What is under your TT, cheap islolation?


I am looking for a way to isolate my turntable without using a shelf bolted to the wall. I am trying to save money while I re-configure the room. For now my turntable is on top of my stand but you have to tip toe around the room. I am wondering if a big rock iso platform (or DYI version) or some iso nodes under a butcher block would help with the bouncing turntable? I have two tables I am testing at the moment, one is a Thorens TD-160 & the other is a VPI HW19 MKII, both of them suspended. The floors are pretty sturdy, it is a dedicated room over my garage with serious supports built in to the floor.
fishwater

Showing 1 response by gregadd

You have two other solutions make the floor stop bouncing or get a turntable that is immune.

a. You seem to shy away from any type of structual reinforcemnt to your house. Heavily padded carpet might absorb some of your footfalls.
b. Most turntables today have no suspension at all. Those that do are not designed to deal with the magnitude of oscillations you decribe.
c. You need a turntable that floats the arm and table together. Even though your floor is bouncing the arm and platter "float" together and the cartridge remains in the groove. Sota and Linn make such tables.

Ultimately a major floor bounce is really an unacceptable situation for a turtable. For example a cd player has error correction and will continue to play even when it is mistracking. A turntable has no such correction. Even though it is still playing, it is still mistracking.

The only real solution is to stop the floor from bouncing or a wall mount.