Show me your RACK - Page 50

They're all Middle Atlantic.

Those are typical, what looks to be 2-gang cable drop plates. You can get those on parts-express.com or amazon.com for a couple bucks each. They are also reversable, so you can put the drop inside the wall or outside, depending on if it's an intake or outlet plate.

I use one behind my plasma TV to take cables into the wall, and one outlet at the AV rack myself.

Guys in my old house I was using the Startech 36U Knock Down. Got it for around $200. Worked great. Sold my house and left it there. I am just wondering if there was a rack out there still at that price. I I can fidn is $500 and up..

Bare bones MA Slim 5 is a good option, for a RTA rack shipped flat.

Other options include FatCat, Royal Racks, SnapAV, Lowell, and used eBay. I think those companies all offer a basic rack. The cost adds up with sides, doors, casters, and tops.

actually, FatCat Precision Racking Solutions is now Forge.

Yeah, couldn't remember the new name. I figured Google would get him there.

I appreciate the 24" depth of the SnapAV rack. MA Slim 5 is 20 or 26".

I'll definitely be looking at racks at CEDIA.

Omnimount RE42 looks nice.

http://www.omnimount.com/products/rack_systems_and_carts/rack_systems/re42/

Ships with a bunch of shelves, sides, fan top, front and rear doors, and caster base.

Edit - front.door is glass, includes leveling feet and lots of blank plates too
Edited by Neurorad - 9/3/12 at 7:53pm

That is an interesting find. It would be nice if they had something between the 27 and 42. My ceiling heights can't quite accommodate a 42.

On my current rack, I spent an incredible amount of time on cable management, using lacing bars, Velcro, and zip ties. I think I'll be exploring more rack mount slotted wiring duct options for the next build.

Spent a few hours shopping for racks at CEDIA.

1. All of the skeleton racks are similar.

2. Lowell and Middle Atlantic racks are made in the US. Peerless, Omnimount, Sanus, Chief, and SnapAV racks are from China.

3. Middle Atlantic makes the best high end racks, with exceptional configurabilty. The design details are outstanding.

4. I'll most probably choose Lowell, more affordable than MA for a basic rack.

Although I have bought MA lacer bars for my current rack, and will re-use them, I really liked the 'stackable' Lowell lacer bars.

MA has some options for rack mount slotted wiring duct/finger channel.

My opinion don't matter what you use and deploy as a racking solution, just as long you got room to breath and circulate air to keep things cool everything should be fine..

Yes, that of course is the minimum. Some people are more...detail oriented, and spend a lot of time weighing additional considerations - country of origin, how solidly a rack is built, the people that made it, the people that sell it, available depths, room for a third set of vertical rack rails, fixed vs removable sides, glass or plexi door options, locks, exposed casters, 'fine floor casters', rear rack rails, space for cable management on the sides, room for rear power strips, fan top options, and of course price.

The MA BGR Series rack is the best stand alone rack made, hands down, with the most available features. If I had unlimited funds, I'd choose that, no question. I appreciate the details.

I say you buy what you can afford whether it is cheap or expensive whether MA racks, midatlantic rack or xyz rack solution, people will make and buy rack to their budgetary requirements..

A dirt cheap used server rack served my needs very well, for a few years, in my mechanical room, until I had a sub panel installed. Now space and electrical codes are an issue.

Now I need a smaller rack, and after considering all options, I feel that Lowell makes a great rack to fit my needs and budgetary requirements.

I'm pretty sick of Chinese-made ****, in my life, and I want to pay more for better quality. Not much more, but more.

Added a new radiator to the bottom of my rack yesterday to cool my HTPC/Gamming rig. Let me know what you think. Those a 9x140mm fans

spill the details.....

Starting from the top down, 1500va battery backup, Yamaha RX-V2010, Samsung DVR, Sony SACD player, HTPC, Watercool MO-RA3 9x140mm Pro Radiator. HTPC/Gamming rig is a Ivy Bridge 3570k @ 4.7ghz, 7970 @1200 gpu and 1600 memory, 7TB of hard drive space for blu-rays(soon to add more space), 128gig SSD drive, blu-ray drive. Stuff you can't see in the back, Doc 3 modem, 8 port gig switch, wireless N router, anougher 1500va battery back up, and a mess of wires. All feeding my theater with a optomia HD20 and 120 inch screen and my desk. Just sold my 2560x1600 monitor, switching over to the new Asus 144hz monitor for gamming.

Thanks for posting right after me and making my rack look like ****... now tell everyone approx. how much you have into it lol...

God would I love to have an XPA 2 & 3 at the bottom of my rack
Edited by ten8yp - 9/23/12 at 2:22pm

when i get my rack my guess invested gear

denon 2113
sony 370
toshiba
ps2
ps3
xbox
xbox 360
av switch

$5,000 all up

likely 2k on rack

so total guess 7k

Racking is from a company called Pro Audio Stash. I had some serious space constraints so some cutting down was required to make it fit. I've added a photo of what it looked like before so you can see what i mean!

• 
  
  
• Onkyo Bluray player - BDSP809
• Popcorn Hour A200 media player
• Apple TV (gen2)
• Xbox
• Humax 1TB FoxSAT HDR
• JVC - HR-DVS1- DV/SVHS Player
• Synology 16TB NAS Drive DS1812+
• Netgear network switch x2
• Apple airport extreme
• Roku RAVIR
• Controlled via IPad using Roomie Remote App with Global Cache ITach WF2IR and IP2IR

Lotoole, drooling over your Synology NAS. How are you liking it? Is it about 4RU?


And to Neurorad above, I feel your pain on the @#% Chinese stuff. Some local dealer recommended SnapAV. I saw it and ran.

I went with an MA dealer after a recommendation on this forum. Folks are right though, it does add up fast: WR-37-32, custom trim plates, rear panel, cooling system, smoked plexi door, cable management, sending new equipment for MA for measuring, blah, blah = $3500+ and climbing as I swap out items. I never should have used Quicken to track it because it stings a bit seeing that number; could have bought a used car for that cash! The MA stuff will last my lifetime though, no car will. Absolutely excellent quality and their service is outstanding. I've called them in the past for the most random replacement parts (electrical knockout panel pieces) and they actually followed through with researching it and calling me with part numbers for my dealer. I'd say go MA if you're on the fence.

idratherbeflying - The synology drive is excellent, especially with Plex media server built in. I'm about half full at the moment!

I've been eyeing the Synology DS413 myself, just hit the shelves.

My rack is going to be similar setup, minus the crazy number of fans! All those fans are pulling cool air in? Would it work better to have them on the back top pushing hot air out?

What kind of thinking did you do when it came to what equipment to put at what levels? Ease of use? Heat concerns? I see your receiver is at the top I figured that should be more mid to lower to make it easier to get too, and also to keep all the heat from passing up through it. My Onkyo gets pretty hot on its own.

I don't have a rack but i just finished my closet.

After being in my house for about 3 years and many different phases I think I am finally done with my structural wiring closet. The house was built in 1972 and is 1,089 sqft. This is in the office (center-ish part of the house) and started with a blank wall in the closet with no cables run anywhere. My lovely wife and I ran every cable up the wall and through the attic.

I have at least one Directv line, one Cable TV line, and 2 Cat 6 runs to each room.

I have the power panel (bottom right) run to the outlet underneath and then plug that into a UPS so if the power goes out I can run for at least an hour or longer if i turn some stuff off.

^^^
Very nice.
Do you know if mounting the wireless router inside a metal box like that will reduce it's signal strength?

I have a wireless access point another place in the house that I use most of the time. But when I get home and put the metal cover(arrives today) on it I am expecting it to become a faraday cage.

I guess that is to be expected; it sure looks nice, clean, and neat organized like that though.

Turns out its not to bad. I have only dropped one bar

Interesting, thanks for checking. I think I may have to do a little experimenting with my router and some metal boxes to see what I can get away with.