Maple platforms

Dan ed,

You have beautiful woods in your plinth and custom rack, and I don't doubt the superiority of dense hardwoods. What I'm suggesting is that anyone with a hard-mount TT on a wood block or in a wood case (e.g. Lenco, Garrard)try floating the entire system (including wood rack) on another platform supported by heavy springs. Prior to trying this, I had shored up my floors & rack such that I could jump up and down without disturbing the stylus in its groove. But obviously there were earth vibrations still getting through, as the decoupling springs have made a further improvement. Now I can rest the needle on a stationary record and knuckle-rap the rack without a peep getting through to the speakers. Can you do this with your rack system?

Oopps. I forgot that I still have the old pictures up. That turntable is now siting on granite instead of the maple butcher block.

BTW, I did used hard maple for those butcher blocks.

Piedpiper,

I should disclose that my experience with spikes was with my Gavia. When I first received my Gavia last year I sited the 'table on the maple with the spikes directly into the maple. The sound was dull and lifeless to the point I was starting to wonder what I'd just purchased. So then I tried a little experiment with some sheets of aluminum and steel on top of the maple. That brought back the leading edge dynamics, but the music was still kind of muddy and lifeless. To make it short, I kept experimenting until I got to the granite shelf. That has really brought out the detail, punch, and bass. I'm not sure that granite alone would work as well if not sitting on the sand. And it could be that a thick aluminum shelf, like Thom uses, or a block of some dense exotic wood might be even better.

In defense of maple, the suspended Basis tables I've owned didn't seem to mind what they sat on.

Dgarretson,

Thanks for the compliment. I understand what you're saying about proper isolation and I agree that many 'tables will benefit from sandboxes, or springs. Even with the springs and sandbox, you may get a noticeable improvement by replacing the maple with either more dense wood, or granite, or even aluminum. Several people I've talked with have made that move and been very pleased with the results. I tried it myself and I have to agree with them. But then again, I've never used a VPI so it may be like the Basis tables and not really care what it's siting on.

I'm on concrete floors so I'm not concerned with the floor issue. No. If I tap on my stand I do get sounds through with the stylus in the groove. But what does that really mean? I don't need to rap on my stands while the music is playing. I let the drummers do that. :)

Dan ed,

Currently my TT is resting on cut-up MDF pieces in my sandbox. As you suggest I need to try some exotic wood on top of the sand.

The fellow who turned me on to the springs had cement floors like you & was surprised by the improvement. Moreover, if you've got any vibration-generating equipment in the rack below the TT(e.g. AC powered devices), the springs above will decouple them from the vinyl. I would also think that most racks act as antennas for airborne sound waves. And then there's seismic activity & traffic on nearby roads.

Cows and coyotes. That's the local traffic in my neighborhood.

They are all still just plank wood, think bigger...

Yes, MDF will handle some resonance benefits due to it's mass... and more than the same thickness of solid plank woods.

All wood platforms can get good anti-resonance characteristics if you go very, very thick. This is where the price, finishing and weight becomes the factor.

There are many people out there that claim that one wood sounds better than the other, but all of them have little to no variance after our two decades of our in-house testing.

It's usually all in the marketing.

A thin shelf made from solid wood can only have a certain mass variance per thickness, period. The lower the mass, the more apt it is to turn into a "speaker". The best solutions are a very, very high mass platform... the materials for this are endless.

Very low mass platforms that are rigid turn into a transducer for vibrations, actually completely defeating the purposes of controlling sonic discolouration. If you look at Audiav's website under "theory" it explains much of this.

You can easily measure vibration and inert resonance of materials and always find that it REALLY comes down to other things besides wood selection. The only things that actually make a significant difference from different wood species is total mass.

So fear not maple, as it is the same as all the other woods dependant on overall mass. Stacking maple on MDF will yield a greater overall mass on the shelf and aid in dampening.