Seeing as I work in television as an audio operator, I have about three racks of audio gear behind me where I sit at my console and it's all solid steel. As well, our racks room is comprised of both server racks and traditional audio racks by Middle Atlantic. Both types of rack house audio, video and computer gear - not to mention an array of power and lighting gear. Just make sure it's secured tightly, on solid ground and isolated. As well, make sure your rack is at least 20" wide to accomodate most audio components.
Others might have different opinions. Hope that helps.
It will be going on carpet. My only concern is the grounding. Should I not worry about that? Also, do you know of an inexpensive place to buy cable? I'm not big on $400.00 cables. Reason being, my dad spent 2000.00 on cables(Monster) and there was no difference between that and cheap Acoustic Research cables. I am looking for something in between.
Shouldn't be a problem. Just ground yourself before you touch any gear in the back that's hot. Other than that, you should be fine. You can always put the stand on isolation pads, but, I've never had any issues with static at the racks at work.
As for cables, I own some AR cables in my collection and they seem to work just fine. I can't hear the difference between my Monster Cable and the AR... not to mention all the speaker wire I have. Heck, most of the cable that is used in our profession television studio is standard green wire two pair!!!!
As an IT guy as well I urge you to ground the rack so that the ground should terminate at the SAME ROD that your power grounds too.
I can go on and on about "isolated" grounds but the cold hard (real) fact is that unless the power grounds gather at a single point a ground loop WILL occour (with cpu equip) and its a safe bet the same will happen with audio. < expensive "isolated" lesson learned >
just patch into one of the bare copper wires that's feeding your system...
(or white for that matter they both bus together)
but definately ground the rack especially ifin it's on a carpeted floor.....