Help with coupling/isolating advice for new turntable

I've just bought a Rega Planar 3 with Elys 2 and want to get more serious about the quality of music I'm listening to. I've spent the day reading about coupling vs isolating and set ups and got a bit confused so wanted some help with clarifying my plans for my set up.

I've got hard wood floors and am having a new hifi unit made (wood). The Rega will sit on an Ikead bamboo chopping board (which it's currently on).

My question is, should I "couple" the TT with the board with further bamboo "legs" to lift the feet of the deck off the board or do I isolate it on top of steel balls in a plastic or metal "cup" (concave base item like a caster). After this, do I then isolate the board from the hifi stand via something like squash balls sitting in rubber "cups"?

Once I've done that, the speakers which are on tall stands with spikes on the bottom, should they have a layer of bamboo between them and the floor?

If anyone can help me with some tried and trusted recommendations that would be great (I'm in the UK so some US products I've seen discussed I either can't get here or they're really expensive to ship & pay tax on).

 

Reading more this morning, would a partially inflated innertube of 14" be a good isolator between the unit and board and then on top of that ball bearings in casters beneath the plinth to isolate it from, or blocks to couple it with, the board?

 

Well, whatever you do, you have to keep it level, so keep that in mind.

Decoupling is almost always going to be the way to go. You may have looked at Herbie's and found the shipping was too steep, but I'd recommend looking at his Fat Dots etc. to add isolation to the board and between the turntable feet and board.

I replaced the pads on my turntable feet like this and it dried up the bass considerably. Take it one step at a time and take time for extended listening.

 

Thanks for the feedback. When I sit and listen to the system I can feel vibrations in the floor (wooden) so want to isolate the board from the unit it's on - so I think I'll try the inner tube trick. After that though I'm confused whether I should be coupling the TT with the board to remove energy from the motor etc. or isolating it? I'm pretty sure it's the former and I've read that bamboo blocks would work well but I've also seen a lot written about ball bearings so this is where I'm getting confused.

 

I found Torlyte platforms and oak coned feet fitted to the TT to have the best results by a mile IMO

 

I spent endless hours with coupling versus decoupling. All you can do is dick around, try all sorts of stuff and decide which works the best. Trial and error in this is probably more than anything else in a system. In the end you need to PROVE what you are trying to fix/eliminate/improve. Don't just assume.

 

Good point. The reason I got started on this is that I read the set up (i.e. base) for a Rega P3 was important in order to get the best out of it and the theory behind coupling/isolation makes sense to me. I had some mild distortion on some records so want to experiment. I might go for the inner tube and see what happens and then try coupling the TT after that.

 

I should have pointed out that my TTis also a Rega and i spent many months trying different isolation bases etc. Torlyte and oak coned feet was by far the best sound to my ears.

 

I've got the TT on a bamboo board and from all I've read I'm happy with that choice. The feet you mention are definitely reasonably priced but is wood the best material for isolating the board from the unit? (Opposed to steel or some kind of air bearing like an innertube). I've also read that for an innertube to be effective it needs to be a minimum of 18" and unfortunately with my deck, unit etc. the largest I could go is 14", so I'm ruling out innertube as an isolator now and considering steel bearings

 

Try OCF under the bamboo and under the TT and see what you think. It works for me. A really nice and natural sound. If you dont like the OCF, you can always use them under your amp etc. Worth a go

 

Have you thought of a wall shelf? Rega make there own or you could try eBay , I sold my target audio one recently for only a few £ as it needed a refurb, a shelf would cure what you're describing .

 

As you've already sourced bamboo chopping boards, why not try making a "sandwich" using 2 of the boards & a layer of something like Sorbothane Vibration Damping Sheet in between? The sorbothane is available in several thicknesses (1/10", 1/8", 1/4") on Amazon US. You're looking for dissimilar materials to force the vibration to travel through, changing the transmission speed of the vibration => energy dissipates as heat. Sorbothane is likely the most expensive; there are all types of construction materials (cork, foam, rubber underlayments) that might make a cheaper solution.

 

What is OCF? Owens Corning Fiberglas?

 

I've considered it but it would have to go on an internal non loadbearing wall (the other side of which is the entrance hall) so I'm concerned about the support it would offer long term and also vibrations from the front door and foot movement in the room above (not saying my wife is heavy footed of course)

 

I was reading another older thread where people were discussing the negatives of sorbothane and rubber to actually isolate as opposed to adding to or changing something about the sound.

 

Well, remember a couple of things. First of all steel balls in a metal or plastic cup will couple not decouple. To decouple you need to float the item you're trying to isolate on some kind of device or substance that will absorb any movement -- both vertical and horizontal -- and dissipated it before it gets to, in this case, the turntable plinth. Metal footers, even round ones, don't do that. They couple. Second, you really are going to need to see how rigid this custom wooden hifi unit is. In my experience, wooden furniture make for a lousy turntable stand -- it's just typically not that rigid. It may not be the best home for the turntable. Third, if you decouple a bamboo board with something like a mostly deflated inner tube (which can provide isolation well down in single digit Hz frequencies, which is what you need to do to deal with footfalls on a wooden floor and with a wooden furniture type stand), and then couple the turntable to it, if there'a any airborne vibrations getting to the bamboo board, those will still be transmitted to the table. Bamboo is a nice, rigid, lightweight (and sustainable) material, but you might even want to decouple the turntable from it.

I'd suggest the easiest way to start is to use some elastomer feet designed for isolation appropriate for the weight of the table -- whether that's Sorbothane or some other material -- between the table and whatever it's sitting on, bamboo, directly on the shelf, whatever.

 

I think I definitely need to isolate the board from the unit, but with what? I'm looking at some steel bearings in concave "bowls" that look good but of course are not cheap (but still cheaper than the Rega wall unit at £120)

 

Steel bearings won't decouple. They may transmitted only relatively higher frequency vibrations, so they might work for footfalls, but I'm not sure. Start by trying some elastomer feet of one material or the other actually designed to decouple (everyone knows Sorbothane, the material and the brand name, but there are others too), between the bamboo board and the shelf (and maybe even between the turntable and the bamboo board). Just make sure you know how much weight is going to be on the elastomer footers and get footers designed for that weight -- if you put too much weight on that kind of material, it squishes and won't decouple but in fact will couple.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I've been reading posts/blogs by Barry Diament and he was saying that sorbothane is only a partial isolator but that may be in reference to being used between the deck and the board (as opposed to board and unit).

So you're recommending using something like sorbothane to isolate the bamboo board from the unit? I then want to isolate the TT from the bamboo board (although one article I read said it they need to be coupled in order to release the energy from the TT into the bamboo). Barry has his "Hip Joints" that are basically steel ball bearings in steel bowls which I understood from his article to function as isolators, are you saying that this isn't the case (which could be my misunderstanding as I'm just starting to educate myself about this stuff) and that these devices would in fact couple if placed between the TT and bamboo board?

 

I think You must look at different approaches what they actually are doing; what is coupling doing, what is decoupling supposed to do.. Also doing several things at the same time will make it very hard to know what is doing what.

 

I don't see how steel balls in steel cups can isolate. They'll couple. Now, the size and nature of the material may mean that they'll kind of work as a mechanical high pass filter, only allowing HF vibrations to transmit, so, if you concerned about low frequency footfalls, maybe they'll work to isolate from that while coupling at higher frequencies. Everything is only a "partial isolator" -- theses difference schemes and substances were well at some frequencies, not others; and/or work well in vertical directions but not as well in horizontal directions, or whatever.

 

Agreed, I'm not sure that I need to isolate the TT from the board at this stage (this is more of an attempt to have the best set up I can for my equipment) however with our wooden floor, footfall never makes the records skip or be heard via the speakers BUT the floorboards certainly vibrate so I'd like to isolate the bambok board the TT sits on from the hifi unit

 

I think your suggestion is certainly the cheapest option (just checking ebay) so will invest in 4 sorbothane cups to place under the bamboo board and see how this works before investing in more expensive options. So thanks again for the tip.

 

Doesn't bamboo have excellent internal damping, like considerably better than wood? Isn't that why everyone and their grandma is putting their TTs on 'boo cutting boards now?
.

 

Well, it's lightweight and very rigid. Stiffness and damping I think are two different things. It's like a shelf of steel -- it'll resist movement and stop moving faster maybe than a less rigid material but it' not exactly the same thing as damping as a phenomenon I think. But, what do I know, I didn't even take high school physics!