Show me your RACK - Page 41

I've never used an ERK, but I think the fixed sides would be too difficult to work with. But, if you find a good deal on a used ERK, then it might be a consideration.

If you have the luxury of waiting a few months, keep checking craigslist and ebay.

Search terms that I've been using: Middle Atlantic, Raxxess, 19 rack, AV rack, audio video rack, rackmount, Lowell, studio rack.

I see this MRK is in Falls Church, 2 racks available.



http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/n...863489686.html

I've been using SearchTempest to search multiple Craigslist sites.

http://www.searchtempest.com/results...min&maxAsk=max

I'm in the NoVA area and gave up on CL after a couple of months. I found a good deal on a slim5 and went ahead for now. I wanted an MRK and will still keep my eyes open for one. The Slim5 is ok but definitely not what you want if you want to move it loaded with equipment. I have a VERY similar list of equipment and would recommend the RSH custom shelves over the Emotiva rack ears. The rack ears are cheaper, but the only way I found to mount an Emotiva XPA-5 (or my xpa-3 for that matter) was to lay the rack down on its back and drop it in. In can be done with another set of hands, but I rarely have any available. The shelves are much easier as you can just load them in from the back ... what I mean is that I have some rack ears I will sell you They're GREAT!

I actually have an RSH custom shelf for an XPA-3/5 new in a box if you are interested in saving some $$. I don't have the energy to redo everything and go RSH now that its racked. I don't believe the clamping shelves mount to the back rails, so transporting a loaded rack doesn't seem wise....

I also gave up on trying to fit everything in my rack and just bought blanks. I just have my Emotiva's, Denon 4311, oppo 93 and power conditioner racked in my 43Us. I just finished a couple of days ago, so I will try to post a pic tonight.

Hey brother, thanks for your feedback! Lived in Alexandria for a couple of years when I was finishing school, had a great time in NoVA.

I'd certainly be interested in the shelf, I'm sure I'll be in your area at some point so I could just swing by and give you cash money, you may have to give me about a month and a half though- I'm far, far from home at the moment, but I'll take it off your hands. Love to see pictures of your setup too.

You mentioned another reason why I was curious about the rear rail mounts- transport. my goal would be to lock everything in tight enough to survive a move crated, but that may be unrealistic.

I don't know why, but my dumb a** was putting searches into Search Tempest confined to a single category. Did a "search all" a few hours ago and got many more results, although most would require a little road trip.

hey buddy, thanks for the heads up- I just saw this today too. Looks to be a little too tall and deep for my use though, I'm in a townhouse and I'm already trying to fit an Aperion Verus Grand setup, a Seaton Submersive, and 65 inch Panny in, every square inch counts If a 44U popped up in a 25-27 inch depth, I might just ignore the inevitable objection from the girlfriend and snap it up. 31 inches deep would cut into the floorspace too much

I have a similar problem, finding a rack without a huge footprint.

27" Deep WRK looks great, but might be slightly too large for me. I've seen a few of those the past couple months.

I just saw a print ad for the Lowell Vari-Rack. Adjustable depth.

http://www.lowellmfg.com/racks-varirack.html

Knock-down, ships flat. Casters for any depth, skirted base for 2 depths available.

I find the smallest footprint you can go may not always be prudent to use given you will be needing some form of cooling requirements within the cabinet having zippo space for cable management can lead too poor air flow.. if you live in an area that routinely sees 110+ in the shade heat is going to play a big part in your setup..

So here is the picture I promised. Not a great shot. I have another zone, some DTV boxes and distribution equipment, but like I said .. I didn't know what was staying or going so I took the minimal approach and bought some blanks. 95% of the time, I just need my Oppo, 4311 and amps (XPA-5 and (2) UPA-2s). Everything is brushed anodized.

Yeah, I looked at the 20" deep ERK models for about 2 minutes before I realized my Onkyo is about 18.5" deep. Not much room left over and I want to be able to close the rear door and feed cables out through a grommeted knockout for tidiness.

I plan on mounting a quiet fan panel on a configurable rear door pulling air from a vented base and seeing how that handles the temperature. If it can't cut it, I may have to go with something that moves more CFM and deal with the added noise. The deepest pieces of gear I have are the Emotivas, but they're also the simplest to manage cable-wise. Ideally, I'd always like to have more room to work, but I think I can make do with a minimum 6" of clearance.

^^ Middle Atlantic have a paper on thermal management in racks available on their website. It is well worth reading.

Yup, already been through it a couple of times- I think it's going to be trial and error to get the temps where I want them. I'm planning on enclosing the entire rack with a rear, and a front smoked plexiglass door. Intake should come through the bottom vents and exhaust through the top of the rear door via a fan panel with a pair of ultra quiet fans. This is my beginner's attempt to get the heat to chimney up in the rear of the equipment rather than just floating up vertically and cooking everything on the way out. Not sure the two fans are going to create enough negative pressure to vent on their own though. I'd rather stay away from a fan top for aesthetic reasons, a solid top would give the girlfriend a nice surface to place something to make the rack look less intimidating in our living room

Anyone have any observations about my plans? I suppose it would be easier if I left the front door off and used front fan panels, but I'm trying to keep the light level down and refrain from putting all my gear on display.

You could consider the solid steel front door, and adding a panel to it to match your decor, like a paneled dishwasher or fridge. Wood grain sides also available.

You could build a closet around it, with a real door. Or, find a closet for it.

Mine is going into a basement mechanical room, so esthetics don't play much of a part in my decisions.

2 Fans at the top back will probably be fine, if only a single intake near the bottom and it's pretty well sealed.

Mine is in slow development when completed with a few more of the same Samson SRK21 racks which are cheap buy and racks give a neater look but I can't comment on the wiring at present its a bit like one of those, spaghetti westerns.

I plan to have one racks assigned as

Audio processors

AVR consumer and cinema processors electronic crossovers and outboard additional EQ

Amps

All the amps and the older ones will be replaced with Alesis RA300 or newer, but I'd like to keep the amps isolated away from the processors
Audio/Video players

All the Laserdisc players DVD and bluray players will be stacked in its own rack
Samson racks can be brought for around £99.00 delivered.

Looking back over the past year and bit.












Pictured start from the top Behringer MDX4600 audio compressor limiter for as and when I need it, it does help soften the loudness.

Below is Behringer FBQ2496 parametric EQ channel A is for sub bass extension and channel B for LFE.1 only.

Below is Behringer DCX249 electronic crossover management system for LCR fronts

Below is Behringer GEQ3102 used for outboard duel rear mono centre back surround and stereo surrounds on Dolby TrueHD 7.1

Below is Dolby Stereo CP45 cinema processor that was used as main processor thou it gets its feeds directly from Yamaha RX-V650.

Pictured below is Marantz 1050 for HF centre




umm, which cable goes where? I'll deal with cable management later on.




Pictured to the left Marantz 1050 for HF left and right fronts and additional EQ for mono overhead surround Technics EQ for sidewall surrounds and simple RTA use while the pc RTA is on the computer and the next RTA I'll be using will be on the Dolby CP500 when I finally set up for X-curve.








Well I made a little effort to tidy up the cables with electrical tape as it was dangling all over the place. Still looks like a birds nest thou.



Now were is the CAT-300/350 cards?

Dolby CP500 removed temporally until I get the new CAT cards for it. Other Dolby cinema processor CP55 that hasn't been racked up yet only tested to see if its working and it works fine and will be racked up in new Samson SRK21, umm, some time soon?







The rack to left will soon be taken up with another Samson SRK21

Pictured is my sweet cat that oversees and gives final household approval.

Pictured at the top is Behringer DCX249 electronic crossover management system for LCR fronts

Pictured below is Behringer GEQ3102 for extra outboard duel centre mono surround or stereo rear back surrounds.

Pictured below is Dolby Stereo CP65 cinema processor for common 6track discrete on format 10 Dolbt Stereo digital, presently set on format 60 non-sync Dolby Pro-Logic.

Pictured below is Dolby Stereo CP45 cinema processor that now acts as Dolby Surround-EX with additional inputs up to 6channel discrete, the common surround-EX is selected on format 60 non-sync while format 61 AUX is 6channel input.

Below top Alesis RA300 for LF left and right front

Below middle Alesis RA300 left channel overhead mono surround / right channel centre LF

Below bottom Alesis RA300 bridged mono for LFE.1 sub only

Hey Max

Love what you've done with your rack.

Where you get the custom faceplates?

I put the ultra quite fans from coolerguys on my rack. I changed them out with faster fans becasue the ulta quiet fans were not strong enough. They would stay on for a long time too. The faster fans are louder but my rack stays a lot cooler. Sometimes with the ultra quiet fans my rack temp would be 95 to 100 degrees! I put in the faster fans and my temp never gets above 85. The coolerguys temp sensor kit has four inputs for fans so I put the ultra quite fans inside the rack pulling the heat away from the avr's. beleive it or not...the Emotiva amps do not get that hot. I figured they would, but not at all and that is why I put the extra fans near the avr.

Those are Middle Atlantic RSH custom rackshelves and face plates. I am answering for him because that is a really old post and not sure if he is on here still or not.

By the way guys.....if you get the middle atlantic slim5 rack, you might want to get the 26 inch deep model. that gives you room inside to wire up components and also some components are very deep. my sony bd mega changer is 22 inches deep so i had no choice. If I didnt have that and got the 20 inch deep model, I would have probably wished that I had bought the 26 inch deep model.

Thanks!

Hi Guys

I have several components (sonos zone players, router, mac mini, etc. that are not rack mountable). I want to find a way to seure these so that when I push a button on the bottom, they don't slide on the shelf. Was going to try velcro discs on the sonos, but the feet seems to glue resistant. Nothing sticks to it. How do you guys secure this stuff?

Also have several devices with external power supplied (e.g. Mac Mini, router, etc.) I don't want these lying on shelf or dangling, What's the best solution for tidying these up?

Regards

Mark

re Emotiva XPA-5

I found the best solution to rack mount this amp in a Slim 5 rack is to buy the rack mount ears from Emotiva:

the ears extend to the back of the rack and have a mounting hole that lines up with the rack channel: so it can be secured from the back as well (it is a heavy amp)

Mark, Middle Atlantic makes a short "utility" shelf (UTR1) that are made for this. They have a pattern of slots in the shelf that allow you to use Velcro straps to tie stuff down (of any size).



And with any of the vented shelves (or using the lacing bar slots on the back edge), you can use Velcro straps to tie down transformers, excess cable, and so forth...

If the component doesn't need to be accessed from the front (e.g. Ethernet switch), I use Velcro pads to stick them to underneath a non-vented portion of a shelf above. Then just cover the front space with a blank faceplate (if you're going the faceplate route).

Hope that helps,

Jeff

This is true but only on the 20 inch depth rack and not the 26 inch depth.

Thanks for the clarification: I have the 20 inch depth racks

I have the 26 inch depth and I still used the ear plates for the emotiva amp and it still holds it sturdy. I was concerned about how it was going to hold up but those plates are really thick in the front.

Thanks Jeff

Thanks for sharing your pictures and some information to go along with it. I'm diving into this head first and am finishing my basement with a completion date of 5/4. My head is swimming with ideas and info. ah!

That thickness in the front brings me to my second complaint about the ears... They stick out from all the other gear. It's not bad but you couldn't use the MA trim strips with it ( the ones that cover the screws). They are sturdy, But I would go RSH if I had to do it over again.

I've searched on google and can't find pics of rack-mounted Emotiva amps with rack ears. You have a pic or a link?