What's your turntable sit on?

So many opinions, so little time to try them all.

Wood's not good, can't plan it with granite, on my wall it will fall, gotta bore through the floor, need a hand to pour the sand.....
........AAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH.........

Where do you start? Do you folks actually try all of these or does it depend on the type of table and the floor and......

What would you put a Clearaudio Solution on ?

 

I live in a 65 year ld house with wood floors. I probably should have purchased one of the target wall mounts but I wanted a floor stand to showcase my VPI. Besides, I don't think the SAMA would fit on the wall mount. I ended up with an Arcici lead balloon stand filled with lead and stand. Sounded pretty good but was susceptable to vibrations in the floor boards. So I added an Arcici air bladder under the turntable. The sound is better and I can walk around the room without fear of bouncing the needle. I found both of these item used on audiogon and only paid about $200 for both.

I've tried the aurios but was frustrated with their movement when trying to fasten the VPI clamp. I know a lot fo people swear by the vibraplanes but it was a little too experience for me.

Lastly, I know some folks recommend using a solid stand and adding an air bladder made from scratch. simply make a small box and add a wheelbarrow tire or two and voila!!!!

Good luck.

 

I recently went from my HW-19Jr 'table on a rack to a wall-mount. I was flabbergasted at what a huge difference the wallmount made! Without a doubt some of the best money I've spent on gear.

I wouldn't say a wall-mount is the be-all-end-all choice for every setup, but it's certainly one of the best options!

 

My stereo system is on the microwave cart without wheels and the turntable is on another, right next to each other.

 

OK, this may be a bit much...but I worked at a radio station where the turntables sat on top of a stand made of concrete blocks that were filled with gravel. The studios were in an old movie theater and they leveled the angled floor with a concrete layer and these two "stands" were built just like a block wall with morter between the blocks. You could do aerobics in the studio and never hear it on the turntables even playing a quiet groove.

 

Gary, I actually bought a mount designed for turntables, made by Apollo. I'm sure you could DIY if you want (I've DIY'ed my other equipment racks), but I found a nice demo unit for about $150. With as busy as I've been , waiting to do it myself might have been until fall...


Here's a link to the unit; maybe you can see how it's done, and copy it. This unit appears to be almost an exact copy of the popular Target mounts, now out of business.

www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=APOLLOWT1PRO

The frame is steel, the shelf is veneered MDF; the shelf sits on points. I may try building some different material shelves later & see what differences there are.

 

My turntable sits on a 400 pound metal desk. I can turn my system up all the way without knowing its a record playing.

 

rodney,

With all respect, all that mass may not be the best way to isolate your turntable from seismic vibrations. These low frequency waves (say 0.5Hz to 8Hz) are due to geological phenomena (of particular interest to folk near the Pacific rim of fire, especially along the California fault line), traffic, subways and trains etc. These vibrations can travel quite some distance before they are naturally attenuated.

The modern thinking (Max Townshend, Geoff Kait) is that you can isolate your deck from these by placing a massive weight (say 50Kg) on a partially inflated bladder (bicycle tube) and siting your turntable on that. This construction would work well sitting on top of your 400lb desk.

Consider another aspect: the sound energy emitted by your loudspeakers is being absorbed by the mass of your 400lb desk. That part of the energy that is not converted into heat is transmitted back into the record player with some time delay. The bladder will help to prevent this.

I don't know what type of turntable you have, but for a Linn the best sort of support is NOT a heavy shelf or rack. The flat-earthers demonstrated this in the '80s and I have experienced great benefits from siting Linns and Regas on light tables.

Footfalls are another issue entirely. They must be eliminated and I'm sure your heavy table solves that problem. I do think that there are more factors involved than that however.

As always - I am stating an opinion and encourage others to state theirs. Experimentation will then resolve opposing views.

Regards,
Metralla

 

My stereo system is about 75 feet away from my speakers.the desk I use is solid steel (nothing hollow at all).Im happy with it. Thats all that counts

 

rodney,

Well 75 feet is a long way and I would imagine that the energy from your loudspeakers is well down by the time it hits your 400 lb desk. I didn't say anything about "hollow". Seventy-five feet - you must have some pretty serious speaker cables!

The above is independent of my comments on seismic isolation however. I guess you live in a fairly stable geological area - Kansas, is it? Are you a fair way (say 20 miles) from major freeways, train lines etc?

Regards,
Metralla

 

Metralla,
the thing with the bicycle tube and the weight may also work as a heavy stone platform (granite for example) resting on 3-4 tennis balls. This construction should also eliminate very low frequencies.
I think the problem with such a solution is to get (and to keep) the equipment in a perfect horizontal level.
By the way: the tennis balls won't "roll away the stone", since they are sqeezed by the weight.

 

actually on tom port's advice of getting more weight under the table i got myself a 20kg piece of slate (heard from a few people that it doesn't resonate as much as other materials) and i must say it made a nice improvement tightening up the sound considerably. also i have the turntable on spikes on top (are these tiptoes??) of this slate. of course the question is does this allow vibrations in the table get out, not sure but i think its more important that vibrations caused by my wooden floors don't get in.

anyway there is an improvement so until my next tweak....

 

it may be worth a try.

i tested the turntable without the spikes but with the slate and wasn't that impressed. the biggest improvement was as above. but you have a point (forgive the pun), vibrations from the turntable would be absorbed by the slate while the tiptoes stop feedback from the floors/speakers.

i will give it a go tonight and report back.

 

My turntable sits Audio Quest footers and then on a two shelf polycrystal stand. The stand is on a concrete floor. As you can imagine I can jump up and down next to the stand without any skips from the tone arm.

 

i changed the sequence last night and hey there was an improvement.

change was --- wooden stand, tiptoes, slate, turntable
instead of----wooden stand, slate, tiptoes, turntable


definately more air arround the instruments, at first i even thought the volume had increased (has anyone else had that effect) as there was more depth to the sound.

now i wonder if i change the sequence under the CD player what the effect would be. i mean is there much vibration in the CD player that needs to get out???

 

Steve,

I would be glad to take a picture of it as soon as I figure out how to use a digital camera and then install the picture. I am new to this computer thing.

 

Can't take the spikes off my table, they actually hold the armboards on, would putting wood blocks under each spike and the motor be a worthwhile try?

 

I've had my Appolo wall shelf for about 12 years. I originally bought it because I moved into an old house that had really bad wood floors that you couldn't even walk one light step w/o setting off the suspension on my Systemdek II . I also use it now on my VPI JR, and I never have to worry!!!!!!!!!!!!! As now I'm in another house with not great wood foors, but much better than the former.