I want to upgrade my Turntable to something heavier

alahankbear OP

7 posts

04-21-2026 at 10:10pm 

@slaw My house is pretty small, and the Stereo and home theater are all in the living room.
 

So with the suspended floors, does your turntable currently live in/on a TV stand? The tv stands are wobbly/bouncy and will exacerbate your problem with footfalls or when dogs are running around. Heavier turntable will not help with this at all.

The answer to the problem is either a very heavy and stable component rack or an aforementioned wall mount. Solidsteel S2 or S3 component racks should be good. I would take a good look at this first before you spend money on a table and fix nothing. 

With all due respect to the esteemed members of this forum and their previous recommendations, I’ll throw out the SOTA line of turntables. They did a demo at one of the audio shows (Cap Audio, I believe), where they placed their turntable on top of a quality subwoofer and played it. It was remarkable how stable and solid it performed. It appears that they provide a choice of tonearms, cartridges, and accessories so it’s pretty customizable. They are a beast of a turntable. Not too sure about the balanced aspect, but I’m sure they’d be happy to talk to you about it.

I had a huge St. Bernard, he could shake the floor, just walking, oh the clump (and noise) when he got up and down. Big dogs aren’t interested in the stereo, just don’t put their food and water bowls in the same room.

I agree, wall shelf if you can find a location, and up at comfortable height, I had my Thorens TD 124 TT in a cabinet, on a shelf, arm easy to see when lowering, stylus easy to see and clean. My current setup is a nice working height, but that height was better.

IF I had a wall shelf, I would still be playing that old gem, loved it.

With a wall shelf, heavy weight might work against you. I would still have some isolation solution.

@78sman mentioned one of these if you don’t do a wall shelf, but it might be over budget.

I always want a dust cover, it would need to be huge, it’s not for me.

@audphile1 is the only person who seems to have come up with a sensible approach.  Let's recap.  What is the problem?  The dogs are big and cause the turntable to mistrack.  The floors are spongy.  A new turntable, any new turntable, does not really address the problem.  Isolating the turntable effectively would do that.  There are two options:  Stiffen the floor, or use a wall mount shelf for the turntable (there are commercially available brackets for this purpose).  Everything else is not relevant until this core problem is addressed.

OP

Once you have solved vibration, (I favor wall shelf for you, and me if I could find a place) you want a more revealing cartridge.

My history is MM, finally MC (lomc with SUT to MM phono in my preamp), back to Vintage Used MM (for cantilevers unobtainable new today, and lighter tracking).

What phono stage do you have, or considering?