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

Folks, some input would be mighty appreciated.

I’ve been using a hand-me-down (though very nice!) Micro Seiki dd-40 turntable for a number of years and finally got the upgrade itch (it helps the upgrade itch when your cartridge is going on 30 years old, and sounding like it!).

I went down the rabbit hole and picked up a Transrotor Fat Bob S turntable, with an Acoustic Solid 12" arm and a Benz Micro Ebony cartridge. All with only about 30 hours of use at a great price. Yay!

Though I have considered getting rid of my old Lovan Classic rack for a new custom jobby, I’m pretty much spent out and I think I’ll have to make do for now, working with the Lovan.

The Fat Bob turntable is 55 lbs of solid aluminum and built like Thor’s hammer.

I figure this will finally get me to fill my Lovan stands for a bit more rigidity - probably with rice. The stand is the old 3 legged triangular shaped bass, which means the thin MDF shelves can feel like they sit sort of precariously on top. But the stand itself feels quite solid.

I want to incorporate a wood platform base, as many do, because I really love the look of a nice wood slab.

At first I thought maybe I’d have 3 spikes drilled in to the bottom corners of the wood base to directly couple it to the rest of the Lovan frame, vs resting it on the top mdf shelf. But I’m not sure that’s really necessary. And I’d like to incorporate some isolation as well, I think. So I’m thinking of just laying it on the top shelf, with something in between.

My first thought is to place a Symposium Segue shelf between the top of the Lovan shelf and the wood base.

Other than that...I’m flummoxed as to all the other choices...roller blocks? Symposium Fat Padz? Vibrapods? Herbie’s Tendersoft footers? Voo-Doo Isopods?  What should I put between the wood platform base and my Lovan shelf?

Any comments of suggestions on the direction I’m going?

Thanks!

(BTW, I’m an resolutely NOT a DIY/Handy-man type, so I’m not trying to go to heroic efforts, wishing this to be as painless as possible).
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Showing 1 response by jab

jab's avatar
jab
450 posts
 

I have used Lovan Classic 1 and 2, many years ago. The top shelves were very tipsy being a tripod design, which did not change with new tops of any kind. I am a woodworker and tried oak, walnut, plys of many kinds, bdr shelves and in the end all were still sitting on a ringing metal stand. Its like a body builder if you put muscle on a weak frame it helps but does not match muscle and a large frame. If you look at many of the stands sold on this site they are 3 inch maple shelves with weak frames or no frames at all. That is why they need to use such thick maple, due to a bad frame. Out of all the wood I have tried in my 40 years in this hobby, and I have tried more than listed, the only wood that sounded better musically was maple. Is it he hardness of maple that makes it sound better, I think not because oak, cherry, teak etc. are hard woods but sound bad. Why?  

Since money is tight and you are going to keep those frames,(your choice, I sold mine) I would go the route of many on this site and try a very thick slab of maple on a bad frame.   

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