homemade turntable vibration isolation platform


Out of a couple years of frustration, I irrationally tried to create my own turntable suspended platform to cure two problems. First, footfall would often jar the stylus enough to skip and my music seemed muddy/blurry. The floor bounced enough to make us have to tip toe through the living room. It was getting where I would hate to even play a record. I went searching for tweeks. Ideas abound. Ropes from ceiling, etc. But I live in a yurt. Everything moves, including ceiling beams. Floor works like trampoline (almost). Out of complete desperation, I drilled holes in the top of my component cabinet (double 3/4" plywood) and suspended my turntable on another piece of plywood by bungees from four posts. I got lucky!! It worked fantastically. One could almost jump up and down in the room (my wife tried). AND, a solid bass appeared, soundstage grew a third larger, the clarity was enhanced exponentially. Pure luck I cured my years of frustration and got an indescribable upgrade sound quality besides. After 6 tries I've recreated a free standing unit that works as well. Just had to share.....  


allears4u
I had to look up what a "yurt" was and based on google's response, I could only imagine that equipment isolation is only one of your system challenges. 
To describe the idea....four posts 10" tall solidly posted at corners. Bungee cords running through top of each post and connected under 14"X14" platform causing it to be suspended between posts. Turntable sits on suspended platform. Works great...cheap too....Tried shorter bungees but too short and all benefits evaporate. Turntable has been decoupled from sub influences too it appears since sound was so much clearer. Ortofon Blue...Klipsch Lascala,,,u-turn Orbit acrylic platter...
If you want pics please email me at donallenchilds @yahoo.com. I'm very interested whether or not it will make a similar improvement for others systems.  If you think about it, what makes a cheap turntable different from audiophile ones? Tone arm is better at isolating vibration, so is platter, plinth, turntable base, ...its primarily about giving the stylus a chance to track without interference. This does that. Makes a U-turn Orbit into a much better animal. very amazed at improvement 
Bungee cords are like any other type of spring, they can be used to isolate any and all components. The trick is to match the spring rate of the bungee cords with the mass of the component, you know, like any other mass on spring. Ideally you want to obtain a smooth very low frequency up and down motion when pushing on the component.