Rack Stack Vibration Isolation advice


Hello you fellow crazies....

 

I seek some advice on stacking my components is needed. 

 

I am restocking my components. Currently I have a wooden rack on cheap neoprene feet, some marble with neoprene feet beneath my components on two shelves. See here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ybl9eltdoj7o94bx1gbap/IMG_8694.jpeg?rlkey=gflbkfb2hr2p494pr1ae01vv7&dl=0

I am needing some more clearance below with some small components added. I am thinking of raising the entire rack on a 1.5" wooden butcher block. My main question is what should I place beneath my butcher block, between it and the floor?

Option 1: Cheapo "Tertullus" footers with ball bearings: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09P1BR54Q?smid=A22180QALJ57SP&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1

Option 2: Neoprene Footers 1" high and / or Felt

 

The rest of the rack would consist of Stack Audio under the Marble which has the components. 

The total weight of the rack and components and marble is about 200lbs. 

 

What do you all think? 

Thank you for your input!

r.

Below is the planned overall stack:

STACK:

  1. WOOD FLOOR
    1. TERTULLUS BALL BEARINGS OR
    2. FELT and / or (?) NEOPRENE
  2. WOOD BLOCK 1.5” THICK:
    1. 3X CS2 STACK AUDIO
      1. MARBLE
      2. PHONO PREAMP
      3. FELT
      4. NAGRA STREAMER
  3. WOOD RACK:
    1. TERTULLUS BALL BEARINGS X 2 AS FOOTERS
    2. FIRST SHELF
      1. 4X CS3 STACK AUDIO
      2. MARBLE
      3. DAC
      4. VROCK + VBIT
      5. 1/5” NEOPRENE
      6. MARBLE
      7. AMP
    3. 2ND SHELF
      1. 3X CS2 STACK AUDIO
      2. MARBLE
      3. TURNTABLE
whyrichard

@whyrichard Sorry, let me give you more detail.  Consider a layered isolation platform, like a big Dagwood sandwich.  (I'm assuming you remember the old Dagwood comic strip - google it if you need a photo).  There is sliced bread, a layer of mayo, then a layer of cheese, a layer of meat, a layer of lettuce, a layer of tomato, a layer of a different cheese, etc. until you get to the final layer of mustard and sliced bread. 

A layered isolation platform is just like that.  If you have a layer of wood, then a thick layer of felt followed by another layer of wood - you can see the different densities of felt vs. wood.  Just to make the numbers nice, if there is a density ratio of wood to felt of 1000:1, then vibrations will attenuate about that same amount.  

Note that wood has different densities, consider balsa wood versus iron wood.  You can use thick carpet instead of felt and use cinder blocks instead of wood (we will ignore cosmetics for now).  The point is a few layers of dense material and low density material will really knock out vibrations coming up from below.  Note that this doesn't kill airborne vibrations impacting the equipment directly.  

Also, look at what the floor is made from.  In my house, the floor is concrete, so I am not too worried about floor vibrations.  In college, my roommates and I rented an old, pre-WW2 house with weak wooden floors.  I think a cat could run across the floor can cause the BSR tonearm to bounce.  We put three layers of carpet, a cinder block, another three layers of carpet, another cinder block, three layers of carpet, and then the table upon which the turntable sat.  That cured the problem completely.  We could jump on the floor, and it wouldn't skip - I know, we did that to test it.  That is a very good test, BTW!

Some of the posters mentioned the spring isolators on Amazon; yes, they will work in place of the low density material.  When purchasing isolation items, look for the weight rating for which they are designed.  If something is designed for 10 to 50 pounds, then isolating something weighing 30 pounds is about optimum.  Likewise, if something is designed to isolate 100 to 300 pounds, then using it to isolate 30 lbs will not be very effective, if at all.

The better isolators have graphs showing the attenuation ratios for a given weight range.  Yeah, they cost more because they did all the testing, but if in doubt, look at the graphs and choose the optimum isolator.  Avoid buying any isolator that doesn't specify it optimum weight range.  It might be okay, but you won't know until you spent the money and tried it.

Let me know if you need more info than this.

R

That is a fantastic and clear explanation. Thank you. 
 

I think I intuitively understood this by alternating soft (felt, Sorbithane, neoprene) with hard and heavy (marble). 
 

with my outboard crossovers, I have them on the floor behind my pure audio projects. Their sound isolation is currently: sandbag —> stone block —> light weight wood (mainly for mounting the crossover and controlling cables) 

think this does the trick? Could be improved? 
 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e84ep6reubm9rknps6cgn/IMG_7054.jpeg?rlkey=8eo1diz7u5rfzazkk9pttfhbu&st=q68s9rph&dl=0

@elliottbnewcombjr 

That is an amazing integration of electronics with vintage / wood / stuff. It almost makes the cold boxes for electronics disappear. 

@ghdprentice 

thanks for the compliment. Wood, and Donna’s Stuff makes a difference!

I cannot tell you how long we looked until we found that wood and glass rack, it was a floor model in the basement of one of J&R’s buildings near City Hall, downtown NYC. They were closing and agreed to sell it.

The end panel legs are a poor design for stability, but my fix solved that.

It was CDs, no TT when we found it. I promised Donna she could use the top for plants, then I got back into vinyl, needed to keep my word somehow, added the large plinth TT on top and stacked my SACD player and Remote Line Controller on top, 

I put felt on the bottom of two large trays for her plants, so the plants can still sit on top, one tray of plants move’s in seconds from the TT dust cover to the R2R deck’s dust cover, depends on what I’m playing, they always get daylight.

Typically the speaker is more to the side, does not block the R2R, but sometimes, I move them further from the side walls as shown here. Happily the wood floor is perfectly centered, so I can use the grid for matching locations each side