New Ikea storage unit great for LP's!

+bdp24 "The Expidit was the model the Kallax is a replacement for. There was such an outcry when the Expidit was discontinued that Ikea reintroduced it as the Kallax, the name being the only difference between the two."

"Not true. The Expedit had thicker shelves"

 
The outcry was pointless as the Kallax was introduced with thinner and less weight for maximizing shipping costs and minimizing material usage to keep with Ikea's "green" campaign of sustainable products........... That is why the Expedit was dropped for the lighter yet just as stable Kallax series.........

The Kallax and the earlier Expedit series would collapse from improper installation not by design. They need to be fixed to a back wall and that's just common sense.  The directions support it and the brackets are supplied. Knocking the product for not following the supplied advise and overloading shelves with the unit placed on its side, not on its base is the biggest problem.
I find it odd that the Eket is being lauded as sturdier over the Kallax or older Expedit series. The latter two can hold twice the weight per shelf as the Eket can which is only 15 lbs per shelf the others are 29 lbs per shelf. At 50 lps approximately per shelf , 15 lbs of max load is pushing it on the Eket. The dimensions are not the only supplied data of the on line description.
I have an eight cube Expedit , ( 2,  4 cube units  ) loaded with just with my Blue note and rare import lps, and unlike a unit in a showroom that is put together without load or fastening to a wall, by some kid,
these units are surprisingly strong and sturdy when put together and fastened properly. Probably a good reason why they were and are so popular. I have the majority of my other 8000 albums in shelving I made decades ago out of 3/4 Russian ply ( before it was as absurdly priced) , dado and glued in a dry basement room . Even given that overkill , I have no qualms or worries storing some of my most  irreplaceable gems in the Expedit in the living room. I made a couple wooden crates that I swap out every couple weeks or so from the basement storage to keep rotation with less room taken up in the livingroom. I do like the look of the Eket on those wood bases though, but I wouldn't load them as heavily as the Expedit and feel as sure of its 15 lb per shelf rating vs the 29 lb rating of the Kallax and Expedit. I think either is a good economic choice when used properly and within their limits. A little dab of carpenters glue on those dowel pins is what many do to "stiffen them up" and either a back or fastened to the wall ( especially if you have kids or grandkids visiting)  .  What ever works , and its for keeping vinyl spinning is great in my book...................









 

The shelf's rating is per cube the same as it is for the Eket, except the Eket
will only hold half the rated weight of the other two. Laying the Kallax or Expedit on their sides defeats the purpose of being screwed from the top not from the sides. The best way for a horizontal 8 cube length is two , 4 cubes placed side by side if not braced from behind or within. Think of how a wall is constructed with a plate across the entire length top and bottom and the outer  joists sitting ON and OVER the plates.Take those  studs on either end and support them into the ends of the bottom and top plates and the wall is no longer supported at the ends or tied across the full length of it and all those other studs. A Header is useless tied into a kingstud without a jackstud to support the load on its ends. Same principle here. If you stay in the weight the shelf wont deflect and push the ends out which is why having them on their sides  makes them fail .I'm NOT knocking the Eket as a choice at all, or stating the Kallax is a better choice, just stating the facts and how to avoid the failure of not setting them up properly and using them within their capabilities. I really like the look of the Eket  on those platforms they sell.  I have quite a few friends who hate either of them simply because they can't read the spines and/or refuse to alphabetize and sort albums in genre and like to flip through them like the record stores used, so they can see the covers. With a large collection and the space that would take and the absolute need to be rigidly fastened to a wall when weights shift outward, for me makes them impractical.
If I had a smaller, or some might say more sane record collection, I would , space permitting prefer flipping through them covers out.

One of the thriftiest and smartest uses I have seen for storage and audio rack combined was using the Expedits. A friend came up with this idea because of space and finances after a divorce. I thought it was brilliant and the end result
was a good looking , functional and vibration greatly reduced rack and album storage, that saved a lot of time and costs for the end result. He got four of the white Expedit (kallax) units on sale and arranged them side by side along the long wall in his living room. We got a sheet of 12 ft. long by 4 ft. wide no void maple veneered one side ply and I cut it so it ran full length of four units , one piece across top of 4 units and one for bottom. Measured and drilled exactly where each of the 4 long bolts was located on the top and bottom of each piece of ply. Put the bolts back in and 4 units were now a solid single unit you could stand /walk on. I fastened 5 pairs of feet on the bottom from Herbies with the damping and Teflon to slide easy he had bought.  Tipped it upright ,wrapped the exposed edges with maple veneer , sealed it and load it up. Room for 800 albums , he has his turntable on a sand box, and  integrated tube amp, small footprint phono pre (Graham Slee Reflex)  and cd player all sitting on herbies footers I had and were not being used, with monitors toed in and the TV wall mounted . I made him some doors for each individual cube to finish it off , and with the leftover ply 2 shelves either side of his TV wall mounted  for his CD's and it looks great, his system sounds great and was really inexpensive for all it does. It put the whole necessity is the mother of invention thing back into perspective again for me in regards to practical vs. how carried away we can get sometimes.... 

I'm sitting on top of 2 fully loaded Expedits in my living room in the profile pic I added to show, stacked together with my 185 lbs, 400 albums weight, and the weight of a drawer with about a hundred  sacd's sitting between the Expedits,.....
I wobble more than the shelf ever will ...

Thanks, bdp24. He bought 4 of the single 4 cube units at 39 a piece on sale
so 156 , plus the 140 dollar sheet of ply and I think he paid 170 for the 10 
Herbies threaded gliders plus some edge veneer and a few small costs for finish
etc.. All in it was just over 550 bucks to store all his records and cd's plus a solid foundation well isolated from  floor vibration for his system and speakers. His idea to use 4 single units and tying them all to one length of solid ply at the 16 bolt points of the kallax units top and bottom made it sturdy enough to jump up and down on, literally. We both stood on it holding his TV when we mounted it to the wall bracket as well as the shelves for his cd's .
Considering he couldn't buy four of those nice looking units Shadorne posted to only hold 280 albums for the same price vs storing 800 albums, supporting a nice hefty system and about 300 cd's on wall shelves, and look good while actually adding good isolation and some dampening from the floor.....no brainer, my friends idea was solid, inexpensive and works with style. I may of had the tools and the ability but it takes a good, simple solid idea to get results that good and so absurdly, reasonably priced.  
I'm not a fan of chipboard myself either, Shadorne, at all. When I built my home, plywood sheeting on the roof and floors, no mdf or chipboard kitchen cabinets or mdf moulding. All solid hardwood faces, real wood void free veneered Baltic ply for cabinets and natural birch ply for drawers and hardwood casing and  trim. Furniture I prefer and build with real solids and ply veneers . 
But this is one instance, I simply can't argue the amount of time, money and effort it saved to McGiver inexpensive Ikea units and marry them with the strength of 3/4 quality ply , with a nice real wood, maple one sided veneer , on top of a result that looks so good, is rock solid and functions so well as a rack and album storage . Its nice to see that different choices are out there for everyone's different needs and reasoning. That's healthy to have choices to suit individual, needs, wants and reasoning.