Best Way to Use Turntable with System Cabinet

Cabinets and racks degrade the peformance of all types of turntables. They generally are not light and rigid enough for suspended TT's, and not heavy or rigid enough for mass-loaded TT's. Neither fish nor fowl. A lightweight rigid stand like the Sound Organization stand, with nothing else on it, is fine for a Linn, Oracle, etc. And a good heavy concrete base or somthing like that, is good for non-suspended TT's like the Teres, and others. It has to do with the vibration characteristics that travel up the stand and into the TT. Suspended TT's have springs in them which are tuned to low frequencies, like 2Hz. This stops all frequencies above 2Hz from entering the TT subchassis from below. Footsteps and such will affect it though. Non-suspended TT's have a mass loading characteristic which uses sheer mass to keep vibrations minimized. The more mass, the better.

So TWL, you are saying that optimally a suspended turntable should have its own stand. What about wall mounting of a shelf. In the eventuality that two stands are one too many for the system in the family living room, what is the best compromise (as you know, I'll have the Linn LP12).

Wall mounts can be a real problem too, unless it's a very rigid exterior supporting wall. The whole wall typically moves in & out along with the music, muddying the sound of course, unless it's very immovable. As a cabinet-oriented user, I was going to go that route myself until someone else who had made that mistake warned me. I don't have enough room for a separate stand either; wish I did but I do not.
My solution was to isolate the cabinet from the turntable with an Arcic Airhead. Other air-suspensions such as Vibraplane or Thompson Seismic Sink work too. The Brightstar AirMass would be OK as well, but there's only one bladder, so leveling can be a problem unless your floor is perfectly flat.
I set the Airhead on my cabinet top, then place a large deadmass (a Black Diamond shelf) sitting directly atop the Arcici's MDF top. Cones placed under my suspended TT base couple vibrational energy directly to the isolated deadmass (the Black Diamond self) using small discs under the cones to prevent the sharp cone points from puncturing the carbon fiber shelf. I may experiment with another shelf next (the Zoethecus Z-Slab) which sounds a little warmer under my CDP than a Black Diamond did, & is less expensive too. Stuart at Sanctuary of Sound can get the Zoethecus for you. A Symposium Ultra shelf could also do the trick. A thicker/heavier Black Diamond The Shelf for The Source might be your (& my) best bet here. I need to experiment further, but what works best for me won't necessarily work best for you too. Too many variables there, although both of our turntables are the suspended design.
Regarding cabinets, stay away from glass doors & shelving. Glass resonates like crazy & the effects are very audible in an undesirable way.

Yes, Peter, the TT optimally should have its own stand, that is correctly designed for that type of TT. However, I often encounter situations such as yours where the person cannot accomodate the optimal arrangement. The answer here, is that you will make a trade-off. Either you will trade-off some of your decorating, or you will trade-off some of your sound. The most clever arrangement I've seen, was where a guy made a place that would fit his TT, inside the lower portion of his cabinet, and drilled holes through the bottom of the cabinet, so that the legs of the correct TT stand could go through the bottom of the cabinet, and contact the floor and no part of the cabinet. This allowed proper floor-coupling and rigid lightweight stand for the TT, and allowed him to enclose the unit for appearance purposes.

TWL - that is a cool idea that I will look into. I'm thinking of seeking out a local cabinet builder to make a custom cabinet. The rigid lightweight stand would need to have a relatively simple leg design. Anyone have any to recommend? Bob - I like your ideas too. I may throw out a few more questions once I have the cabinet thing resolved (e.g. a couple of months). Thanks, Peter

Peter, the very best stand that you could buy for your Linn LP12, is the Sound Organisation TT stand, that used to cost about $125. Don't know what it costs now. It is a very plain stand made from square section steel tubing, that has almost a cube shape. It is about 18" tall. This stand was made for the Linn LP12, and it is the best Linn TT stand ever made. I have personally done A/B listening tests with this stand, and without, and there was about a 10% increase in sound quality with the S.O. stand, than on an any other stand tried. Tall equipment racks full of gear, and credenzas were the worst. Also, even though there is a set of bottom rungs on the S.O. stand that could be used as a lower shelf, nothing should be put on it. If you could get a S.O. stand, and incorporate that inside your cabinetry, in the way I previously described, it would give best sound, and fit into your decor.

PS- Always have the dustcover completely removed from the LP12 when playing. It has better sound without the dustcover on it. If you have the TT enclosed in the cabinet, then just put the dustcover in a box, and leave it off forever.

I really wish I had the room for a stand; had a chance to get a deal on a Lead Balloon but unfortunately I had to pass. If I could only convince the wife to do away with her video monitor then I'd be able to fit in a stand, but it'll be a cold day before that ever happens & she's a wonderfully supportive audiophile wife so...
The idea behind a dedicated stand is to couple directly to the large & quiet mass of the floor. Lacking that alternative I chose to isolate the big heavy Black Diamond shelf & couple to that as my deadmass. That's the theory anyway, but I have never compared to the performance of a stand.