Gator GR-6S

It may not be up to extremely heavy duty "pro" standards, but still enough for more casual, "civilian" use.

I need occasionally to transport and/or store some of my gear. And often those are quite sensitive but heavy, mostly old-school analog pieces, so need to be handled with care anyway, so extreme sturdiness is not needed.

One of the main selling points of this Gator range for me was its intermediate size internal 360mm depth. Might seem like a small difference to say a 420mm case, but when you need to actually lift such case fitted full with front-heavy gear, the advantage of better center of gravity is instantly obvious.

So usually I take it out, dust it off, open the lids, connect, and off you go with a session.

So at least for my particular use cases it performs nicely.

The only minor complaint I would have, is the lack of odd HE sizes, like 5HE, 7HE, etc, when sometimes you either need that extra 1HE for ventilation, or the opposite, need to get as compact as possible.

But that criticism also pertains to other molded (not custom plywood) case manufacturers.

Well it's a lightweight rack.

Nothing too flashy or bomb-proof. Plastics are of good quality, no warping, the lids close nicely and firmly. Love the shallow depth as it makes a world of difference in how evenly weight is distributed. Also looks great on a guitar cab.

As others have noted, the rails system leaves a lot to be desired as it's pretty much threaded steel blades that are held in place with the devices you rack on. Works ok, but takes a bit of extra care to get alignments right. Pro-tip, screw everything you need loosely on the rack, align to perfection and screw tight.

All in all, a solid choice for the money.

This is not professional grade gear. I would definitely not take this on the road. But for holding my guitar rack gear in place at home and occasionally taking it for gigs I suppose this will do. As long as I know I'm the one carrying it. The plastic is light and feels cheap, the rails are even more flimsy and I would imagine it would be pretty easy to strip the threads from them. The butterfly locks don't feel like steel and they are much smaller than proper ones I've had on other racks before. Overall it feels cheap, which I suppose at this price point should not be a surprise. So if you actually need something that can be trusted to be handled by stage hands and roadies get something else. This is suitable for home use only.

What can I say...it's a box! But on that note, a pretty impressive box. I carry a full, pretty heavy rig in here including GK 1001RB head and it holds out beautifully. The screws/fastenings-whatever you want to call them-are REALLY secure, and it's pretty easy to cart around. If a bomb was on course to land in my house, I would immediately empty this rack case and hide in it, such is my faith in its protectivity (is that a word?). Nice secure fastenings to open/close the case.

At first it seems a little odd to me that removing all the screws from one of the mounting strips means said mounting strip detaches, but that completely irrelevant as you'll be adding rack units in once a time any way. And once in, they'll never come out.

I use short Gator rack cases for all my preamps, tuners, power amps and rack mounted bass amps. They are a reasonably priced worthwhile investment to protect gear and keep equipment in good condition which in turn maintains resale value. Well made and reasonably sturdy, with good handles and butterfly clips. These last well. That said I am careful with all my gear and do not throw it around. There are stronger, more durable rack, shock resistant rack cases out there, but they are considerably more expensive. These are perfect for the job if you don't abuse them. This 6U GR-6S is the seventh Gator rack case I have bought. Never had a problem with any of them. Thomann service an delivery excellent as always.