Help! Tweaking My Lovan Rack for new Big A**ed Transrotor Turntable!

Folks,

New question:

I have a bunch of new gear to accommodate in my rack, which means moving things around.  I need a new shelf for my Benchmark DAC.
I just realized that there is actually space for the DAC in between the top of my Lovan rack and the butcher block, since the butcher block is held a couple of inches high by the Townsend pods.

Is there any issue with placing a DAC under the turntable bass, in terms of any forms of interference?   Again, the maple bass is 2 1/2" thick, then the thick turntable above it.  The cartridge would be about 15" away from the DAC separated by the turntable/maple bass.

I also need a space to put my tiny raspberry pi computer (about the size of my palm) which feeds the DAC, and it could also fit under the turntable bass.

Any issues?  Thanks.

Not that I think there is any interest left in this thread but...

Bit more update:


1. Today I received my order of the ASC Wall Damp material, suggested by bdp24.  Thanks bdp24!

I ordered their cheapest box of 25 4"X4" self adhesive sheets.  My main goal is to use them as both a layer of damping material and a way to bond the top thin Lovan rack MDL shelf to the thicker 3/4" MDF sheet, to thicken up and strengthen the top shelf upon which my new butcher block/transrotor sit.

I was told by ASC that diminishing returns set in pretty quickly in using the damping material, meaning I don't have to cover every bit of surface in order to realize excellent gains in damping.  With that in mind, I'll probably cover about 75 percent of the area between the thin/thick MDL shelf, after which I'll have a bunch of sheets left over.  And I figure, what the heck, I'm going to attach them to the bottom of my butcher block base to add further damping to that block.

Also:

2. I received the Soundeck PM Black (platter mat), made by the sounddamped steel folks. (See my link in a post a bit earlier).

On sheer looks and feel alone I love it!  It's a nice, solid extremely non-resonant constrain-damped steel disc, with a really nice black/dark gray finish that has a nice bit of texture and catches the light with a bit of sparkle.  It looks perfect on top of the big aluminum Transrotor turntable, looks like it's part of the table and elevates the look even more.  Sonically?  I won't know until I finally have my turntable up and running.

It also gives a bit more grip between the top of the turntable (which is black...either rubber or acrylic or something, and a bit more slippery). 

On that note: I have also received with the Soundeck platter mat a thin neoprene mat.  And I received my Herbie's "way excellent turntable mat."  

My intuition is that I would want the record as "bonded" to the turntable platter as much as possible with as little possible slippage.  I tried the mats in various combinations and the best one seemed to be:

Soundeck (metal) platter mat right on top of the turntable platter, with the thin Soundeck neoprene mat on top.  There was the least "slippage" with this combination.  I could turn the big heavy Transrotor platter via touching only the outer edge of the record itself, and bring it to an easy complete stop by putting my finger only on the record edge, with no sense of slippage.  It felt bonded to the platter. 

Plus I like the way the neoprene layer gives a yielding, non-abrasive surface for records.

The Herbie's platter was very good that way, but not quite as good.  Plus, worryingly, the Herbie's platter seemed full of static!  Every time I touched, lifting it off, there were crackles of static.  There is nothing like this with either of the Soundeck platter materials.

I don't like the idea of dust gathering on my turntable's platter between record playing sessions.  So I've decided when I'm not playing records I'll have the neoprene layer with the Soundeck steel platter on top of it.
That way the neoprene layer is protected from dust when the turntable is not in use, and the metal platter on top looks far better.  I'll just reverse them when playing records.

I'm awaiting my phono stage and then finally I'll be able to hear my new turntable.

Over 'n out for now. 

Another entry into the thread that is no longer being read :-)

I received my JE Audio Phono Stage and finally...FINALLY...set up my Transrotor turntable!

But before I get to that, here are the final details of how I re-jigged my meagre Lovan classic rack.

As mentioned before, the MDF Lovan shelves are very thin and flimsy. I wanted to re-enforce the top Lovan shelf so I originally bought a 3/4" MDF piece of wood to place on top of the Lovan shelf. That did make it feel more damped and sturdy. Then on top of that I had the Townshend iso pods holding up the 2 1/2" thick maple block, on which sat the turntable. I also placed a disc of sound-damped steel between the top of each pod and the maple block.

Then I tried adding another bit of MDF - another 1/2 board to the 3/4" board and, wow, that made a surprising difference in rigidity and solidity.
Significantly more "dead" sounding on the rap test.

Seeing how placing more boards together increased deadening quality, I switched the location of the MDF boards. Instead of sitting them on top of the Lovan rack, then the iso-pods, I put them held up on the isopods so now the MDF boards were paired with the Maple block above the isopods. THAT really made a difference - the Maple block became significantly more "hard," solid and dead sounding when directly re-enforced by bonding with the MDF boards.

So here’s what I did:

To bond the two MDF board, I used the thin wall damping material recommended by bdp24. A sort of constrained layer approach.
Then I painted that board black, so it would disappear visually beneath the nice looking maple block.

My pal was coming over today to help set up my Turntable (he has all the right stuff for doing the cartridge set up etc). I then realized I had a bunch of damping material left over so why not use it?

I decided to take the top shelf only of the Lovan. I opened up the caps for the pillars, and attached a whole bunch of the wall damping material inside each. Then, I covered the bottom of the thin Lovan MDF shelf with the wall damping material. Next, I cut strips and placed the wall damping material throughout the metal frame of the lovan rack, to reduce ringing/resonance.

Finally, I used blue-tack to bond the top of the lovan shelf to the top of the Lovan frame.

Result: Wow! I didn’t know if the effort would produce a result but it REALLY deadened the sound of both the metal frame and the lovan shelf! It’s far more dead sounding with the knuckle rap test, and the metal doesn’t "ring" at all, unlike the other untreated shelves below.

Further, to my surprise, there was a significant reduction of measurable vibration via the ipad seismometer app. Where before the treatment placing the ipad on the top shelf, and rapping the shelf or rack produced huge spikes and ringing. Now the spikes were much smaller and virtually no ringing! And that’s even before placing the additional isopods/mdf boards/maple block/turntable on the rack.

I’m glad just for the peace of mind/fun of it I did that last minute tweaking.

By the time I get to where the turntable is sitting, everything feels super dead and solid. And the ipad app measures huge decreases in vibration both "getting to" the turntable, or if I rap the turntable or maple block it’s sitting on.

So, I’ve done my due diligence. It’s up to the turntable now.

Unfortunately......(next post)....

When we hooked everything up we only got one channel playing!

Panic!

Cable-swapping time.

Thank goodness I had my experienced turntable buddy there because he ended up checking the wires of the RCAs coming from the Transrotor and, sure enough, one of the channel wires had been pulled apart.

It must have happened one of the several times I'd taken the turntable on and off the stand.  Wow, it's really true as my friend says, turntables HATE being moved.  It didn't take much for this to happen.

My buddy says it's an easy fix, a snip and a bit of soldering which he'll do whenever he can make it back to my place.

So, sigh, all that build up to disappointment.  My longing to hear my turntable unfulfilled.

When I finally get it working, I'll report back to this thread-that-no-one-reads  :-)

Turntables are not for lightweights, ay prof?! It takes a lot of work to maximize their performance, but if you have a lot of LPs it's well worth it. Then there is room acoustics!