HiFi Support Stand

    I don't remember how I got into messing around with HiFi related stuff. Maybe it's just my natural curiosity to try & find out how things work coupled with a desire to see if something can be improved or made for reasonable cost.

    I've purchased "HiFi equipment supports" in the past & lets face it they are overpriced but enthusiasts will pay huge sums to "improve" the sound of their HiFi system. Don't get me wrong I have no problem buying into the theory that a well made support can make a subtle difference but like a lot of things there are certain bragging rights involved. "I paid $1000 for the support stand"..... You get the picture, anyway with that off my chest here is a little information on a support stand I made.

    I'd been thinking for a while how I could make something that looked good & maybe worked as well! I really like the wooden shelf & tubular support type of rack & after kicking around a few ideas decided that the way to go would be to use 1 5/8" aluminium tubing (actually electrical conduit). For the shelves I decided on a hard wood called purple heart, except the top shelf, more of which shortly. The whole thing is held together with 12mm threaded rods (All-thread). You can see in the pictures how it goes together, but here is the full breakdown.

Don't forget to click all the images for the BIG picture!!

    1) Decide on how many shelves & what distance you want the them to be apart & cut 4 identical lengths of conduit per shelf. You can of course have different lengths for each shelf depending on the height of the equipment..

    2) Make the shelves, like I said I used purple heart & had them made by a friend (thanks Todd!). Don't forget when measuring your shelves to make an allowance for the width of your largest HiFi component to the inside diameter of the support tubes. My shelves measure 22"w x 14"d, with 17 1/2" between the tubes. I suggest you drill the holes at least 1/8" bigger on diameter than the threaded rod you intend to use.

    3) The top shelf for my support is a little more over the top than I originally intended. My plan was to make 4 aluminium caps on my mini lathe & 4 matching feet. The threaded rod would screw into the top cap pass through the spacers & shelves & then by screwing on the foot & tightening up would lock everything up solid.

    4) But because I wanted to put my newly restored (and very heavy) Logic record deck on the top shelf I decided to use 2 pieces of 3/4" birch veneered MDF glued together. This gave me a 1 1/2" thick shelf, to compound the problem I wanted to make a isolation platform for the record deck to keep vibration at bay. For this I used 4 off 3 1/2"dia x 2 1/2" h ABS pipes epoxy glued to the top of the shelf. The centre line of each piece of pipe corresponding to the centre line of each foot on the deck. The plan is to fill each "pot" with an equal amount of soft sand & place a rubber ice hockey puck on top of the sand in each pot. My theory being that the sand in each pot will disperse any vibration before it gets into the record deck, & the hard rubber puck will give a solid foundation for the deck.

    5) So I finally got the 4 feet made & decided to add one more shelf along the way to support a tuner, (either a NAD or HK, I have not decided yet although the pic shows the HK. I added 8mm high tensile steel spikes to the aluminium feet to give further isolation. Overall I think it looks great & is easily as good as or better than a commercial support, for a lot less money.

Update! 3/30/07.

    In order to better fit in with the home theatre room I modified the stand one more time just by removing one if the shelves. I decided to keep the HiFi system as simple as possible, meaning the sources would be the Logic deck & a CD player only, you can see the final version on the Logic Deck page by clicking here.

    The End. (But watch out for further projects)..