Here's How I Make My Equipment Racks

Thank you for all the detailed information you've provided, Ken. This has been an extremely helpful discussion.

IDEM.

Ken, Thanks for getting back to *ALL* of us : )

I'll take a look at the website that you provided. If their prices are good, i'll be upset that i didn't find them PREVIOUS to buying all of those other racks that i thought were a "rare commodity" : )

How would you feel about using foam "pipe wrap" or "plumbing insulation" tightly wrapped around the threaded rod ? This should:

1) minimize any ringing / vibration transfer along the rod

2) damp room reflections from the rod

3) keep mass to a minimum.

Any thoughts / comments ??? Sean
>

PS... Psychic, what does "IDEM" mean ???

Hi Sean,

I think your pipe wrap idea is a fine one.I hasten to add that you really needn't to cover the entire length tho.
A little damping goes a long ways and quite frankly,I'll bet if you were to audition your Premiers both with and without damped rods in a side by side,you'd find that the differences would be extremely subtle and probably unnoticable in a more casual listening session.
Your biggest enemies are primarily the powerful and distruptive low frequency energies transmitted from the flooring and from the internally generated energies of power supplies and transformers.
I find that while it is beneficial to minimise and control airbourne intrusion,that these types of disturbances are *relatively* benign.The reason for that is that they are typically generated by the music itself and consequently "play in time" and "in tune".
I tend to avoid using extreme measures in controlling those for fear of throwing the baby out with the bathwater by "overdamping".
By this I mean that most conventional damping methods(particularly elastomers) tend to do the bulk of their work over fairly narrow frequency ranges and thus tend to create "hi-fi effects" by fragmenting the musical content.
The *art* involved in resonance control appears to center around creating measures which are extremely broadband and even in their nature so as to most faithfully preserve expression, emotions and meaning.

Best,
Ken

I'm one of those cheap flexi guys though i'd probably have used Ken's ideas as they look better and they would be definitely easier to work than a 4'x8' sheet of 3/4" mdf. To help isolate the rods from the tables i used washers made from Dyno-Mat to go between the matal washers. I also placed sheets of Dynomat on the bottom of the MDF shelves. The rack versitility has been highly benificial as i have set it up 2 shelves wide, and three wide with varied height as home conditions dictate. Is it as good as the high dollar stuff? Don't know but it gives me a good excuse to try making DIY air suspension/mass loading isolation ala bright star. For isolation spikes try threaded field points for arrows (the cone shaped target ones not the razors hunting points.