Product Reviews

When the package arrived and I had finally received my 14U 'Econo' series rack from Nice-Racks.com, the first thing I noticed after removing the near-excessive wrapping was the intense, pungent scent of fresh stain. As it is with all things fruit and sound, freshness is generally a great sign of things to come.
As you may already know, the Econo series is simply two side panels with rack rails preinstalled -- your gear is the glue by which this rack is erected. At first I was skeptical of the design, as some gear can tend to be on the heavy side and I wasn't sure how well the Econo rack would hold up under pressure. Without a top or bottom panel to stabilize the structure, I was afraid that some sort of warping might occur, or perhaps a good knock to the rear half of the side would rip a rail out of the wood.
To test this theory out, the first piece of gear I loaded into the rack was an old Peavy T-Max bass head (let's just say that the weight of this thing prevented me from wanting to drag it in the house and put it on a scale). Simply to annoy myself, I attempted to load it with the rack in the standing position and, after 15 minutes and some help, got it fully mounted. The rack wobbled around and got into some strange positions during this process,but in the end everything lined up fairly evenly and it stood firmly on solid ground. If you install your gear like any sane person would, you'd save yourself all of this trouble and mount everything in a laying position so that gravity would become your friend (as opposed to bitter enemy).
After getting myself a warm glass of scotch, I spent some time pushing down on the amp head with mild to medium effort, shoving the sides inward, etc. Satisfying that nothing was going to break and / or explode, I went ahead and mounted some old synthesizers, a power conditioner, a few effects and a patch bay. Test conclusion? You'd have to hit this thing in the side / rear pretty damned hard to cause any serious damage, let alone rip a rail out.
After taking a step back to admire my handiwork, I noticed that the rack itself was sitting lopsided. Although it was obvious that this was a result of mounting a lot of vintage gear (aka widely varying standards as to screw hole placement), it presented an issue that was not worked out all that easily. It took about an hour or so of loosening and tightening rack screws until I got everything situated and the rack sat in a nearly perfect upright position. In the end this was a 'non-issue,' however this would not have occured in a standard rack box and was undoubtedly caused by a lack of horizontal support inherent in the design of the Econo series racks. Those of you with Rane gear are probably cringing right now.
Once everything was in order, plugged in and in working order, I realized something: this rack looks damn good. The wood was beautifully cut and constructed. For a stain color I chose Aegean, and although it wasn't what I expected (the finish was very matte), it was elegantly done and resembled anything you'd come to expect of a professional craftsman -- unlike a great many other rack box manufacturers out there.
In the end, I can't do anything but recommend Nice-Racks.com's Econo series racks to anyone looking for a high quality, gorgeous rack at an awesome price ($95 for a 14U!). As far as I have seen, the quality / price ratio here destroys the competition.

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