Best building material for vibration free shelving


I am building some built into the wall shelves for my VPI Classic 2 SE turntable, amp, preamp, CD player, and old Burwen TNE 7000A transient noise eliminator (that’s one for you old-timers to remember), as well as my DISH Network receiver box. The shelves must match in appearance the typical looking built-in wood bookshelves already in the room. The shelves will be located directly under my 45" wide flat screen television. They will be wide enough to hold two components side by side, other than the VPI turntable which will have the top shelve to itself due to its extra width. I will be building the shelves high and deep to allow for plenty of air circulation around the components. They will be painted.

My question is, what materials might you suggest building the shelves with to minimize vibration? If they were for books I’d normally build the sides, and top out of 3/4" birch sided plywood, the back out of 1/4 inch luan plywood, and the shelves out of oak to deal with the weight of the books without bending. I will be adding vibration damping feet under each component and am not looking for suggestions along those lines, only material and perhaps design recommendations to reduce vibration.

I was researching this last night online and on site, and saw recommendations to use four thicknesses of 3/4 inch High Density (HD) MDF, also to use granite or marble under the turntable, among other recommendations. I was wondering how birch veneered plywood would work too, as it’s ply’s, I believe, have their grains running in opposite directions. Maybe there’s some way to isolate the uprights from the horizontal shelves to reduce vibration transmission.

What would you think would work best for these built-ins. I’d appreciate any recommendations you have or your experience on this subject. Thank you for any ideas.

Mike


skyscraper
Actually, we DO know what wood Baltic Birch plywood is made from. Can you guess? ;-). It is the wood preferred by serious DIY speaker and subwoofer builders, and by a number who have made bases for their Thorens TD-124 tables (Art Dudley built his with BB). The 3/4"/19mm plywood is made of 13 very thin ply's, each ply cross-grain orientated relative to the ply on either side. Two pieces of BB with constrained layer damping between them makes a great shelf, turntable base, and/or speaker enclosure. 
@williewonka, thanks for the info. I've been reading that the density of the wood is the main criteria for isolation and preventing transfer of vibration. As you stated, porous wood will result in resonances and less isolation.

I built a shelf for a heavy SS amp using finished ash from Lowes. I doubled it and used wood glue to create a 3 inch platform. I then used Herbies soft dots underneath.
   The wood looked beautiful, but was not very dense like maple. However, it had a nice tonal quality.
 
Maple is a known good sounding wood for use as a platform. Yet it is not a particularly dense wood. It is a medium density wood. Mahogany is much denser, for example. One of the best Woods for sound, but not really for a platform, is Gabon ebony, a particularly dense wood and also very resonant. I think balsa would be interesting for a platform, a very thick slab of balsa.
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