Turntable stand, steel, aluminum,shelves of ?

The platform is a 3 inch thick rock maple laminate designed and built by Lloyd Walker for the Proscenium Turntable. I failed to mention in my previous post that the Prologue Shelf sits atop 16 sorbothane pads (each one about 4" square). These too are supplied by Lloyd. Most of his turntable installations are set up this way, and I decided "if it ain't broke, don't fix it 'til it is"

As for other materials; with previous vinyl set ups I experimented with a variety of different materials including large slabs of granite and marble. I found them to ring like a bell, which can't be good for LP playback. I also experimented with different types of woods like, Beech, Baltic Birch and Maple. Each of these I tried with Tip-toes, cork/rubber footers, brass cones. The most satisfying combo I had prior to the Walker was a VPI Scoutmaster sitting on a 2 inch maple slab with brass cones under it. This was on the same rack I am using now without the wall anchors and jack posts.

I use a Sound Anchors turntable stand for my Galibier Gavia table. The stand is made of welded steel filled with sand and PVC damping tubes. It is firmly spiked into the flooring with steel spikes. The table does not have any suspension and it rests directly on a plinth that in turn rests directly on the Sound Anchors stand. I'm not sure of the total weight of the table and motor assembly, but it's roughly about 100 lbs.

The plinth is presently 2 maple butcherblock boards resting on top of each other, not glued or otherwise attached to each other. Each of the 2 boards is 3/4" thick.

I have tried a number of other plinths including granite (damped and undamped), 3" maple butcherblock, mdf, Baltic Birch/mdf composite, and maple/aluminum/maple composite. I'm sure I've left some out. Each material has a distinct sound quality. Most have positives and negatives. My favorite (or the least objectionable) is the present setup of just 2 maple boards resting on each other.

The whole assembly is very rigid and stable. The Sound Anchors stand has room for components to be placed on two levels below the table. Unfortunately, I have found that anything placed on these steel supports affects the sound of the turntable adversely. Hence, the stand is now a dedicated turntable stand.

I have a separate oak stand with a 3" granite surface plate on top, that is immediately next to the turntable stand. This turns out to be the ideal spot for the battery that powers the Galibier turntable motor. The sound of the vinyl setup changes rather markedly when the battery is moved to different surfaces. It sounds best on top of the granite. So my battery now has its own dedicated stand, strange as that may seem.

Dave

slipknot1,

Months ago, I planned on building a table from scratch, utilizing the machining facilities of a good friend of mine . He had a top notch cnc machine shop here in Richmond. He did a fair amount of machining for me when I was building my speakers. Then all of a sudden, he sold his company; now he has only money and no problems associated with operating a business in this day and age. I asked him over to discuss the turntable project; vibration problems both from air and structural conduction. He took about a second to say, "get the table out of this room, you have other options that will be less expensive than what you want me to build."

The option of moving the table out of our music room is just not practical. First, Sue will tell me there will be no more additions, nothing is more fun than building SOMETHING, especially another addition but she is right. Besides, it would be much less expensive to locate a table where the sonic vibrations would have no effect , than to spend much more on a fantastic high tech creation that my buddies and I could drool over. Back to the point you made regarding the maple platform. There seems to be a concensus on Audiogon that wood, especially hard rock maple, is the interface of choice between a table and the stand.

I have about 2 months before my table will be done. I have all the facilities to laminate a hard rock maple platform to sandwich between my table and the Minus K vibration platform beneath it. If it doesn't sound right, I can always use it for a chopping block in the Kitchen. What about the Jatoba wood Walker offers as an option; any thoughts.

I appreciate your replies, and I will follow up on your suggestions.

Regards, Ken

Salectric,

The common thread seems to be the maple butcher block platforms that "gonners"seem to prefer.

The Sound Anchors stands with the pvc damping tubes are intriguing, I know nothing about them. I will check out their website to glean whatever a DIY guy like me can discover; after all, sometimes it is more rewarding to build something for $500 that you can buy for $250.

Thank you for your reply,

regards, Ken

Hey Ken,

Lloyd is a big fan of the Jatoba. As a matter of fact his personal rack and his personal amp stands are all made from it . The biggest difference is that while retaining all the positive properties of the hard maple he also advocates, Jatoba is a much denser wood than maple, thereby being even better as a shelving/racking material for audio. It is also farmed and harvested, not stripped from non-renewable forests the way some of the dense South American hardwoods are.

Keep us up to date as the project progresses!

Joe