Curing Vibration in Audio Stand

I don't wanna use spikes they'll tear up the carpet.

 

That's not the problem I'm trying to solve.

Problem: when I open cabinet doors or lean a bit on cabinet the cabinet moves because the carpet is very thick.

Solutions seems to be spiked feet or sit furniture on granite so it won't jitter around when I open the cabinet doors. Not a good situation with TT playing on top. The other solution is not to open the doors when playing TT lol.

 

My experience with spikes through carpet (and lord knows I have experience here) is they don't bother the carpet unless you move the piece repeatedly.

 

What happens is the spikes dig into the carpet past the pile and dig into the carpet backing. If it's a thin backing, the point of the spikes will reach the floor and be more stable.
With a thick pile carpet you'll never see any holes when you move the furniture away.

 

Thanks, but it's wool carpet at around $12 square yard. Room cost almost $6000 for carpet/ padding/ install. Nope no holes allowed lol.

 

Curious what furniture piece as I’m also looking for s larger media console with an open back

 

Just an inexpensive cabinet from Amazon. But it weighs 100 pounds. It comes with a back but I didn't install it.

 

The OP appears to have discounted flexy suspended floors as the source of the wobble and narrowed it down to the plush carpeting. So the spike suggestion is the appropriate solution in this use case. If the spikes are steel, sharp, and of high quality, they won't cut or otherwise damage the carpet fibers. They will simply push the fibers out of the way as the points burrow through the carpet and down to the floor beneath. If and when the spiked piece of furniture is eventually moved, you simply "massage" the rug where the spikes had penetrated it and evidence of the spikes having been there will disappear.

 

Why not 1 or 2 anchors to the wall behind it? Should take all of 10 minutes with a cordless drill and that easy solution will end the problem. The iron pipe plumbing section of Home Depto is where I'd be looking for 1/2 threaded pipe the right length and 4 flanges.

 

It's a basement. It's concrete under the plush carpeting. No flex suspended floor. It's just really thick carpet. I like the idea of granite or MDF that was suggested by TMan123 and izeek. Or Agitater's suggestion just don't worry about it too much lol. And TT is level (Technics 1500 is very adjustable). The granite or MDF should make it better than it is now.

 

We just remodeled. Went all mid-century look (I'm 65 it now looks like my parent's place in 1964 lol). My wife would never let me install iron pipe. Plus we're prone to rearranging furniture.

 

I have a tall rack (top shelf at 5') on a carpeted floor; the turntable sits on the top shelf. Although the rack has spiked feet, it was not entirely free from a bit of movement. I made it rock solid by putting a cleat on the back wall behind the rack and then using angle brackets to tie the rack to the wall. This was done near the top of the rack. Now there is no movement at all, even when the rack is subjected to a hard shove.

 

Well in that case no spikes and no back braces per order of the person who must be obeyed means you need to get used to a wobbly cabinet in that room. The 1/2" iron pipe and floor flanges was a quick suggestion. Angle brackets were mentioned and they would've worked to as would lots of solutions with a little bit of creativeness. Forget about adding weight......if you want it secure then the top of the wobbly cabinet needs to be anchored somehow someway to a solid object such as a wall. How do I know this........I have a rack that weighs roughly 2000lbs loaded with weights and dumbells. There was a significant wobble till I anchored the top with 2 little brackets with 4 little sheetrock screws. Good luck to you sir

 

Furniture for audio stands ususally have some sort of indiviual feet that over time sink into a thick carpet & pad which, while not a best case interface for vibration control or stability, has worked well for me over wood floors.
Cone shaped composite & or ceramic footers could concentrate the stands weight & push down into the carpet/pad deep enough to possibly lessen any leaning.

Opening cab doors while a turntable plays seems a bad idea too.

 

Mechanically, a long, wide, 1” (or whatever) slab of MDF or granite of sufficient size to act as a plate/platform for the piece of furniture, will make the setup more stable only if the plate/platform is of sufficient weight to fully compress your plush carpeting. If the MDF or granite plate/platform is (for example) 18”W x 55”L x 1” thick even granite won’t be heavy enough to do the job of fully compressing the carpet. Not even close. That would mean that, because the weight of your setup would be spread out over an area somewhat larger that its current four legs or perimeter base or whatever it is, that the plate/platform would be essentially floating on the carpet with your furniture/setup on top. In my experience, the furniture/system setup would likely be less stable than it is right now.

Again mechanically, a granite or MDF plate/platform of the size area estimated above would have to be thick enough to make it at least triple the weight of your furniture/setup in order to fully compress the sort of carpet you described. Even then, the carpet wouldn’t fully compress immediately. It would take at least a few days, it would be unlikely to compress the carpet evenly (which means you’d have new levelling problems), and would also most likely after some weeks make a permanent depression in the carpet.

 

Well, darn. I am not going to move a 200+ pound piece of granite down to basement. Thanks for heads-up.

 

Then this topic is over. The spikes penetrate through the carpet and pad to get much closer to hard floor. They were not invented for sound quality.

Anything else is going to float on top of the foam pad and carpet pile and allow the deflection, rocking, and tip of the cabinet.

The only other thing to do is put earthquake brackets between the cabinet and the wall so it doesn't fall over when the big one hits.

The stapled or tacked back is often an integral support member. Without it, the whole cabinet can fold over like a house of cards.

 

Yup you're on to something. Thanks. The stapled or tacked back is very much an integral support member. Which I didn't get until you mentioned it. House of card. Exactly.

 

An advance on just fitting spikes would be some form of metal feet under the cabinet which taper down to a conical point or spike, but they need not be overly sharp. I would then fix large crosshead/Philips head screws down into the wood floor to align with the point of the feet. The screws heads can be wound down to be flush with the carpet pile so that they are barely visible. The point of the feet or spikes of the cabinet above are then located into the centre of the cross head screws. I often do this for my equipment stands as it allows for easy movement of stands for cleaning and correct level and the relocation onto the screw heads after. This also gives the stand / cabinet feet a more firm grounding into the floor boards while making the unit more resistant to rocking. I would then also fit separate isolation units under each item of equipment to tune the sound.

 

While you seem averse to spikes, decent ones will leave no evidence that they were ever there if you move the rack. Frankly, putting the rack on heavy wood, granite, etc. will permanently compress your thick carpet fibers and leave a much more noticeable impact area if it is later moved. So my vote is spikes.

 

What wood floor?

 

Doh! Sorry. You could try drilling accurate holes in the concrete (checking it's safe to do so) then push in screw plugs to accept screws? Although obviously you need to be sure about the long term placement.

 

Unfortunately, the OP will then have coupled his console/rack to a concrete slab - an invitation for any resonance (e.g., from footfalls, loud music, the furnace and/or AC elsewhere in the basement, etc.) in the slab to excite the console/rack.

 

Simple solution. Install the back. It's necessary.

 

The mass of a concrete foundation slab which is poured directly over compacted screenings will not resonate due to anything short of seismic activity @Agitater .

This proposal just adds unnecessarily to the complexity. It serves no useful purpose beyond the prior proposal of using sharp threaded steel spikes to push through the carpet fibers and underpad to rest on the concrete foundation directly.