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
@franks thanks!  I didn't know Symposium had footers for the prime.  Will definitely check them out.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Symposium inserts! Users have reported good results. Owners of the Seque platform have also reported excellent results with unsuspended tables, and a set of Roller Blocks (or similar roller bearings) between the table and the Seque may provide even more isolation.

Another option is the Townshend Seismic Platform, or the Seismic Pods under a shelf of your own choosing. Either way, very effective isolation at relatively reasonable prices. To do better, you have to go to the microscope isolation platforms, at around $2500 and up. Ouch!

I had a problem with rumble and acoustic feedback,when playing vinyl, for years, after moving to a new house.  I tried many tweaks, but most were unsuccessful.  Vibrapods, sorbothane, rubber compressor mounts, inner tubes-you name it.  I even built a wall mounted shelf, but still had problems (I'm on a suspended floor upstairs)  The wall shelf was a good idea and it did "help", but didn't eliminate the problem.  I bought some HEAVY DUTY springs, separated my shelf from actually attaching to the wall, by hanging the shelf with cables connected to eye bolts, in the front and back (forming a 90 angle in the back and a 45 degree angle in the front), then attached the springs to the underside of the shelf in the back. Connected the springs to some adjustable heavy duty nylon tie-downs and connected that end to the floor out from the shelf at a 45 degree angle. This way, I was able to pull the tie downs tight enough to where the shelf is essentially "floating" and isn't hard connected to the wall.  I covered the cables with "armaflex" to help aesthetically. It was a project and a half, but it works great!  If I had $3-5K for an isolation table, that would have been great, but with two turntables, my idea worked and cost considerably less.
Maybe, with walls on suspended floors, stabilization with isolation is the trick. Springs worked for me as well.
Kenny
This was my biggest improvement for turntable isolation hands down: Symposium ISO Segue isolation platform