Stuart,
thanks for noticing....
I have some room issues and some speaker setup issues and I know my speakers are just kinda thrown in the room at this point....my concerns (and the reaason why i tried to show the room setup in the picture)

1.) the big ugly couch next to the right speaker...its gotta go in my opinion because it really constrict that corner behind the speaker...i could probably pull the speakers another foot away from each other if the couch wasn't right there

2.) the flimsy $10 target curtain behind the rack...my wife wants me to sew some roman blinds out of canvas for the front room (i enjoy DIY stuff, if you couldn't tell)...any suggestions for material or impacts on acoustics this might have?

3.) i don't have a wall behind the listeners head (it's about 4 feet behind the listener and there is no good way to use that space as it pulls the listener too far from the speakers, which are about 9' apart from each other) what kind of impact does this have (i think it would cause music to seem less defined/impactful in the lower frequencies, which i seem to experience currently)

4.) toe in on speakers when you don't have a wall directly behind the listeners head?....follow the setup instructions of paradigm (that is what i am currently doing, but they show a wall behind the listener in their diagram)

any ideas would be well recieved...thanks, Mark

m_laken April 21, 2004 22:24

Sorry i have been busy in a couple other forums and forgot to watch this one....I bought the plywood from a specialty lumber store here in fort collins (Sears-Trossel...excellent service)....local lumber stores are the only places to shop if you want to make something that looks fairly high quality with good wood

I bought one 4x8 sheet of 3/4" wide red oak laminate of medium grade quality (it costed $62 and produced two racks, the one above and the one in my tv room, which is 4 - 24"x16" shelves and a 30"x16" tv shelf) the rack above is a 45"x16" top shelf with 4 - 24"x16" middle shelves (there is a 3" overlap of the shelves, hence the 45" top shelf)

I had the lumber store cut the wood to my exact dimension for $20/hour labor charge for the smaller rack (not pictured)...i cut the remenants for the rack shown above after purcahsing a table saw for myself (only way to get a decent straightline cut)

The top is not attached but is supported by 6 bolts and washers and is half depth drilled. I used the green top threaded rod (from anywhere...not sure what the diameter is...lots of freedom here, use what ever you like) get matching bolts and wider flat washers (fender washers if possible)

I used high temperature flat black spray paint on all the steel hardware...3 or 4 coats...then threaded the bolts extremely care fully to the middle points on the stand (furthest from the ends) then respray painted because they will remove some paint while threading...then assmbled shelve and touched up stripped sections of threaded rod by spray painting onto a piece of cardboard and using a brush to touch up the rods....its a major pain but turned out well and was cheap....

glad to see people like the rack...it took quite a bit of effort, mark

m_laken April 21, 2004 22:10