homeade equipment racks?? opinions?

While not exactly the same design, you might be able to find some worthwhile tips in these two threads. Sean
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http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1001889380&read&keyw&zzthreaded=rod

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/general/messages/201048.html

I would also recommend you take a look at the 'Ikea Lyte' rack noted in the Audiogon thread that Sean refers to. Haven't made one myself, but I have been considering it for some time now. Seems like a very nice and sensible design.

You know, everytime that I thought that I could build something cheaper/better, I haven't. The material costs keep creeping up and the quality....well, I am not a manufacuturing plant and I tend to rush things a little. I was always the one who was painting the model cars before the glue dried on the parts when I was a kid :}
I have since just "bought" what I needed and it has saved me time/headaches/redo's.... but then, that's just me :)

I built my own rack (TNT Flexy clone). It's nice an rigid and keeps my gear off of te floor. -That's about all I can say about it. It doesn't help the sonics on bit.

I am using a homemade rack, 1 1/2" metal square stock for the main structure and 1" square stock for the shelving. The biggest difference of homemade racks is the materials use for the shelving. I have tried wood, acrylic, and glass. Glass has been my choice of platform on top of acrylic. The thickness of any material will also make a difference to the sound quality as well. Experiment and have fun.

I do agree if materials are not available to you, It's well worth the $$$ to buy a real rack!

Here's another recommendation for the IKEA Lyte rack. I built one for my turntable set-up and am very happy with the results. I am far from a DIY kind of guy, but the instructions provided by Ken Lyon in that thread are detailed and meticulous, and it was very easy to assemble. I "cheated" somewhat by ordering the spikes from Parts Express instead of grinding them myself, but I was still able to get out for well under a hundred bucks, all materials included.

By the way, toward the end of that thread, one of the posts indicates that the IKEA table legs are now hollow and that plugs have to be made when they are cut to size. However, when I ordered the tables just a couple months ago, I found the legs to be solid, making the job easier than I expected.

The rack is light, rigid, reasonably attractive, and very inexpensive.

Good luck.

I too made an IKEA Lyte rack, using their $10 "Lack" end tables and spikes from PartsExpress. Turned out successful, even though my woodworking skills are limited. Feel free to email me for a photo of the result.

on a cautionary note, wall mounts typically work much better on solid supporting walls than on floppy internal walls. I was going to try something similar to the above idea until someone more experienced thankfully talked me out of it. The problem is that the whole wall shakes along with sound vibrations esp. at low freq's; these walls do move a lot more than you might think. 3 dimensional isolation such as Vibraplane, Airhead, Seismic Sink etc. may permit you to do this with more satisfactory results.

Thanks much for the input... the IKEA sounds like a no-brainer given the low cost, and I'll definitely report the results once I've got it assembled- JC