Springs for homemade isolation stand

To funny Stehno! When I was a kid, I ran around the house with a tampon, and a cigarette lighter, threatening everyone in the house that I was going to blow the place up! lol All the women were blushing, and my uncle just about fell on the floor, dying of laughter! Ahh, the crazy thing you do when you're a kid.

Yes though, I agree, a person with a little ingenuity, and thought, can devise very marvelous devices with next to no cash outlay.

I still haven't made my own Home Depot Sand base as of yet, but plan on doing so in the future. I figure for $20 worth of materials, and a bit of time, there's not much to lose if the project is a disaster. Mark

Hmm, sounds like a very tough engineering problem to me.

I wonder though why would you need to go to such lengths of isolation? Are you playing music at earth shattering levels that require such drastic measures? or am I missing something with your particular set-up, and am perhaps having a hard time visualizing what you wish to do?

They claim all components can benefit from isolation, but particularly a Turntable.

I have some doubt, or perhaps I should ay wonder again, if a physical spring-springs will benefit your situation, or maybe more likely be a detriment?

It sounds like a lot of weight to suspend, and there certainly would be more cost efficient ways to isolate some of the components. Some suspend Turntables from wall mounted brackets, and another method may be removing the entire system from the sound room all together, with the exception of the speakers?

One crazy thought came to mind about suspension, as I was thinking about my Chevy SUV, which has custom fitted Firestone Ride-rite Air Bags at the rear.

VPI used actual small Firestone Air Bags on their one TNT Turntable, but I am unaware of further custom sizes in these type of units that would be perhaps suitable for your personal application?

If they were made, a Air Suspension Bag could be fine tuned perhaps to accomodate odd, unbalanced loads, or a number of them could be mated together via air lines to provide balance-leveling.

Crazy thoughts, I know, but some words I can recall about Harry Weisfield from VPI once saying (perhaps in jest) how the perfect Turntable would weigh 500lbs, be made from concrete, and float on a bed of air.

Hoping some others can give you some better sound advice than I have, Mark

As I've learned-garnered information from others who are certainly more wise, and experienced than I am, the consensus seems to be that any type of tweak platform-material placed between the Turntable, and Rack-Stand will make a difference audibly.

Now whether that difference will be beneficial, or detrimental may vary in every single instance-application.

Hypothetical instances would be that perhaps one person notes a great improvement using a Sand Filled Base, or a Base with Air Bladders, with no detriment to clear mids, and highs. Another-others may find that the Sand Base-Air Base has perhaps ruined-or I should for a better term "Diminished" these above mentioned qualities of their Table.

There's so many things one can try without necessarily breaking the bank. If the Table isn't quite so heavy, maybe just two sheets of MDF with a cheap piece of fine bubble Bubble Wrap in between may make a notable improvement for isolation. Tennis Balls, Ball Bearings, Maple Butcher Block Bases, etc etc.

From an engineering standpoint, it seems to me that many table, and stand manufacturers seem to get a synergistic benefit-improvement with the use of sandwiching dissimilar materials. Things like Cork, Sorbothane Sheets, MDF-Stone, the material list is almost endless.

And then the final aspect can be appearance, and beauty.

Most high end systems are usually displayed-used in one's best room of the house. One crazy example might be taking a brand new VPI TNT-HRX Table, and have it sitting on four $2 Cinder Blocks from the Home Supply Yard. While the the Cinder Block may make an audible improvement, it certainly won't do much to compliment the beauty-aesthetics of a $10,000.00+ Turntable System. Mark