Rack Recommendations

These racks have come along way from the days of the old Target stands. I am using a variety of the fancy stuff about which you express sketpticism- (Grand Prix Monaco with carbon fiber shelves and all the bells and whistles and HRS, as well as a big shelving platform that was custom made by Finite Elemente back in the day for my turntable)- and not so long ago had Adona, mentioned above, build me a small platform for my phono power supply. They use constrained layer damping for the shelving and platform material; it was relatively inexpensive and for decoupling, I use Stillpoints SS. Very effective. (Even Mike Lavigne, who has one of the uber systems here, is using an Adona stand for his turntable and preamp, unless he has recently changed it out). They make all sorts of stands and platforms to order and aren't terribly expensive- a bit more than you indicated you want to spend but not silly money. You may need to consider additional component isolation beyond what the stands themselves provide but I'd second the vote on that company as a possibly- even with a custom job, they were pretty fast and easy to deal with.

Typo correction: "Skepticism" but you knew what i meant. Damn, the post editing function rarely functions.
Good luck!
Bill Hart

Thank you all for the feedback.

My $1,000 budget is due to both budget and skepticism. I don't want to overspend, I simply am looking for something that gets the job done at a reasonable cost.

I suppose if there is a significant improvement to be had I would consider spending the additional money. I do like the Adona racks I see here on audiogon.

I would look for something as solid as possible that can be coupled to the floor with heavy coned footers such as the brass Bear Paws by edenSound or Mapleshade brass. I personally appreciate the structural integrity, flexibility of equipment placement (by using their sliding bar supports), and weight of the Sound Anchor stands/racks, and use them under almost all of my equipment and speakers. Your budget would be low for a 5 shelf rack but you can occasionally find them used near that price range. Unfortunately, if you are not near the seller, shipping can be expensive because of the size and weight.

Skyflyer04,
You really wouldn't be sorry with the Adona. I had the old 4 shelf Target for 20 years probably, because that was all that there was at that time. I almost got clobbered for spending $350.00 for it. It was better than nothing for sure, but the Adona has the granite/MDF shelves,some models like my own have adjustable shelves, and they all have a lot more room to move. As far as the way they affect the sound, it is definately easy to hear, but a little harder to describe. Music sounds at once more settled, but more free from the constraints of the speaker boxes. Isolation and vibration draining of components are not a waste of money. Buy the best one that you can reasonably afford, and I think you will wonder why you didn't do it sooner. They look good too.
Good Luck