Springs under turntable

After trying a tremendous number of things I had settled on BDR and was using Shelf, Round Things and Cones under everything. This went on for a good 30 years. Until around 2 years ago when I was persuaded to try spring isolation. 

Ordinary springs worked so much better and cost so much less it was hard to believe. Plain springs are cheapest and would be the way to go, except for how hard it is to find them in the right size dimensions and weight ratings for each component.

So I decided to try Nobsound, and quickly found they are equivalent to a single spring only with the added advantage of adjustability. 

Because of all these various factors, at one point my whole system was on springs, with Moabs and some of the subs on individual springs, and the rest of the subs and all other components - amp, phono stage, turntable - on Nobsound.

With Nobsound it is absolutely crucial to adjust the number of springs per footer by listening. If this is not done it is very easy to think they make the sound bloated (too few springs) or thin (too many) and I have seen people return them disappointed due to not doing this. 

That said, all the Nobsound and other springs have been sold or given away to friends as I have upgraded to Townshend Pods, as they are on a completely higher level. There are still a few plain springs- under the granite under my amp, the step down transformer, and conditioner. Not much else will work in these odd locations. 

The reason for trying Pods is an interesting story. With everything isolated and a DBA with incredible deep bass I began noticing intermittent problems with a very low rumble. I was at first thinking my turntable bearing was going bad after 20+ years. It even showed some marks, that might have been it. But polishing and refinishing, nada. Same problem.

Gradually dawned on me isolating the system on springs might have resulted in a resonance at this frequency. Testing showed sure enough, replace one Nobsound spring with a Cone, no more rumble. So it was resonance after all.

Pods are damped. John Hannant assured me no one had ever had anything like this with Pods. I gave them a shot, and not only eliminated the rumble but got a major across the board sonic improvement. One thing led to another and so today no more Nobsound. But they are totally the best thing for the money I have ever tried. 

Duke explained this some 2 years ago (that I saw, and probably before that) and it was one of the many facts that helped convince me to build my DBA. 

Audio is full of complex concepts and this is a big one: human beings DO NOT hear all frequencies the same. Not at all. Not even close. Therefore we need to think differently- in some cases like this one very radically differently- depending on what part or aspect of the sound we are talking about.  

Its not like we don't perceive all kinds of detail that we ascribe to bass. I say ascribe to bass because it seems impossible for these things to actually be "in the bass".  

For example it has been noted by myself, Tim, and others with multiple subs that the subs disappear while the bass appears to be very localizable in terms of being totally integrated into the sound stage. Yet there is no way that information is coming from the bass. It has to be coming from higher frequencies. Our brains map out or create the image of bass in a location, probably same as they create the image of a singer in between the speakers. The result we hear is stable 3D localizable bass, even though in reality the bass is pure volume, the location of the subs has nothing to do with it. 

This is easily proven. Everyone with a DBA has moved them around trying to find better and better locations. Everyone who has done this talks about how even the frequency response is. Frequency response is volume. Nothing else. Volume. Not a one of us ever said we moved a sub and the location of the bass changed. Not a one. Because there is no location information in bass that low.  

So if there's no location information, and moving the subs around by feet all over the room never alters any bass detail, how can it possibly affect (nonexistent) bass detail if a spring lets a sub move a millimeter? 

Rhetorical question. It can't.

Even though Duke (Audiokinesis) and others have posted this repeatedly a lot of people still don’t know. So here’s the scoop: scientific research has demonstrated that human beings cannot hear low bass frequencies AT ALL unless it is a full wavelength.

Got that? Just to be clear, when we are talking about say 40 Hz that is 1/40th of a second. Just so everyone knows, sound travels at about 1 foot per millisecond. One millisecond is one thousandth of a second. 1/40th of a second is 0.025 seconds. Read that one out: twenty-five one-thousandths of a second.

What this means, your 40 Hz bass note travels TWENTY FIVE FEET before it even registers as a sound AT ALL!

In order to believe bass detail has anything to do with stiffness, rigid floor, things that matter in terms of tiny fractions of an inch, when in reality its FEET that matter with bass, you have to ignore all this science.  

There is no fine transient information in subwoofer bass. None at all. Its all volume. Period.

That is the science.

If I’m harsh its because I know you’ve read this all a hundred times, and simply decided for some reason or other to keep pushing your false narrative. You can stop pushing. It ain’t going nowhere. Because its wrong.

With springs its very important they be tuned to the mass of the component. What seems to work best is a spring soft enough to compress about half way when loaded. If it compresses more than 2/3 then the component is too heavy and you need to use more or stiffer springs. This is what I had with my phono stage at first, and it resulted in way too much deep bass and a somewhat rolled off top end. All I did was add a spring, making the whole suspension stiffer. This tightened up the bass a lot while at the same time improved top end extension.

Phono stages tend to be pretty light weight. I would bet your bass was lost because the phono stage was too light for the springs you were using. You could test this very easily by changing (removing) springs, or adding weight ala mahgister. He has played around and noticed even a change of a pound or two makes a difference in the response.

You have Nobsound, right? Did you try it with fewer springs? You may only need 2 springs per footer. I only need 3, and that’s for the Herron phono stage on BDR Shelf with another small Shelf on top plus one 2 lb dive weight! Once you get the number of springs right fine tune with weight on top of the component. I have a small bag with about 2 lbs of lead shot in it and the difference it makes with cones is barely noticeable but the difference on springs is obvious.

Right now my amp and phono stage are on BDR Shelf, with the springs under the Shelf. Need to try moving them to between the component and the Shelf. When I can find the time..... problem is my system sounds so good now I don’t want to tweak I just want to listen!

Added more of these things, now have them under the turntable, phono stage, amp, conditioner, and all 5 subs. Plus of course the different springs under the Moabs.

Things were going great until I started noticing a really bad drone or rumble. Immediately assumed it had to be the turntable, and spent a lot of time tweaking and adjusting making sure everything was perfectly level.

Thought I’d solved it a couple times but it kept coming back. Intermittent problems are the hardest! A couple times was sure it was solved, the record would play silent, but then comes the rumble. My big clue was playing Simon and Garfunkel Scarborough Fair, the lead-in groove would be nice and quiet at first until after several seconds the rumble would build up and be quite loud.

If it was the motor, or bearing, or anything like that it would be there every record all the time. This was telling me it had to be some kind of resonance in the system. I had been using springs under most of this stuff for quite a while with no problems until recently.

But now there were springs under the conditioner. Which is connected to a typically stiff power cord, also suspended. Which goes into the phono stage. Which is on springs. I remembered how much the low bass was affected by tuning the springs under the phono stage. Hmmm.....

Well if its a resonance then could be what’s happening is an inaudibly small amount of low frequency rumble is making its way through the system back to the phono stage where its creating a positive feedback loop and what I’m hearing is like that horrible mic feedback only instead of a shrieking scream its this low bass rumble.

Simple enough to check. Change the resonance, cancel the feedback, no more rumble. Wedged some stuff under one corner of the phono stage. Silence. Blissful silence.

I think what is going on is now with everything suspended everything moves more freely and for the most part this is good. Beyond good. Great! But it really is tuning, and a little care must be taken to avoid having too many things with the same resonance.

This will be highly system dependent. Look at my system. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 The conditioner is in a straight line between the sub amps and phono stage. The sub amps are one of the few things not suspended. Could be by springing the conditioner I unwittingly created a situation where the sub amps are feeding resonant energy right into the phono stage.

I don’t expect many to have this problem- at least not until they get to where a lot of the system is suspended. Main reason I mention it is because, if you think about it, the same could be happening a lot more often than we think- just at a much less obvious level and without the drone that made this so (relatively) easy to track down.

Right, that's the problem with concrete and stone, they ring. They are not inherently highly damped materials. What sounds great with a certain system at a certain level may not always sound so great as it gets better. With mine the problems with concrete and stone only started to sound like problems within the last couple of years. Before that it was like they were providing a solid foundation of impact and slam for bass and dynamics for midrange and treble. Then as things got better it gradually became more and more apparent the "contribution" they make is ringing. They add a certain hardness and glare. No getting around it. 

Concrete (and stone) being massive and stiff makes for a great platform or base on which to build. But they are not that great in and of themselves. Vibrations travel faster through hard high density materials like concrete than through soft low density materials like wood. That's just basic physics. So the fact concrete moves less at low frequencies really only makes the high transmission rate of higher frequencies all the more obvious. 

It just might not be obvious now. But it will be, if you go far enough. Then you will be ready for springs. They are so cheap and easy to do though its hard to see why anyone would want to wait.

You're welcome. And good to know. But I was talking about the spring setup mitch2 is using on his system page.

I like the modular design. Springs can be used with/without the bellows and end caps. Curious if you tried them different ways?

Actually all concrete does is alter, not eliminate, vibration. 

I'll get around to shoring up under things. Its on the list. But its a long list. Still need to finish the Spring Thing, add springs under the rest of the subs, and amps, and suspend a few more things.  

For now my system sounds so freaking insanely good its hard to do anything but just listen and try not to gape and drool.

indrenilsen and mitch2,
Rubber bands under cables work about as well as springs under components. I stretched a rubber band around a Cable Elevator so the cable sits on the rubber band. Its hard get a good camera angle to show this but that's what's going on here. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Tried first under speaker cables, then power cords and interconnects. Was expecting improvement under speaker cables and was not disappointed. Wasn't expecting nearly so much under power cords and interconnect and so was surprised when it was just about equally effective.

Everyone has rubber bands just sitting around. Give em a try and see.

Pretty sure Mike hasn't tried it. Huge amount of debate evaporates the instant things go from being talked about to tried.

mitch2, The steel man argument for coupling is the speaker is vibrating and we want to hold it rigid to get the cleanest most dynamic signal for the greatest detail possible. So clamp it to the floor, especially if concrete, so it won’t move.

This works pretty good and in fact is what I did for years until learning it really doesn’t work that way after all. The speaker does vibrate, and no matter how massive or rigid so does the floor. It would have to, since otherwise if it didn’t move at all then all the energy from the speaker would reflect right back up the way all waves do. So the speaker is gonna vibrate no matter what. The question is how much and in what way.

Putting the speaker on springs allows the speaker to vibrate more freely and more independently from the floor. Nothing is ever truly isolated but this is a lot closer to isolated than coupled. As such a small amount of sonic energy is lost to the speaker moving more because its not supported so rigidly. But also it is moving a lot less because it is now decoupled from the floor. Even a concrete floor still vibrates, just at a different frequency and amplitude than wood. Speakers on springs excite the floor much less. Equally important, floor vibrations affect the speaker much less.

It hard to argue one over the other, but real easy to demonstrate in practice. The easiest way is to get the Nobsound springs off eBay for $35. These are adjustable for load to work under just about any speaker or component. Or you could buy some plain old springs for even less. Then try them and see.

When I did this it was pretty surprising just how much better springs are even compared to very good Cones. The proof of how they work is when used under subs. Putting them under subs not only improved the bass, it had equally as big an effect on midrange. How? Subs put out zero midrange. But subs energize the floor, the floor vibrates, vibrations reach the other components. The ear is much more sensitive to midrange details than bass. So putting springs under the subs cleaned up the midrange.

The difference is easy and obvious to hear. Try it and see.

Same here. Good one. Thanks!

Great work here on tuning these things. Definitely not a case of plop em down and all is well. Have tried half a dozen springs now, plus variations, all were much better in at least some ways but it takes some work to get the most out of them.

Rick did the hard work in the beginning figuring out what to use under the Moabs. He used math and physics but the rest of us can use what indranilsen is doing, seat of the ears, try and see.

The four Nobsound with 4 springs each under my turntable were under Round Things and above granite. Got the wild idea to flip two of them around, so from bottom up its granite, Round Thing, spring, Shelf. Lo and behold there was a nice improvement in midrange presence, treble extension, and a much greater sense of acoustic space!

Went back and sure enough the midrange was ever so slightly less clean and clear. So flipped the two back again. Then flipped a third, and finally a fourth. Was kind of afraid of getting too much top end or too lean bass but this never happened. Hate to say its like magic but it really is.

Maybe one of these younger people will come over and tell me its too much. I don’t know. Pretty sure my old ears top out at 12k, 15 maybe tops. But what I do hear, the ability to hear both the music and the acoustic space its in is just fantastic.

uberwaltz, when using just 2 its much more stable along the long axis between the two than crosswise. Each one by itself is quite wobbly. But try orienting them so they are all pointed to the center. That should be a lot more stable.

The most dramatic difference was under my Herron phono stage. This is with the extra springs removed from the set under the turntable. I cut some MDF pucks out with a hole saw, drilled out 1/8" deep holes 1/4" in diameter and stick em together just like Nobsound. Only mine are for just 3 springs per. 

So I put three under the phono stage and the bass is off the charts deep and full, but the mods are too warm and the highs are gone. So I add one more and now the bass is just right, a little fuller than before but not exaggerated, the mids are nice and warm yet still detailed and the highs are almost as extended as they were before with BDR. 

The stage is still on BDR Cones, Round Things, and Shelf. The springs replaced the BDR Cones that were under the Shelf. Will probably eventually try swapping, springs directly under the stage on top of BDR. But for now this really is a pretty sweet setup!

So I had 12 springs removed from the ones under the turntable left over. And I had a bunch of 3/4" MDF disks that were cut out to make the Spring Things. So all I had to do was drill three 1/4" holes about 1/8" deep to make my own little Nobsound spring pods. 

Three springs per pod is stable and just about perfect for the Herron phono stage. There were 3 sets of BDR Cones and Round Things under it. Swapped them out and heard huge warmth, massive extreme low bass, somewhat rolled off top end. 

It was then I remembered mahgister saying how he tunes this by ear by varying the weight. Well adding springs would be equivalent and I had one more pod so in it went. Now with four pods the bass is still full but not exaggerated, the midrange still warm but more present and no longer the rolled off top end. It could probably be fine tuned even more but pretty impressive even as it is.

Good work, mahgister!

Moabs are on BDR Cones, on MDF Spring Thing. Springs are on BDR Round Things so they can slide over the carpet real nice. 

Okay so the Nobsound springs came and first surprise they are very small and stiff. Tested the full 7 springs with a 10 lb weight and it hardly compressed it. Also the springs fit snug into holes in the top and bottom. They aren't long to begin with and the holes limit the lateral range of motion from the top and bottom coil. Combined with each individual spring being quite stiff and altogether there's hardly any freedom for lateral movement. Nor is there a lot of vertical movement. This explains why the turntable doesn't bounce, twist under torque, etc.

My table https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 altogether with the Shelf is probably a good 50-60 lbs, close to what Nobsound claims is max load (70-80 lbs something like that). After a bit of testing I have removed 3 springs leaving only 4 per unit. The other 12 I will make into four more of 3 springs each to use under my phono stage. Because they do work quite well. Read on.

The Miller Carbon sits on a BDR Source Shelf, with BDR Cones and Round Things between the Shelf and the granite, which in turn sits on a sand bed cast into the top shelf of the solid concrete rack. When the springs go in they replace BDR Cones and Round Things. This is a big deal. The springs are not being compared to any old this or that. People can have their own opinions about BDR. Pretty much always anyone saying anything other than they're excellent you can be sure they never heard them. Would be nice if those eager to criticize my every post would take a moment to include with their response, "Of course he's right, I never heard them." Then go on with the unfounded accusations.

Where was I? Oh yeah. So the springs go in and right away wow this is pretty nice. Very nice.

Did I mention I never did the usual oh we must play this very carefully then play the exact same thing very carefully.... no not at all. Turned the system on, warmed it up, put the springs in, listened to them FIRST. Ha! Because we are millercarbon! (Having fun noromance, this isn't for you, its for them. They know who they are.)

Second track as usual the Koetsu limbers up and smooths out and its sounding really good. Al Stewart is singing and there's a totally seductive palpable feeling of presence that was crazy good before but now is even crazier gooder. Super smooth, yet even more detailed. Like it is hard even to describe as a sound. Its more a feeling than a sound.

Still, it sometimes seems as if there is not quite as much sparkle. Like the extension is there, but... Fortunately the springs are almost exactly the same height as one Round Thing and Cone and so swapping them out is surprisingly easy so out they come and back in goes the BDR. Sure enough, more extension, sharper transients and dynamics. But only on the top end. The midrange just isn't as rich and warm and palpably present any more. Its not even all that close. It reminds me of the difference between analog and good digital, or between tubes and a good solid state amp. Both are good imitations. They sound just fine, until compared side by side and then... sorry but you know what we call second? First place loser.

Nothing chez Miller stays stock for long and so long as they're out a little silicone grease lubes the coils where they sit in the cylinders, and a little fO.q tape goes on top of each set and then back in they go. Can't really say those little tweaks made any improvement but it sure didn't make them any worse, and I'm sure now, the springs are an improvement on BDR.  

I think because everything is sitting on granite which even damped by the sand bed still rings. You can hit it and it makes a very high frequency tink kind of sound. Dies off super fast but its there. Is it a coincidence that this high frequency ringing is close to the range where I was hearing a little less sparkle with the springs? I don't think so. I think the granite was ringing, at a high enough frequency the BDR wasn't damping enough, and so it was getting into and coloring the music. Also these same vibrations were smearing midrange detail. That's why the midrange is now so sexy engaging and real. I mean its not quite liquid lush but compared to most of what's out there it sure is.  

The springs aren't exactly what I would call warm. They strike me as very neutral. But people who actually like digital and solid state might not see things that way. BDR comes in 2 versions, MkIII are a touch warmer than MkIV. The difference is small but its there. The general rule is MkIII for SS, MkIV for tubes. My system being tube/analog is all MkIV. Point being there would probably be even less difference if they were being compared to MkIII.

Been a long time since I got the BDR, 1990's, so kinda forgot but that is probably north of $500 worth of seriously good vibration control bested (if narrowly) by $35 worth of springs.

Good work, noromance!

Expecting mine tomorrow.

lewm, Its okay. I’ve known for quite some time now there are people its just not worth trying to explain anything to. As others have lectured me, its not your forum, you don’t get to tell anyone what to do. On the other foot, the shoe, eh?

That's exactly what we're talking about, putting them on springs.

The subject of your post, drivers going back and forth, that motion is included in all the other vibrations. If this goes off in a different but related direction maybe that's because its in the nature of vibration to not be confined to any one single motion. Nothing really ever just vibrates only back and forth. Its just not that simple.

Right, lewm, and that was my objection as well. Problem is, the speaker is going to move and vibrate anyway. There's no stopping it. Its not just the drivers going back and forth either. The drivers create pressure changes inside and outside the cabinet, this gets the whole speaker cabinet vibrating like a balloon with air rapidly being pumped in and out of it. 

All this vibration is going on no matter what we put the speakers on. Even if we take the kenjit approach and mount them in 80 feet of solid concrete all that does is change the frequency and amplitude of the vibrations. Nothing ever really gets rid of them. Can't be done.  

But if the speakers, or anything else, is rigidly on the floor, well then those same vibrations transmit a lot more readily into the floor, and the floor gets excited and vibrates, and those vibrations go everywhere. Some of them come right back up into the speaker causing it to rock slightly. This produces the ringing you can see on the seismograph in the Townshend video. Some of it also goes through the floor, the rack, and all the way to the turntable. 

I thought no way this happens with my 750 lbs rack of solid concrete, granite, sand bed, and BDR carbon fiber. But it does. Proved that by putting springs under subs and hearing the midrange clean up. Only way that can happen is what I just said. 

So its like I've been saying all along, its about vibration control. We can control it one way with cones and mass and rigid solutions and that can certainly help sound a lot better. But we can also suspend things that vibrate in a way that lets each thing vibrate in its own particular way with less of it feeding into all the other things we have that are vibrating. 

All this stuff is vibrating. Put your hand on a speaker cable while playing music some time. You will be shocked how much it vibrates. Especially if there's any bass. That's probably why the rubber band trick works so well. Its free. Try it and see.

Sucks the life and dynamics. Still, has its uses. I put use a small amount in a few places to tame granite ringing. Sorbothane is in general too dampening unless maybe to tame too much hardness, etch, glare, ringing, etc.

I've always been a cones and rigidity man.

Me too! Everything on BDR. Everything! https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
Even so I always was aware of the drawbacks, just never thought this could possibly be the solution. Did not help AT ALL that the least credible biggest joker in all of audio was pushing springs. Oh well. Under the bridge. 

Put springs under the subs last night. Not all the subs just the 3 closest to the turntable. Replaced BDR Cones with springs. At first was like, well this is underwhelming. Bass was maybe a bit better, but also maybe a bit less. Probably because eliminating bass being transmitted through the floor leaves only bass in the air. So it feels different. Which makes sense. But then, wait a minute, what the.... midrange presence, top end extension, holy crap the springs under the subs just massively cleaned up everything else and the detail is so much more natural and amazing! Al Stewart isn't just singing he is RIGHT THERE in freaking person!  

My cones and rigidity thinking had me convinced that my 750 lb rack of solid concrete, granite and sand was impervious to acoustic and even mechanical energy. Evidently not! Not even close! The subs are putting out the same acoustic energy. More. I turned em up!

The only logical explanation is mechanical vibrations from the subs had been transmitted through the floor to the rack and right through its 750lbs all the way to the turntable. Crazy!

Why this works has to be what Max Townshend says in his video. Look at a record, the light pattern tells you there's sub-micron scale squiggles. These unbelievably small details are where the sense of 3D placement and room size acoustics are. They're easily blurred over by even the slightest vibration. That's what I'm hearing. That's what noromance is hearing:

• Lots more detail - I can hear more of the acoustic, inner detail, deeper stage.
• Tiny details more obvious - like listening to records all over again
• Speakers are totally GONE

My Nobsound springs are coming Friday. It sounds so good already, can hardly wait to hear with springs under the table.

Hey thanks for the photo. So your table is over 60 lbs and it looks like you removed a few springs?  

Are you going to try them (the ones you removed) under some of your other gear?

Just a simple MDF platform with a spring in each corner that I built to test the concept. A very crude version of a Townshend spring platform but it gets the job done. Will make another better looking one in a few weeks and then maybe post some new system pics. Its amazing how much improvement there is to be had from such simple inexpensive tweaks.

My DIY Spring Thing worked so well under my Moabs I tried the same only with rubber bands under speaker cables. That worked so well I used the same rubber band suspension under power cords and interconnect. That worked so well the plan is to suspend everything in the whole darn system! 

Whether rubber band or springs the thing seems to be to allow freedom of movement, ie not so weak a spring it compresses too much, but not so strong it doesn't move freely either. These with the ability to use different numbers of springs to adjust is pretty clever. Its probably slightly better to have one properly tuned spring but that is easier said than done! And this looks a lot better than a plain old spring. 

These cost more than the ones I was buying on eBay but not much especially not factoring in how they look, the adjustability, the pads, etc. So what the heck you only live once I just ordered a set. Then I'll have several different ones to compare. 

Thanks!

Interesting timing. I just got three sets of different springs to try under mine. Do you have them directly under the turntable, or under the wood shelf the table is on? Does it bobble around under torque when the motor starts up, or when changing records? How long does it take to settle down? Does it move freely in all directions, or is it mostly up and down?