When placing and presenting hi-fi separates in your home, it’s natural to want them to look smart. Hi-fi racks from dedicated manufacturers are designed to deliver stable support and keep vibrations at a minimum so they don’t affect your system’s overall performance, but it also helps when these bits of furniture look good in your home.
Blok Stax 2G is a modern, modular hi-fi rack that aims to offer contemporary and stylish support furniture for your separates system. Designed and engineered in Essex, UK, the Stax 2G rack features isolation properties built into the structure, clever and user-friendly assembly, and even specially built tools just for this task.
Price
Each rack order comes with a base shelf (£275 / $375 / AU$569), which includes all the tools and accessories needed for assembling. You can get shelves in three different heights, but the width and depth remain the same. The modules include a Shelf 120 (£225 / $325 / AU$469), a Shelf 170 (£250 / $350 / AU$529), and a Shelf 220 (£275 / $375 / AU$569). There is also an “LP” vinyl storage module for £300 / $425 / AU$629.
You can buy individual shelves as you see fit for your hi-fi system, but Blok also offers two 'collections' to help you get started. The three-shelf collection packs in one shelf base and two Shelf 170 modules for £775 / $1075 / AU$1599. The four-shelf collection consists of a shelf base, two Shelf 170 and one Shelf 220 for £1050 / $1450 / AU$2149. In the photos in our review, you'll see the base, Shelf 170 and Shelf 220 assembled.
Build
The Blok Stax 2G is a smart-looking set of shelves. You can get the shelf material in veneered plywood or tempered glass – we’ve opted for plywood for this review – while the side supports are made out of MDF. There are three colour combinations: our review sample’s black ash plywood shelf with natural (dark) wood supports; natural ash plywood shelf with white satin supports; and black glass shelf with high gloss black supports.
It’s a minimal design that we imagine will blend into many living or listening rooms. The shelves and supports are well built, and each shelf can support up to 40kg of weight. That’s ample enough for most conventional stereo amplifiers, CD players and turntables, although it’s worth noting that rival racks from Atacama offer thicker shelves and higher maximum loads. We like the clean, modern lines of the Blok, but the finish isn’t quite as seamless as we’d like at the edges of the supports. We run our fingers across the surface and find a couple of very small rough patches.
Material/construction Plywood or Glass shelf, MDF support
Modular? Yes
Max load per shelf 40kg
Floor spikes? Yes
Shelf dimensions (wd) 602mm x 402mm
Finishes x 3
No. of shelves tested x 3
One of the most appealing aspects of the Stax 2G is how easy it is to put together. It takes less than 30 minutes and IKEA could take a few tips from Blok about assembly; there is also a helpful video on Blok’s website to aid you. Each shelf comes with its required fixing bolts, and there are silicon isolation pads under each support’s legs with grooves that fit snugly over each bolt/screw head when stacking the shelves. For the top shelf, there are four sleek magnetic caps that cover the screws. It’s a fuss-free set-up and we like not having to watch out for multiple sharp spikes as we've found in rival designs.
Even more useful is the specially made tool that helps attach and screw on each fixing bolt – it’s like an Allen key on steroids. There is also a cleverly-made floor spike adjustment tool that allows you to easily adjust and level the spikes once set up. Rubber feet are cleverly integrated into these feet, too.
The sturdy silicon pads between the shelves have been carefully engineered to optimise isolation; they are designed to reduce the unwanted resonances and vibrations carried through the shelf from affecting the products placed on them. There are also hidden rubber bungs in each shelf that further help to support the weight of the shelves and your system.
If you need more damping, there is scope to fill the shelves with inert acoustic materials (such as Atabites) or dried sand. Blok says any appropriate inert filler material available on the market is acceptable to use, and can be funnelled in through the removed bungs in the supports. They should have the desired effect of adding more mass for greater damping, should you need it.
Performance
We place a variety of products on the Stax 2G during testing, including the Cyrus CDi CD player, the Rega Planar 3/Nd3 turntable and the Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition streamer. We also have the Award-winning Atacam Evoque Eco 60-40 SE2 and the pricier Atacama Elite ECO 24 Reference hi-fi racks (both five star recommendations) for comparison.
With the Cyrus CDi placed on the Blok Stax 2G, we are treated to a spacious and large scale sound. Waxahatchee’s Tigers Blood album sounds more relaxed than ever, and we experience a more open soundscape where it’s easy to place and differentiate individual instruments. We find that our system sounds a tad rich in the bass, making the whole sound fuller. If your hi-fi system is particularly lean-sounding, then using the Blok rack should help to add a bit more body.
We switch to our long-running Atacama Evoque rack and find that, while the resulting sound from our system is smaller in scale, we feel there is a better sense of grip and drive with songs. In our opinion, there's more nuance, detail and emotion being revealed in Katie Crutchfield’s singing on 365, while our system sounds more solid and rhythmically agile here. With our kit placed on the Award-winning Atacama rack, the way our system delivers the basslines on Jamiroquai’s When You Gonna Learn is more defined and articulate, and there’s a greater sense of cohesion and solidity to songs.
Switching back to placing products on the Blok, we notice there is a slight loss of definition and drive to our system’s sound compared with using either of the Atacama racks. Overall, though, the Blok provides a stable platform, and the way it allows our system’s performance to deliver greater space, richness and ease of sound is appealing.
Verdict
The Blok Stax 2G is a thoughtfully put together hi-fi rack. We can’t stress enough how easy it is to assemble, not to mention how clever the bespoke assembly tools are. This is a modern-looking rack for modern systems and users, and one that offers an appealing blend of stable support and lifestyle appeal.
It’s perfectly fine for most kit if you’re after sturdy support that also looks nice, and it’s a good alternative to traditional-looking hi-fi racks. But if you want to get the best performance out of your hi-fi kit and are happy to sacrifice a bit of visual style, the more traditional Atacama racks will be the better option if you prioritise sound quality above all else.
SCORES
- Sound 4
- Build 4
- Compatibility 5
MORE:
Read our review of the Atacama Evoque Eco 60-40 SE2
Also consider the Atacama Elite ECO 24 Reference
Check out our pick of the best hi-fi racks
