Editors’ Choice: Equipment Racks

Mapleshade LP racks

$100 

With the premium vinyl resurgence of the last few years, record collections are increasing once again. Run out of rack space? Mapleshade rides to the rescue. Its racks are constructed of ¾” finished or unfinished oak or finished Ambrosia maple and are still hand-crafted by the Amish family that also builds Mapleshade’s massive Samson racks.

Mye Sound Stands

Price varies with model 

These aftermarket stand/braces designed for Maggie dipole loudspeakers have no downside, according to reviewer Jacob Heilbrunn—only up. Punchier, tauter bass, quieter backgrounds, cleaner mids and highs, increased snap and speed, less smearing and fuzziness are just a few of the benefits. 

Sanus SF26 Steel Foundation

$170/pr. 

Sanus’ thoughtfully designed and beautifully executed SF Series speaker stands do everything you could want a good set of stands to do, and at a price that makes sense. Strong, rigid, and resonance-free, they include provisions for installing sand or lead-shot damping and are easy to assemble. 

TonTräger Harbeth M40.3 XD Stands

$1850 

These all-wood German stands, light weight with mortise-and-tenon construction, using only water-based glue and eschewing any plastic or metal, are unbelievably strong and rigid. Supporting PS’s Harbeth Monitor 40.3s, the TonTrägers provided greater dynamic range, clarity, articulation, and definition, with none, but none, of the typical excessively etched, edgy, analytical penalties of spiked metal stands. Although made for Harbeths—there’s a stand for every model in the line—they should prove equally effective with any speaker requiring stand mounting, provided the TonTrägers fit the speaker’s footprint and situate its tweeters at ear level.

Symposium Acoustics Isis

$2199 for “Basic” two-level model; $4399 for four-level “Standard” model

Using heavy-duty steel shelves that are themselves damped with constrained-layer material, the Isis eliminates all lateral and vertical motion induced by floorborne or airborne resonance. Its effectiveness is high.

Walker Audio Prologue Equipment Stands/Racks

$2500–$17,500

A large equipment rack, constructed of three thick, oiled slabs of rock maple suspended between shot-filled tubes and balanced on Walker Audio’s huge Valid Point feet. Like all of Walker Audio’s tweaks, the Walker rack kills vibration without killing the life of the music.

Solid Tech Rack of Silence 

Pricing varies 

The aptly named Rack of Silence helps damp equipment vibrations, thus fostering audibly quieter backgrounds and heightened resolution of detail. The core of the system is a sophisticated, extruded aluminum rack with skeletal, X-shaped equipment “shelves.” Reference versions come with suspended shelves that support a wide range of components—even heavyweight amps. 

Critical Mass Systems Sotto Voce

$3500 (three-shelf rack, natural or black)

This CMS equipment rack not only looks good and is, at one-tenth the cost of the company’s flagship, more than fairly priced; it just plain works. Bass tightens, transients gain verve yet maintain control, rhythms sharpen and—perhaps most significantly—subliminal low-level noise plummets. By getting what AT calls the “random energy” out of the sound, the SV delivers a less electronic, less hurried, less blurred presentation of the music. This is a rack you can buy and live with happily ever after. Or, when fortune smiles, you can upgrade to your heart’s content.

Critical Mass Systems Maxxum Amplifier Stand

$6250

This beautifully built product is based on the same technology found in Critical Mass Systems’ Maxxum equipment racks; the stands are essentially a Maxxum shelf mounted on a four-point X-shaped support structure. Sonically, this amplifier stand allows the system to better resolve low-level information, reveal music’s transient structure, and interestingly, seems to make the loudspeakers “disappear” more easily. Once heard, it is impossible to resist. 

Stillpoints ESS

$8450–$45,000 (depending on configuration)

Stillpoints has always possessed an uncanny ability to lower the noise floor with its innovative footers. But its amp stands and ESS racks are simply brilliantly innovative designs that will take your system even further into the realm of stygian silence. Both are based around an unobtrusive open architecture that allows your audio gear to take pride of place rather than a bulky rack. The amp stands can be adjusted to fit pretty much any amplifier and dramatically improve dynamics and interstitial detail. The same goes for the ESS racks, which offer an elegant and effective solution for housing your precious audio gear. 

Critical Mass Systems QXK

$11,960–$19,960 (four shelves)

This four-leg, four-shelf component support system (available with a wide variety of CMS filtration shelves) is second only to CMS’ Maxxum in efficacy—and it is a close second. JV owns and uses the top-of-the-line Maxxum rack, but the sonic differences between it and this beautifully made, considerably less expensive stand are relatively small. The Maxxum does provides a lower noise floor and, consequently, elicits a little more musical energy and low-level detail from the components sitting on it (and it is certainly more deluxe in build and finish, and more elaborate in filtration), but the QXK is no slouch when it comes to the reduction of resonant noise and the upping of resolution. If you can’t afford a Maxxum, you’re certainly not going to be disappointed with this number.

Critical Mass Systems Maxxum

$18,750 (three-shelf rack)

A gorgeous, pricey, four-leg, three-shelf unit, the CMS Maxxum is quite simply the ne plus ultra in component stands. In all his years, JV has never used a support device that reduces resonance to this extent without also killing the life of the music. Far from damping out color and energy, the Maxxum enhances both to an extent that must be heard to be appreciated. Transients are lightning quick, low-level detail is clear as a bell, pitch definition is superb, and timbre is rich and dense in color from bottom to top. For those of you with the money, this is unquestionably the stand to own. RH heartily concurs. 

HRS VXR

$24,475 (+damping plate, Helix footers)

Harmonic Resolution Systems supplies one of the most effective resonance-control systems in high-end audio. At the heart of its line is the VXR stand. The high-mass VXR, composed of a custom, billet-machined, heat-treated aluminum frame, appears to reduce, and not by a small margin, subliminal hash and grain, endowing the music with a sense of hush, or, if you prefer, black backgrounds, from which sounds emerge with greater fidelity. To complement its impressive stand, HRS also offers several other products, including a damping plate as well as Helix footers.

Critical Mass Systems Olympus

$30,750 (three-shelf rack)

The flagship of the Critical Mass Systems line, the Olympus lives up to its name in size, sheer visual presence, and most importantly, sound quality. This no-holds-barred equipment stand features CMS’s most advanced implementation of its technology for reducing component vibration. The Olympus equipment rack and matching amplifier stands lower the noise floor, allowing fine timbral, dynamic, and spatial details to emerge as well as allowing the system to create a rock-solid bass foundation. The build- and finish-quality are nothing short of spectacular. The Olympus’ performance is taken to another level when it is used in conjunction with CMS’s CenterStage2 isolation devices. Matching amplifier stands are $10,250 each. Expensive but worth it if you want the best. RH’s reference. 

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