Z Audio Custom Rack

Purchasing process

These racks can be purchased via Audiogon, you can order standard sizes or exchange email with Terry and have the various dimensions tweaked, or select the woods you would prefer.

I went with 1.5inch Maple shelves and Walnut legs and mine has shelves that are an inch deeper than normal to accommodate the Pacific and custom height shelves to get the overall height I was looking for and to accommodate the tubes in the Pacific.

After exchanging email and agreeing on dimensions Terry will respond with a quote that includes shipping. My quote was $682 + Shipping ($154.48). Shipping was always going to be significant, mine weighs in at >60lbs.

After paying, mine shipped in about 6 weeks. Terry sent me pictures about 1/2 way through the process.

For full disclosure, Terry erroneously shipped me 2 incorrectly sized shelves, when I informed him via email he was profusely apologetic and quickly shipped me two replacement shelves.

Assembly

The shelves arrived via Fedex in two boxes, one with a single shelf and the legs and a second with the two additional shelves. Included is all the hardware you need to assemble them (12 screws), and a “#2 square recess power bit” which you use to drive in the provided wood screws and a bottle of wax.

Assembly really isn’t rocket science, line the leg up with the pilot hole in the shelf, insert the screw and start it with your fingers, use a power screw driver or drill to drive the screw into the shelf. The whole process can be completed in a few minutes.

Isolation

The shelves stack on top of each other using rubber feel located in a recess on the top of each leg. The rubber connectors can be adjusted to level the shelves as needed.

I personally prefer this approach to using spikes between the shelves, spikes couple things together rather than providing isolation, but if you preferred spikes it looks like it would be relatively easy to swap them on.

Final Thoughts

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these.

While the design is basic, the build quality is exceptional, and I really like how it looks (even my wife liked it). And it’s really hard to complain about anything at the price point, I looked at another custom option that had hollow shelves, rather than solid, and was significantly more expensive.

I like mine so much that I’m probably going to order a second one from Terry in the new year.


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