The TNT FleXy Table

The TNT FleXy Table^®: DIY audiophile rack

[TNT Flexy - made by Gianni Cimbalo, TNT reader]

Now that you have bought the HiFi system of your dreams (...kinda of) you start wondering where you can store all the electronics. You may have heard that the usual HiFi racks of the Seventies are not all that good because very heavy and prone to vibrate and resonate. Then you may have seen many audiophile racks out there, all equipped with spikes (tip toes), MDF or glass shelves etc. and soon you've discovered that these don't come cheap, especially if you need 5 or 6 shelves (turntable, CD transport, DAC, preamp, power amp...). Plus you can't always customize the height of the shelves to suit your personal needs.

So what's next? You start to browse your beloved TNT-Audio, looking for a cheap, good sounding and easy to build DIY HiFi rack. And here it is: the TNT FleXy table!!!

You can have as many shelves as you need, independently damped and isolated from each other, micrometric adjustment of the height of each shelf, cool looks (at least, we think it looks cool...) and extremely low price.
Below you'll find the list of the things you need to build your own TNT FleXy table.
Warning: the TNT FleXy table uses a principle which is slightly different from the one that is commonly used for other audiophile racks: while these are pretty rigid the FleXy (hence its name) is built in a way that vibrations coming from the outside world (loudspeakers etc.) are damped while passing through the rack structure itself. But please read on:

3 threaded steel bars, 1 meter long and with 18 mm of diameter. Cost: 3$ each.
For EACH shelf you need 6 screw nuts, 6 steel washers and 6 neoprene washers (common rubber washers work fine, too). The washers, both the steel and the neoprene ones, should be 2 mm thick.
N MDF (medium density) shelves with N = number of shelves you actually need :-) Each shelf should be 20 mm thick. Choose the dimensions you prefer (normally 60 x 40) though it should be better to respect, if possible, the golden section ratio (see the Interview with Cardas).
Cost: 5$ each.
Paint (if you don't like the natural MDF looks)
Some damping paint. You can even use the Noise Killer or equivalent.
Lubing oil, better if with some graphite in it.

First of all you must decide HOW tall your own FleXy should be: it is an easy math calculation, just decide the number of shelves you need and the distance from each other and you're done.
Now lube each bar, after having cleaned it from any trace of rust and dirt. This procedure may be necessary from time to time unless you use stainless steel bars which cost slightly more but that will last for a lifetime.
Now cut the 18 mm holes into the shelves, following the scheme you can see in the picture below:

Before painting the shelves (if you have decided to) don't forget the damping coat to apply on the lower face of the shelf (not the one where you'll place the electronics, that is). Once the shelves are dry you can start to build your table, placing the nuts and the washers following the scheme below:

Now your FleXy is almost ready to go: decide the height of each shelf, place 3 spikes under each leg of the table and with the aid of a level adjust each shelf so that it becomes perfectly horizontal. Now you can finally tighten the nuts.

Once finished your FleXy should look like the one you can see on the top of this page. It is actually on the hi-tech side but it can be easily used even with classical furniture, depending on the color of the shelves.
Also, you may want to use marble shelves instead of the MDF ones: the FleXy will become heavier but it will look better. As an example, please see the Marble FleXy one of our readers has built for his system: here you can find the cool picture

Does it work? You bet! The TNT FleXy is stiff but allows a minimum amount of necessary damping. It costs almost nothing and can be easily customized to suit your needs.
The TNT FleXy table has been successfully built by many of our Italian readers (the design was published into the Italian section of TNT almost 2 years ago, 1996) and the comments have always been very positive, given the cost (extremely low) and the easy building process. For these reasons the FleXy is one of our most popular DIY projects.

Do not forget to read the useful Flexy FAQ's!

Double FleXy!!!

Ever dreamed of a DOUBLE FleXy? Well, one of our Italian readers (Lorenzo Roncoroni) has built such a thing and we believe it is simply gorgeous!!! Grazie Lorenzo!

Acrylic FleXy by Arnold Z. Cruz

Our reader Arnold Z. Cruz has built a hyper-cool variation of our FleXy table using acrylic shelves. The visual result is simply outstanding. If you have questions, do not hesitate to contact him about the details.