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Nice bit of furniture?

Mike1965

pfm Member
I have never seen a dedicated hifi stand or rack that I like the look of at reasonable cost. Tony L's table looks great but I have too many boxes to fit so unfortunately not for me though I like the aesthetic. I'm using an old Target TT5 just now with Herbie's Threaded Gliders instead of the floor spikes but I would really like something that doesn't look like it escaped from the garage! Any suggestions? Budget is under £500 but all ideas are welcome.
 
I recently worked with a local furniture maker to build a bespoke hi-fi/AV stand. I wrote up my basic idea of what I wanted, he came back with a sketch which was "wrong" with regards to what I wrote but we actually quite liked what he came up with. We didn't build in any spikes or usual hi-fi stand stuff (reasoning that if vibration is a problem, I'll just get some Isoacoustics orea/pucks to decouple the gear from the stand). He used block-effect kitchen worktop made from solid oak. The total cost came to a bit over £600.

Unless you can do a bit of wood-working yourself, I recommend that as the most viable route!

Note that in my conversations with him he described how unpredictable wood supplies are right now (as with everything else) and so materials prices can fluctuate a lot. Probably best to stick with oak and try to lock in a price with the furniture maker.
 
What exactly are you attempting to rack? Knowing how many boxes and of what type would be useful.

PS I’d go wide and low over a conventional vertical rack every time. If there’s a turntable I’d consider that a special case and probably buy it a wall-shelf. IME the very last place you should ever put a record deck is on top of a tall mass-loaded equipment rack. Basic physics and all that.
 
At the risk of embarrassing myself with my awful hi-fi placement (there's literally nowhere else it can go) and middling gear, here is our new stand:

hifi-stand.jpg


120cm wide, 40cm deep. Bottom shelf has a 20cm gap, the top one has a 14cm gap. There is also a 4cm gap below the bottom shelf, hidden by a panel, where I tuck away my pesky NACA5 speaker cable. The shelves are attached to the vertical slats on the back and are further supported by the middle partition. The slats are connected above by a horizontal one which holds a VESA TV mounting bracket. That way our TV is a bit further back and away from destructive children (that is our third new TV thanks to our young son's efforts to "reconfigure" the screen...hooray for contents insurance).

Please excuse all the other evidence of children next to my serious hi-fi gear. :cool:
 
Hi Gustav, Is that solid oak? It looks very nice.
I hope your new TV is safe now!
I would probably go for side panels as I have a wee cat that likes chewing cables...
 
Hi Gustav, Is that solid oak? It looks very nice.
I hope your new TV is safe now!
I would probably go for side panels as I have a wee cat that likes chewing cables...

It is solid oak, but "blocked" rather than a single piece of wood.

In my original design that I envisioned, there were legs in the corners but he misinterpreted that, hence the wide-open sides. We were quite taken with this "mistake" and went with it. I really wanted easy access to the backs of the gear, probably just as an extreme reaction to my old furniture. Anyway, in our current setup, the speakers effectively form outer panels for the furniture, so we're nevertheless safe from, say, our newborn starting to explore the cables once he's crawling. My 4 year-old was studiously interested in helping to wire everything up, though, and I have now taught him how to power up the amps. So I'm not so worried about him. No cats at the moment, though.
 


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