Any advantage or dis whn bolting rack to wall?????


Hello all,
I just made my own rack and with my physical and monetary limitations I am very proud of my efforts, it is almost 60 inches in height made from MDF for the shelves with Oak legs, but being above the basement it does rock slightly so I was curious about mounting a bracket to a stud and anchoring it to the back wall, is this a good or bad idea? I do have isolation pucks under most important peices untill I can get more, or I may use Brss Achorns under the remaining componets for a cheap tweak, any ideas? thanks once again everyone.
chadnliz
When I custom made my own shelfs, I used 16-inch wide slabs of marble with blue/gray viens, These shelfs are (6)feet long. Each marble shelf is,(1)inch thick,& there are five shelfs stacked about 18 inches apart, all the way up the living room wall,on a load bearing wall.

What holds these shelfs in place are, glass-dowel rods (hand-made/ blown),solid crystal glass. Each dowel-rod is two inches round & 18 inches long, & are spotted in equal lengths, across the whole 6-foot distance,on each shelf. Between these glass dowel rods & the Marble, I have rubber,Vibro-Pods on both sides sanwiched in between the rods & the White Marble.

The back-wall has solid oak, 2"X 2" trim pieces that are attached with wood screws to the studs in the wall.This runs the horizontal length of my walls,& holds up the back sides of this marble.

I also have two spot-lights mounted on track lighting, in my ceiling above these shelfs, they have black light bulbs installed. & At night, I turn them on, & Man!!! you should see how it lights up the white marble & shines like a spectrum through those glass dowl rods. Whew~Wee !!!!

Underneath all this marble shefing, is a poured slab of concrete about five inches thick. That way, you can dance, jump up & down & my Oracle Delphi Mark V Turntable, & my Benz Micro Glider cartridge does not even know that I'm in the same room.

How's that for permanent fixings ???

Mike (The_Chops)....
I have to respectfully disagree with the comments re wall mounting. I have mounted my turntable on a Target wall shelf in two different listening rooms (same system, two diff homes). In one home the walls were typical, flimsy, sheetrock on metal studs; in the other (and current), the walls are very thick and solid plaster over incredibly hard and solid wooden studs, as found in most 110 year old Victorian homes. In both cases, even light footsteps made my tonearm skip (VPI/ET2 or Syrinx). Wall mounting not only solved the skipping problem, but cleaned up the sound to a very surprising degree. Bass was better defined and seemingly more extended, there is less grain to the overall sound, and even microdynamics seem improved. Yes, a wall will vibrate; so will a floor. Not only will the floor be, most likely, an even larger vibrating surface that the wall, but it is in direct physical contact with the main source of vibration: your speakers. If there is any way to mount your rack to the wall so that there is no contact with the floor (assuming that the weight is not a problem), then I think you would really be on to something.

Good luck.
you might want to rethink the idea of bolting to a wall unless it's a solid exterior supporting wall. Interior walls are typically just flimsey 2X4 + wallboard construction, which will flex along with the music's sound pressure against it - especially the bass frequancies. This would cause your whole rack to vibrate, introducing intermodulations back into the source equipment & essentially exciting a closed feedback loop.

Those who have attempted to even wall-mount a turntable shelf onto an interior wall surface can likely attest to the sonic disadvantages of such an approach.
I suppose that this could have some adverse consequences of coupling a large surface that could be vibrating to the stand.

I have a very tall rack sitting on a carpeted floor (wooden, suspended floor). On top I have a turntable so I needed the stand to be totally stable. I use angle brackets that attach the top of the stand to the nearby wall. I have not had any problems with this setup.