cjf's Blog

heycarlos · August 1, 2012

great project! can you outline the total cost of materials?

cjf · August 1, 2012

Hello and thanks for your interest in the project. Listed below is a cost break down of the components:

$437.16 Maple Butcher Blocks (X2) ---hardwood-lumber.com

$107.60 Cork Yoga Blocks (X8) ---Amazon

$93.97 Granite Surface Plates (X2) ---Amazon

$150.00 Solid Tech Isoclear (X 1 Set) ---Audio Advisor

$350.00 Solid Tech Disks of Silence (X 1 Set) ---Audio Advisor

$65.96 Herbie's Hush Puckies (titanium) (X4) ---Herbies Audio Lab

$129.96 Deluxe Superior Decoupling Spike (X4) ---Herbies Audio Lab

Total $1350 (slightly less than this but rounded up to account for wood stain materials)

If you have any questions please feel free

cjf · August 2, 2012

Just adding a few additional comments to the build:

In the near future I may purchase X 2 additional Granite surface plates to sandwich between the 1st and 2nd layers of the cork yoga blocks as an experiment to see if that lowers the Y-Axis acceleration values of the current setup. Doing this will also add an additional 25+ lbs to each side of the rack and help, I feel, anchor the cork blocks in place more so than they already are.

In most cases it appears that the Y-Axis seen in the charts of the current new setup produced smoother and more stable lines despite having higher numerical values of acceleration compared to the original table. My thoughts on this are that its more important for these lines to be smooth rather than what the actual acceleration value is reporting. So, I guess what I'm saying is that its probably not the end of the world that these Y-Axis values turned out numerically higher than the original setup did and that the addition of X 2 extra granite slabs is more to satisfy my curiosity than a necessity.

Also, I added a set of Herbies Audio Lab SuperSonic Stabilizers to the top of each of the components which seem to work well and I may purchase an additional set in the future to add additional mass to the chassis of the audio equipment.

Thanks for reading

cjf · August 29, 2012

Added new Amp Rack build notes

jmdesignz2 · November 17, 2012

are these all simply stacked together?

I suppose one could blu-tack all of the block together? Or use silicon glue?

cjf · November 17, 2012

Hello and thanks for your interest in my post.

Yes the cork blocks are just stacked with no adhesive. They are held in place by the combination of weight from the granite slabs and upper butcher block located above them (approx 45lbs per side). I think adhesive could be used between the blocks if desired but I have not found a need to do so in my setup.

Conrad65 · March 8, 2013

Nice work.....I was also recently looking for something similar and came across Finite Element Pagode.....basically money no object hifi support furniture.....I was after something for my turntable. I eventually settled on a marble plinth and bed-side table as an interim solution, which seems to work well and was very cost effective!

cjf · March 9, 2013

Thanks for your interest in the post and sharing your experiences.

esldude · January 18, 2014

Very nice project here. I knew someone with a very similar setup with everything stacked and held by weight. Unfortunately horseplay by grand kids resulted in a collision and spilling all the equipment on the floor. It was very heavy and bruised up one of the children pretty badly though no serious injury. Equipment suffered some scarring and a couple of broken vacuum tubes. So something to keep in mind.

Even minimal adhesives between something with this surface area would hold it together very well. I can also picture some ways to have no touching between loose components and yet prevent any movement from crashes beyond a fraction of an inch.

cjf · January 18, 2014

Hello, thanks for taking a look at the project and posting your experience.

I wouldn't doubt that a good bump would topple the rack but its surprisingly sturdy with a bit over 150lbs of total mass holding it in place. The bass of the pointed feet that rest on the bottom of lower butcher block are about 1" in circumference and support all the mass above it. I don't have allot of visitors so not much worry in my case of horseplay disrupting the structure but its certainly something to consider for those who do have frequent visitors that may bump into it.

I've done the glass of water trick resting on the top butch block while stomping my feet a few inches away from the rack and didn't see any signs of disturbance in the water so its definitely effective at mitigating vibration.

esldude · January 18, 2014

Oh I think what you did, the principles behind it, etc. were all excellent, and have no doubt it is very effective. The water in the glass is a great simple test of that. My friends rack was much like yours other than the springs involved. And it never occurred to me about bumping it over, as with the weight it isn't like you bump it lightly and it fall over. But when it fell, it was a pretty good crash. The kids must have fell hard into it at a full run, and they hit a corner otherwise it still probably wouldn't have moved enough to matter.

I would think the way you constructed it the top shelf has the most isolation from floor-born vibration. It is like a series of low frequency filters cascaded.

odelay · February 25, 2014

Beautiful bit of kit. Nice work :-)

cjf · February 26, 2014

Thanks for taking the time to look at my post and for the kind words

Ellsworth · October 11, 2014

Nice work. Great to see a reasonably priced DIY project.

cjf · October 11, 2014

Thanks for taking the time to visit. Maybe others will keep this option in mind before dropping big bucks. As you can see its looks pretty straightforward to assemble and works like a charm to boot

Ralf11 · January 8, 2017

put some pins in the blocks to prevent toppling interesting project

bumperdoo · March 1, 2017

Pretty cool stuff - love your DIY approach.

cjf · March 4, 2017

Thanks for taking a look at my project. I may be going down this path again soon as I consider what to do for amplifier stands to accommodate my Pass Labs XA60.8 Mono's.

Ralf11 · September 11, 2017

how did this turn out?

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