I do amps on bottom, cable/sat's on top. Putting amps on top makes the rack very top heavy and a bear to service if they have to be pulled out.

Putting heat generating gear at the top makes sense because warm air rises. The problem with amps at the top on a slide out rack is they can make the rack wobble. I would put the amps at the bottom and any dvrs at the top.

I try to keep anything the customer has to touch together and in the middle of the rack. DVD, VCR :), IPOD, XBOX etc.

I put the stuff they dont need to touch at the bottom.

If only MA would come out with a RSH for this



I need the floor space.

I think i might have something for ya :)

Theres space in there for any turntables you might have also.

When i said media shelf i meant the 4 space shelf that SD had in post #22. It looks just like the ipod shelf but it has 4 dividers in it giving you 5 spaces. 1 for the ipod and the other 4 spaces for cd's or whatever. I thought that would look better than the ipod floating in that huge open space.


Im not a numbers man and im only allowed to touch tools when im being supervised.

Are you buying thru avad or direct from MA? I wonder if you save anything by ordering direct. We have been ordering from MA for 100+ years so i dont know what the dealer requirements are.

savings from direct are minimal, any disty would offer varied pricing so check around.

when doing racks we try to use as many rack mountable brands as possible, and we usually only wind up needing RSH's for source components like DVD, AppleTV, cable/sat boxes etc. This keeps costs down as much as possible.

The media tray is a CD tray. (MA part number CD) it fits most Ipods. I don't think that it will fit the Itouch or Iphone. The Ipod dock that you see in the photo is a Niles Smartdock. You do have to drill a hole into the back of the Media Tray to fit the 30 Pin connector. The Escient piece is a FP1 in a ZP1 RSH Shelf. Originally I was using the Niles Ipod dock with a custom cable connected to the FP1.

The last rack I did, I put the I pod in an Iport IW3 in the wall next to it along with a 7" Via, this saves a lot of space in the rack, and enables anyone to drop one in and hit Ipod on the touchpad next to it to make it easily work. Also when running the Escient there is a screen right there for seing the server info.

I also put my amps on the bottom and cable boxes on the top. Have you seen the rack fans from cool components? They have a six fan unit that pulls nice air into the bottom.

Cory, don't think that you are going to put this rack in in two days, it will take a week to do properly. What are you doing for making your interconnects?

You should really take a look at MA's white paper on proper ventilation and use of fans. I know it changed the way I looked at the racks I built. I rarely use perf blanks anymore and even put sides and rear doors on racks that I might not have used sides and rear doors with before. It's more about where the rack is located then the rack itself.

Yeah, I've planned some time for the rack installation and assembly. I am planning to use a clean front with custom shelves, blanks and rack ears. The rack is in a mud room, right now the room is blank and there is/will be a cabinet built just for the rack.

I will have the cabinet vented at the bottom and have exhaust fans at the top of the cabinet (not the rack) to pull the hot air out and fans at the bottom vents to push some cool air in. I think this will work very well.

I agree on the Media shelve, serves a better purpose overall. I would love to just put an iPort in the wall next to it, but again, Niles ICS has a 30 pin cable, what can i do?

At this point I think I'm actually going to need to racks, I still need room for:
* A UPS (are all of you using one, if not, how often?)
* Another small AVR just for Master local power and video switching
* A 3rd HD Tivo
* Room to add a Blu-ray down the road
* Plus just some spare space, just in case.

I'm waiting to hear back from the architect to see if we can squeeze two racks in.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

As for the pricing:

I am talking MA listed retail price not cost. After building one rack in rack tools (as listed above) the MA suggested retail from rack tools is about $3500.

Does $3500 sound about right, just for the parts of a slide out AXS custom MA Rack?

What might help is that MA will make the AXS taller than 43 spaces as a custom order. I recently got one that's 45 spaces high.

Taking the feet off a 777 wouldn't make it fit in a 4 space gap (I just measured it).

But what MA might be able to do is make a single custom shelf for two components e.g. a 777 and an Escient controller, which might save you a rackspace. For example, I got them to make a single shelf for two 777s, which only takes up 9 spaces, compared to 10 spaces if you had them in two individual shelves.

MA usually will make custom shelves for you on request, but for equipment you will need to send the products into MA to be measured correctly.
The nice thing about this is after they make the shelf once, they will put it into there database so anybody will be able to get the shelf.

They'll have the 777 sizes on file. I have ordered a few of them in the last few years. The while sent it in thing is really not necessary now, either. You can just give them dimensional measurements. They have a layout and measure guide in the catalog.

These are some great ideas, but I think I'm still gonna need a 2nd rack. The customer may not got for the Escient which would get rid of the MX111, MP1 and the CX777, that will give me plenty of room, but I'd rather sell it all including a 2nd rack.

=-)