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What is the deal with expensive HiFi racks?

I've had a dismantled Sound Organization Z5 sitting in my garage for 15 years. It's a very well built stand, but I stopped using the separates that sat on it years ago. Looks like this...

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Last week, I found the remnants of the Sorbothane sheet I bought 20 years ago to cut up into 1/2" squares for the shelves to rest on :)

IMG_20240515_203536307 (Small).jpg
 
MattHooper said:
Wow, you sure don’t! :)
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coonmanx said:
I don't really do audio racks. Just hooked up this amp and speakers along with a CD player and the crate seems to do the job. LOL.

The other system behind it is mainly for TV sound but it also has a CD player attached. Will probably listen to both of them.

The furniture in the back is from Sauder, the kind of thing you have to assemble. Had that thing forever. Maybe 30 years. I punched holes through the cardboard covering the back so that wiring could go through there.

View attachment 369729
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Plus, chicks really dig that look, playa.
 
When I first built my system I had the Pioneer JA R2 system. I gave the rack to a friend and he let it get away.

When I recently decided I wanted to "rack up" again I looked at the prices of the Pioneers which were typically one to two thousand dollars. There was even a guy in Hungary who was selling what looked like a very nicely made replica (maybe even nicer than the original) but delivered to St. Louis would have been about $1300. My sweet wife said why don't you just buy one. But it just was too much money for me. I didn't agree with the value.

The above referenced Pioneer looks pretty good though I am not sure I would want sides on it. It did allow for good ventilation.

I finally bought some server racks. I cut them down because they were 84 inches tall. I cut them to 48 inches and had them welded up and put some heavy duty industrial glides on them (six). These will render them moveable when full of heavy amps but not scratch my wood parquet floor in the audio room. They are close to what I had with the Pioneer but use standard rack screws which the Pioneer does not.

The glides cost about $75 total and the welding was about $30. The racks were 20-50 on FB marketplace. So maybe $200 total. (rack screws were about $50 for a box.)

I do find the subject of rackage to be very interesting especially when it relates to large extensive systems.
Rack One of Three.jpeg
 
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MaxwellsEq said:
For a university project I had to build an amplifier with very high gain. Despite being totally solid state, it picked up movement and loud speech in the lab!

For normal HiFi gains and sensible listening levels solid state will pick up vibrations, but the levels will be incredibly low and so inaudible.

Turntables are seismometers. Carefully lower the stylus onto a non rotating record and turn up the sound. You will hear all sorts of stuff.

Tubes are made of tiny metal screens in a glass tube and so can also be microphonic.
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In vacuum tubes, microphonics is an issue, especially in high gain small signal stages like phono or mic preamplifiers. In a power amplifier, the effect is much less pronounced, but still possible. Loosely mounted elements in the tube are responsible for the unwanted effect.
 
CapMan said:
So another downside of tubes ;)
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To each his own, I guess. If you don't like them, simply pass them by. There are tons of excellent SS stuff out there. I think that the tube amp is viewed more as a pet than a piece of audio gear. Nothing's too good for my little Fi-fi; do you understand? N-n-n-nothing! Old cars have plenty of downsides and car afficionados still go for them. As for me, I have the excellent Bryston 4B-ST bipolar (I take in in for psychotherapy for that) power amp as well as home-brewed circlotron-style tube power amps, and both work well. The Bryston can completely blow away the tube amps in terms of power, noise and distortion components that are way beyond what the tube amps deliver. Still, the tube ones tickle my nun-handles just fine and can cleanly get louder than I'll ever want, and I gits to gloat "Made 'em muhself!". The downsides of tubes are there, though, and my little puppy piddles on the carpet occasionally, too.
 
I love the "stereo as pet" metaphor.
 
egellings said:
Tube amps, like animal pets, need regular servicing, and that may well be part of their charm.
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hmmm, I should probably feed my animal pet more than once every few years though....
 
J.M. Noble said:
Charles & Ray Eames were icons of 20th Century design (see the much-copied Eames Lounge Chair, still in production, etc). The Eames Storage Unit was supposed to be an affordable modular design that used easily sourced (and for the time, cutting edge) materials, but now it's pricey designer stuff. Modernica makes authentic clones for less, and Etsy has some builders who make near-clones for even less.

In context, the pieces look good but wow would they be awful around a bunch of Chippendale or country-style pieces or whatever. It needs the supporting cast! It's also pretty solid and is reported to work well for turntables & LPs.
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Thank you for the context and information. But in my opinion context doesn't add value to something that is ordinarily ugly or extremely easy to come by. Eames Lounge Chair is a nice design, but sharing the name doesn't add any value to that sloppy box.

That particular piece of plywood; I wouldn't even keep it in my garage if someone gave it to me for free. Even I can design and build something better than that. I really hope Charles & Ray Eames didn't earn their fame with ugly and easy stuff like that one.
 
akamatsu said:
I've experienced very noticeable sound quality improvements by reducing vibration in solid state components.
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I highly doubt it for well designed modern components
 
waynel said:
I highly doubt it for well designed modern components
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One of the testing methods I use for devices requiring re-soldering (amps) is to whack the metal chassis with a 16", #2 screwdriver to determine if there are any intermittent connections and the micro phonics of the units is not at all that concerning.
 
Consumerism exists to convince you to pay your due idiot taxes.
 
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