 3/4" brass threaded rods and associated hardware,then decide on shelf material (min:2").I used wood-very easy to work with.
Just as I thought.
No consensus, plenty of choices from DIY to stratospheric.

Not as 'hot button' as say... cables / interconnects or powercords, but still lots of variability.

I will watch this thread for some more info, than go with my DIY plan, which apparently is quite unlike most of what I see.
Hi Magfan. The below thread has a lot of discussion of a DIY "flexi" rack design, with some discussion of different materials. John

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1158841915&openmine&zzJdoris&4&5#Jdoris
Hi.

This is the best article I know of, per your request to read something: 1995 Stereophile's "Bad Vibes" article http://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index.html

You would probably benefit from reading it a few times over several days to let all the info sink in and start putting together a "strategy".

I hope it helps.