Turntable stand, steel, aluminum,shelves of ?

Ken, The reactions to maple butcherblock are not all favorable. If you do a search of the archives on Agon or AudioAsylum, you will find a number of folks (including me) have found thick maple---3" in my case---to be too slow, thick and dead sounding.

There's just no substitute for trying it yourself so you can reach your own conclusions. However, judging from your system description, you're used to doing that anyway.

Good luck!

Dave

Salectric,

I spoke with the people at Minus K - WWW.minusk.com. you should check out their web site; they make vibration abatement platforms for atomic scanning microscopes and all the techno gear that the geeks use. They said, use only the platform that we supply, anything else may add a vibrational sigiature that will denegrate the ability of our device to reduce vibrational signals to whatever you place on top of it. If you need to add an additional platform it would be advisable to isolate it witha a material such as Sorbothane. However, interfacing your device directly to the platform of our device will yield the best performance

There would be romance to having a platform constructed of wood that was sourced from Noah's Ark, but since I'm still alive and kicking, I think I'll try their suggestion and mount the table directly on their platform. I can always fabricate a huge platform from whatever, and if it doesn't sound any better I can give it to one of my kids, as a chopping block, for Christmas.

When I decided to post this forum, I wondered what I might get out of the threads, after all, my mind was made up. I knew what I was going to build and how it would be designed. After the posted threads the design has been changed , thanks to your input.

I will keep those of you that have" CHANGED MY MIND" on what I was going to build and thank you for your thoughts.

Thanks, Ken

I took a different approach: Get phono front end isolated from listening area and use mass on the air suspension stand.

I use an Arcici stand loaded with mass: Basis 2500 signature with extra platform, MSB 1" laminated steel/alum./lead beneath it on the airhead. I've tried various woods, acrylic, marble etc combinations always hearing a bit of coloration. The MSB added no sound or coloration to the music. The Arcici design allows you to mass load the top of the Airhead by suspending 4 acrylic shelves via threaded rods. I have my VPI SDS, Aesthetix Io 2 PS Signature and PS Audio PS600 on the shelves. This approach produced wonderfu music. I thought this was great until I took the next step.

This whole setup is between two interior studded walls (29" deep with front and back access via doors) separating the living room (listening area) and dinning room from the family room. This perfectly isolated all my phono equipment allowed me to bring separate dedicated ac lines. 21' pair interconnects go to the mono amps behind each speaker. Now it really sounds fantastic.

have fun,
GerryM5

Gerrym5,

You have taken the best course in eliminating all the problems associated with having your turntable in the same room as your speakers, unless you're running Quads and low powered amps and love folk, chamber or any other venue that has no timber shaking qualities. Did I mention living in a condominium for 60 and overs or a nursing home. When I started my music room 15 years ago , vinyl wasn't in the picture, after all cd was perfect sound forever.

Things have changed, Vinyl will be the preferred 2 channel source. While I can extend my music room out back and have a bunker like space for vinyl, it won't happen. Therefore the path I've chosen is the only one that is reasonable.

It is obvious that your situation solves many probolems for you, congratulations.

Do I understand that you have a 2 channel Asthetics phono preamp with dual volume controls? If so , I feel that it is just what I may need for my phono situation. I would appreciate a dialogue on it's merits before I spend the big bucks to buy it.

Regards and I await your reply, Ken

Salectric, do you use the buttons under the Gavia spikes?

I have built a stand utilizing sandboxes with hard maple shelves. I first tried my Gavia (just arrived Wednesday!) directly on the maple the sound seemed to muffled so I put the buttons under the spikes and did make an improvement. It is possible that I made this swap too soon as the table only had 2 or 3 hours on it at the time. I may also try a sheet of aluminum on top of the maple shelf to see if that makes a difference.

Point here is that it is possible to tune what ever you end up building as long as you haven't backed into a corner. I.e., with the sandboxes dampening things, I could experiment with either stone or metal shelves. I'm not saying that this is the only way to go, just offering food for thought. Keep your options open if you're building your own rack.