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Looking for turntable isolation advice

Greetings from Oregon,

Was hoping to get some suggestions on turntable isolation for my particular situation.  My setup starts off with two strikes against it - suspended wood floors in my apartment and the turntable between in the speakers.  Neither is ideal, but that's the room I have.  As it's an apartment, structural changes are out of the question.  I have a VPI Prime on the stock feet, which are a nice step up from the feet on the Traveler that I had before, but I'm not sure about their ultimate performance.  

For my stand, I am using two heavy duty (about 70lbs. each) Sound Anchor speaker stands facing each other with a 4" maple platform on top of them (with blue tack between the stand and platform).  The stands are spiked into Herbie's gliders.  I find that all of my stands sound better on the gliders or generally decoupled from the floor.  The speaker stands are only about 10 inches wide but the platform is 24"x19", so it's probably not the most stable set up.  I'm getting good sound, but I know that the table is still subject to some vibrations.  I'd like to get advice on anything that I might do to better the performance of the table.  

I've considered some the following:

1). Aftermarket footers for the table, possibly Stillpoint Ultra SS.   

2). Better spikes on the stand - Gaia, Stillpoints, Track Audio, etc.

3).  Paving stone under the stand

4). All of the above

5). A wall shelf.  This would be a big task as the table weighs close to 60 pounds.  The only commercial turntable wall shelves I've seen hold 40-80 lbs. max weight, and I'd like something that is rated much higher to be safe.  I guess I could try a DIY project.  Would love to get the maple platform on brackets on the wall, but that would bring the weight over 100 lbs.  

So, any thoughts would be welcome.  It's turntable only rig, so I'm trying to wring every last ounce of performance out of it.  

Thanks so much for any insight that you might have.

Cheers,Scott
smrex13
kennythekey
558 posts
 
+ 1 yogiboy - "Before you waste your time and money you should get a stethoscope to find out if there is any type of a problem!"

Scott, It's going to be a system specific solution if there are problems you can actually identify. Besides our ears, we also have our sense of touch. I solved my mechanical feedback problem causing oscillation by the interaction of my subs and turntable. I isolated my subs with seismic Isolation Bars. This solution did come from these fellow Goners, but I provided them with details. Anyway, a lot of energy from my main speakers being rear ported for bass and two of my sub drivers also firing backwards at my front wall, creates a lot of vibration that I can feel from the wall. I would not hang my turntable on it. However, hanging your turntable on your wall, may be an excellent solution.

Another problem, is my rack sits out from my front wall on my wood suspended floor and if I push on it, I can make it wobble a little bit. My first concern is about having people over and it gets bumped while playing the TT. I got a thumbs up from my dealer liking my idea about attaching the rack to the front wall just to make it rigid. He suggested using dampening between the connection, while others have suggested a direct connection. My daughter, who's an architect says, "I don't know dad there's a lot going on in that wall." I'm going to try it with and without the dampening material and see. So, the point of my rambling, is that it depends and no one shoe fits all.

IMO - I would identify a problem(s), analyze it, get our opinions, solve it, and then tweak if you've got that tweaking bug.
Kenny

czarivey
4,494 posts
 


building wall shelf that can hold 300lb isn't sophisticated as well. to make a REAL heavy duty structure you should replace cut out dry wall so two studs are exposed and mount 3/4" thick plywood panel and than attach shelf to that and here ya go. if you wanna go super fancy, you can attach maple board of appropriate size instead of plywood. that's the way I built my pull-up bar and other wall gym structures in my bedroom


smrex13 OP
423 posts
 
Thanks for the great suggestions - this has been a very informative discussion.  A couple of responses:

a.  I probably can't remove drywall, both due to my lack of skill and the fact that I'm in a rental.  Don't want to mess around with that.  But the thought of a wall shelf is still is intriguing.  

b.  If I use a stethoscope, what should I be listening  for and where should I be placing the scope?  

c.  I like the sandbox idea.  A while back I noticed that Adona's top TT stand has a sandbox top.  I'd forgotten all about that option.  

Best, Scott
lloydc's avatar
lloydc
549 posts
 
Sandbox didn't work for my non-suspended tt, it softened the sound. 

like with cables, trial and error is the only way.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
14,147 posts
 
One problem with the stethoscope suggestion is that the frequencies of interest, the most harmful ones, are below the threshold of hearing, I.e., the seismic type vibrations that excite the turntable platter, cartridge and tonearm are well below 20 Hz, they're down around 9-12 Hz.

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