I can’t help you much but I have essentially the same project coming up.
I will also use a high quality 3/4 plywood with hardwood veneer exterior.
The recommendations you got on the internet are probably sound. But who has the time, skill, resources and money to build with marble or granite? You could certainly get a counter top installer to do it but that is hardly going to fit the decor of the existing shelves you mentioned.
Like wise, 2.5 inches of MDF is simply going to be ugly if that thickness is visible anywhere.
To be honest, I’d just focus on making them sturdy and let your basic vibration reduction techniques handle the isolation tasks. Thats what I’m going to do.
I think the primary area you would want to focus on in terms of isolation is how your shelves will be suspended. My middle shelf, which the pre-amp will sit on, will be adjustable. If you will have adjustable shelves you could always add strips of sorbothane to the underside of the shelf that contacts the support pegs or brackets.
I’m not into vinyl to any serious extent so isolating a TT is not one of my issues. My amp weighs 100 pounds so that will be an issue for me. You could easily get a piece of granite from a counter top maker and have it sitting on the top shelf with sorbothane feet under it and then whatever else you use to isolate the TT under the TT resting on the granite.
George |
You can get various forms of sorbothane on Amazon. It can be expensive. I'm not a fan of MDF for long horizontal load bearing pieces, like a shelf. MDF doesn't compress much and it has a lot of strength when standing vertically, which is good. But in the long axis it breaks fairly easily...think long shelf with something heavy in the middle. williewonka, I made some feet for my preamp out of walnut that I had lying around. The rubber feet of the pre-amp sit in the little divots on top, the wood blocks sit on 1/4" sorbothane pads. Does any of this make any difference? I have no idea. Kind of doubt it, but total cost was about $12. https://images.nikonians.org/galleries/data/3564/IMG_10421.JPG |
lowrider, to be honest, I made those because I was bored and bought the sorbothane on a whim. I can hear absolutely no difference in SQ from when the line stage sits right on the rack, right on the sorbothane or in the configuration I described above. I suppose I just don't have the ear for it.
But one has to wonder why a company like Audio Research would put crappy feet on an otherwise high end and fairly uncompromising piece of audio equipment. And for all I know, they are not rubber. They are also more or less cone shaped. So the contact point with the wooden blocks is actually very small
So here's my somewhat facetious take on my setup:
Special cone shaped vibration damping feet on the pre amp fit into a custom designed dish shaped concavity within the American walnut isolation blocks (English walnut will not do) whose grain orientation, aging and density limit sonic vibration transmission. These blocks sit on sorbothane pads which isolate the system as a whole. These sit on a spiked audio rack with thick MDF shelving. Considerable effort was expended tuning this components for that perfect sonic quality. ;-) |
lowrdier57 said:
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It's great that you're pleased with the sound of your system. i remember when you came to the forum asking for advise."
I'm very new to all this...which might be why I don't hear any differences in the various low buck tweaks I've made. However, I do hear differences in other things like speaker placement, listening position, differences between DACs, possibly some room changes.
And this brings up another subject that puzzles me somewhat and is relevant to this discussion: Component placement. We hear that your pre-amp/amp should not be between the speakers because of sonic vibration from them. Fine. I get the point. But I have some problems with this. First, for many of us, there just isn't any other option. Second, why is it better to have the components somewhere in front of the speakers than between and behind them? Some say you can find a sonic dead spot in the room and put them there....but that sounds impractical in the reality of most rooms. One audio-critic said the components should be in another room altogether!
Anyway, when I build my shelves the components will be between and slightly behind the speakers. No other option. This also brings up a couple of issues. First, vibration transmitted through whatever the components are sitting on....which is the focus of this discussion...but what about sound vibrations that strike the unit? You can buy room baffles and reflectors....does anyone make some type of sound absorbing or reflecting material that can go in front of a pre-amp that will fit on a shelf or a stand? |
I'll be honest, I think the idea that different woods will change anything in a measurable, repeatable fashion is a bit of a stretch. I'm not saying different woods don't have different characteristics that can be heard, I'm just saying that when you are talking about the characteristics that effect the transmission of vibration I'm not sure you can be specific species to species. Every tree within a given species is different. Different ages of tree have different ring and grain structure. The conditions under which a tree grows affects its structure as well. And this is not to mention how the wood was dried, cut and treated. All of these things can have significant affects even on macro things like furniture, axe handles, baseball bats etc. Such effects would even be greater on micro issues like vibration transmission.
So in my mind a young harvested, poorly dried and treated specimen of one species considered to be the best might be inferior to a specimen of a less well regarded species that has better grain structure due to age, growth rate as well as better preparation and finish.
Think about basic pine. Young, high growth rate yellow pine is soft as putty (maybe that would be a good thing??) whereas the heart of very old pine that died while the tree was standing can literally be hard as rock...sometimes it won't even split down the grain.
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"@n80 perhaps you might have an answer?"
No. I have a basic understanding about different types of wood but no real knowledge about which characteristics are best for audio. The total of my experience consists of sorbothane, walnut and MDF.
In fact, it seems that the waters are very muddy in regard to anchoring vs isolation of various components.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned it (or maybe I missed it) but there are viscous fluid dampers for various types of machinery and sensitive equipment. I’d assume someone makes these for audio equipment. The ones I recall for machinery were terribly expensive. |
I have heard that there is a lot of wood being imported from South America that is being called "mahogany" which isn't the real thing. I'd say if the price seems right, it probably isn't the real deal. Mahogany is expensive. |
If different types of wood and metal, not to mention polymers and various shapes have such a profound effect on SQ, one has to wonder why multi-thousand dollar amps and pre-amps don't come from the manufacturer with better isolation?
And why don't critics pan them when they don't.
Seems fundamental.
I mean, other than providing a firm level surface, why should I have to spend time, money and effort trying to make a $5000 component sound right.................unless that's where the fun is............... |
Don't we have to be careful about over draining? |
skyscraper, I was poking fun....at us...there have already been assertions that over damping causes some undesirable sonic qualities....why not over draining? Surely the concept would make room for another new and hopefully expensive and exotic product....surely we all recognize that in addition to actual physical properties there needs to be an element of mystique in order to produce desired results for audiophiles....;-)
If we can't laugh at ourselves...........then the only people laughing will be.... everyone else..... |
I still think of myself as an audiophile outsider, so its easy to poke fun looking from the outside in. I've got other hobbies about which I obsess and that likely seem silly to others so I get both sides.
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