Turntable isolation platform
tmartin2 -- Tue, 08/02/2005 - 20:21
I understand that there are some active isolation systems for components. How do these work? Who makes them? Do the work for turntables?
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The best known, at least for turntables, is the Vibraplane. It also is available as a passive device for a lot less $$$.
You can find other active isolation devices for things like electron microscopes besides the Vibraplane. However, most are really bulky and look quite industrial. If you don't mind the looks, you can save some bucks provided you get a reliable air compressor and your floor can handle the weight.
Jim
Are you saying that the electron microscope devices are less expensive than the Vibraplane? Know any manufacturers? Thanks.
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
The last time I checked, ordering vibration control systems directly from Kinetic Systems (the actual supplier of the Vibraplane to Sounds of Silence) was significantly cheaper.
However, they have removed their pricing information from their web site.
http://www.kineticsystems.com/page.php/id/136
I heard that Sounds of Silence has an "exclusive" for audiophile applications.
Jim
Are there any others that I should consider?
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
If your other half can cope with the look of the thing two concrete paving slabs, painted black, with a partially inflated motor bike inner tube between them is amazingly effective at about one hundredth of the cost of commercially available products.
Another one to check out that's relatively affordable ($200-$300 or so) is the Townshend Seismic Sink. This is a platform with adustable feet and an internal bladder system that you fill with a bicylcle pump. They work very well under light-to-medium weight non-suspended turntables.
There's also the "Air Head" from Arcici but like the Seismic Sink, you have to fill the bladders manually with a pump.
For active systems, I still think you're going to have to go with a Vibraplane or another similar platform for electron microscopes.
Any idea what light to medium weight is?
One of the most ingenious and inexpensive passive systems I've seen to isolate turntables (and other components) is the Cloud 10 from Gingko Audio. It uses squash or racquet balls for air suspension.
If you have a heavier component, you just add more balls. Each ball optimally supports a 10 lb. load so the math is easy. The balls rest in dimples on the bottom plate, and the top plate "floats" on top of the balls.
No, it's not nearly as good as a Vibraplane as its damping frequency may be a bit too high to isolate all the nasties, but this baby works surprisingly well. Once you see it, you'll say, "Why didn't I think of that?"
I'm using one under my Aries until I can score a used Vibraplane (or a less expensive isolation device for electron microscopes).
Hi jim
I use a cloud 11 under my well tempered turntable and it was the 1st isolation device that was really great, I also have had. Great luck using mini clouds under my rogue 99 pre amp but for this I also added a bucker block cutting board plus carbon fiber cones between board and bottom of pre. .I know it sounds bizarre but it works great gave me great!! Staging. Bill z
I'm a little late to this discussion but there are some budget air-bearing isolation platforms from Bright Star Audio that are worth checking out as well. Happy listening, Neil
Neil Gader Associate Editor The Absolute Sound
The best table isolation I ever got involved no aftermarket isolation devices per se. Jon Bicht, designer of the Versa Dynamics table, had me bolt a hefty L-shaped bracket to the studs in the wall of the room next to my listening room. I then put several slabs of marble on top of the L bracket and the turntable on top of the slabs of marble. Ideally, Bicht said, I should have used a column of marble under the table, but I, uh, didn't have one lying around in my backyard quarry.
Have you ever tried using a bunch of Versa "springs". Jon Bicht was selling them some time ago, along with inner meshes that one placed in the middle of the spring as well as sorbothane top and bottom pieces, as a means to isolate tables.
Do you think a bunch of these springs (~12) might work well under a table?
I never tried the Versa springs, Jim, so I can't say how well they work. However, if they were designed by Jon Bicht I imagine they are worth a listen.
Over the years I've tried virtually ever isolation device around--from Vibraplanes to sandboxes to Seismic Sinks to Sorbothane to tiptoes of every size and sort. All had their plusses and minuses. Currenty my table/arm sits on Lloyd Waker's rock-maple butcherblock "Proscenium" base, which in turn sits on Walker-supplied Sorbothane footers, which sit on Walker's 400+ pound equipment stand (massive rock-maple butcherblock shelving and shot-filled tubes, which sit on giant Valid points). It is very effective, though, because my listening room floors are a bit spongy and uneven, not quite as effective as that L-bracket with marble slabs bolted into studs in the room outside my listening area, which remains the best turntable isolation stand I've ever used.
How important is it to have the turntable in a separate room/closet?
The reason I ask is that one of the best front ends I've heard was a tricked out Mapleknoll Reference(?) that was in a room separate from the listening room.
Based on my experience with the Mapleknoll, I can only imagine how good your Walker set-up is.
Based on my experience, putting a turntable in a separate room (or space) is important, as it better isolates it from airborne vibration.
However it is just as important to isolate the 'table from floor-borne vibration--which is essentially what happens when you seat it on a heavy-duty bracket bolted to the studs in a wall (or on a column of marble, if you've got one handy).
The Walker setup is very good, indeed. What a wonderful turntable/tonearm! I just wish it wasn't so expensive or that Lloyd would build something cheaper (like the Mapleknoll, but without all the Mapleknoll's headaches).
A cheap-but-effective isolation system can be made from a bicycle inner tube coiled and placed under the component. Experiment with different pressures.
Speaking of John Bicht of Versa Dynamics, he once visited my listening room with some digital gear he was importing. He asked in advance about my equipment rack. I proudly told him I had a 350 pound Merrill Stable Table filled with lead shot, spiked to the floor, with a solid marble top. He replied "I guess that will have to do." For his own equipment, he had a tombstone maker cut solid blocks of marble on which to place his components. He told me that if we were to ever hear a hi-fi system with all vibration removed, we would be astounded at the improvement.
Robert Harley
Editor-in-Chief
The Absolute Sound
The Perfect Vision
Yes, I would advise not having the inner tube filled up with air to the max.
It should have a bit of "give".
Ah, I wish Mr. Bicht would apply his immense talents to audio again.
That's a funny story about Jon Bicht, Robert! He is rather full of himself, but he knows his stuff and, once you get to know him he's good company.
Do you realize what would happen if this bike tire thing got out into mainstream? You'd have folks recommending different kinds and brands of tires (and pumps); you'd have debates about the exact amount of air you should pump into your tire (depending on brand, of course); you'd have arguments about exactly where to seat the turntable on the tire.
I once wrote a novel about audiophiles (The Music Lovers [Delacorate/Dell]). Some reviewers thought I was making that stuff up. But guys in the biz knew better.
Jim Hannon is correct in pointing out that the bicycle tire should only be partially inflated. You can adjust the pressure based on the component's weight.
Robert Harley
Another base to consider is the new "Ground-It Deluxe" from Sumiko/Pro-Ject. (Price is still TBD but should be under $400).
It is filled with "granulate" (metal shavings) and can be placed directly on your cabinet or "spiked" with the supplied cones. It can be set up with either three or four, depending on what you think is better. Sorry, I didn't notice a difference.
While it worked wonders in improving the bass control and improved clairty and focus on the Pro-Ject RM9.1, it is said to work well with other tables.
No inner tubes to fill, squash or racquet balls to exchange, or air leaks to worry about. It gives you more time to worry about VTA.
It's crazy expensive ($7990), but in the June Stereophile Michael Fremer talks about a German-made active system from Halcyonics (www.halcyonics.com). It’s a scientific (looking and calibrated) device that MF says is now being used by audiophiles. According to MF, the improvement under non-suspended tables was dramatic.
The Kuzma Stabi XL and Air Line tonearm combo has no suspension at all. You would think it would need a Vibraplane (or that farchachdat German isolation stand that Mikey recommended). But currently in my system it sits directly (no Sorbothane, no inner tubes, no isolation device of any kind) on Lloyd Walker's 450+ lbs. rock-maple stand and sounds...wonderful.
How do I know I'm not getting acoustic or mechanical feedback? I don't know for sure, of course, and probably am to some extent. But (a la Jon Bicht) I still wouldn't undersell the importance of sheer mass (and proper leveling and acoustic isolation) in a turntable stand--no matter what else you add between the arm/table and the stand itself.
One passive isolation platform that deserves mention is MinusK. Hope you don't mind a cross post to another forum but here's my minireview of the BM-8. I'm not affiliated with the manufacturer, just a happy user.
Best,
Tito
through the years ( I have had turntables since 1970 and a good table since 1978) I have tried many ways of lowering the noise floor found the most effective to put my turntable atop an undustrial slab of granite (not too ugly to be honest) 18 by 12 by 3 1/2 inches and about 100 Lb under the table to me it looks just perfect under my newly acquired Music Hall MMF-9, it also contrasts the super shhen of the table jet black with the granite gray grain.
It just anchers the table in a way that no soft material can form there into a Sanus 3 shelve rack and then into a CHinese all wool thick area rug over travertine flooring in my office,
Tnhat''s how I listen to my vinyl, anchered to the floor dead quiet, Very nice indeed.
I hope this helps;
God Bless!;
Gonzalo
Jon Valin has the best advice here.
Mount the TT on a shelf firmly cantilevered from the wall.
Sound is transmitted it 2 basic ways:
AIR-BOURNE
STRUCTURE-BOURNE
90% of audiophiles mount their TTs on racks sitting on the floor.
This is a disaster for both types of transmission.
Even a concrete floor (which is not generally bouncing around like a timber-framed one) is a great transmitter of sound, so that any rack sitting on the floor is receiving BOTH types of transmission.
This is why Continuum Audio Labs create a rack for their Caliburn that costs $25,000. That's how much technology is required to overcome this basic problem of physics.
When you cantilever off a wall, you are disconnected from the floor (USA stud frame tradition can often short-circuit this advantage).
The materials to fix to the wall, project from the wall and form the shelf for support, generally act to physically 'de-couple' the shelf from the wall.
Thus all or most STRUCTURE-BORNE and AIR-BORNE sound transmission within the floors and walls are eliminated.
The only transmission to now worry about, is the AIR-BORNE transmission directly into the supporting shelf (and here is where Jon's granite shelf is NOT a good idea.
Granite rings like a bell and transmits sound deliciously throughout many audible frequencies without much absorption or dampening. Timber is a better insulator and dampener.
However it may be academic because all one has to do is DE-COUPLE the turntable from the supporting shelf to eliminate the transmission of this air-bourne absorbed sound.
Stillpoint cones with ceramic balls is a good way and there are many others.
Then the only sound transmission to worry about is the AIRBOURNE sound which the TT base and platter are able to absorb THEMSELVES.
This is where the turntable designer earns his crust with the elimination, absorption and dissipation of this air-bourne feedback setting his TT apart from the rest.
Of course the ability of the tonearm and cartridge to absorb and dissipate this same air-bourne transmission (feedback) is equally important but the frequencies are much higher and smaller.
So the moral is......do everything possible to wall-mount your turntable.
Just read this post. This was an extremely logical and helpful post. Thanks!
Very useful. But can you say more about the "USA stud frame tradition can short circuit this advantage"?
Normally and ideally, any stud-frame wall (even internal ones), should sit on their own timber bearers (4"x3") which are supported by their own piers into the foundation material below.
If however the bottom plate of the internal wall sits directly on the floor joists (without a bearer or piers below), it is directly linked to the floor and movements of the floor joists (and thus floorboards) will be directly reflected in movement of the wall structure.
Additionally both STRUCTURE-BOURNE and AIR-BOURNE sound transmission will be transferred from the floor to the wall.
The de-coupling effect of the cantilevered shelf structure will still be of benefit (and needs more care), but will not be as effective as an independently supported wall.
Makes sense. Thanks.
Joining this discussion very late--but in the middle of a mini turntable survey of three models none of which has any suspension whatsoever--I must report that I can recommend virtually without qualification the Townshend Seismic sinks provided they're still available stateside. If a turntable lacks a tuned suspension, the single best improvement you can make in my experience is purchasing one of Townshend's Seismic sinks. It made a big difference for the better even with a turntable as fine as the SME 20. Of course, if you have the Sota and Basis models which already have properly tuned suspensions, you won't need the Seismic sinks. For myself, I've never been able to understand the preference among many audiophiles for fixed suspension--that is, suspensionless--turntables. Unless you use these in another room, you will always get some form of feedback if you have enough bass and you play them loud enough, at least in any room where the principles of physics still apply.
Addendum to previous: one of the things that kills me about reviewers and audiophiles who prefer suspensionless turntables is that they're always trying to sneak some form of suspension in after the fact with all these accessory add-ons. The best thing is from the outset for the designer--a al Fletcher at Sota, Conti a Basis, even the Linn--to design a proper suspension, tuned as low as it can be, to act as a filter. Basis and Sota turntables you place on subwoofers if you like and they won't feed back! Not recommended, btw, except to make the point.
Quote:For myself, I've never been able to understand the preference among many audiophiles for fixed suspension--that is, suspensionless--turntables. Unless you use these in another room, you will always get some form of feedback if you have enough bass and you play them loud enough, at least in any room where the principles of physics still apply.
Strange?.........for myself........I've never been able to understand the preference among many audiophile for turntables with suspension?!
The concept of designing a turntable to be able to 'move', just seems bizarre to me?
As for the claim that feedback must always occur in non-suspension decks, you would do well to re-read most of this thread. The only feedback that suspended turntables may attempt to counteract, is STRUCTURE-BOURNE. All AIR-BOURNE feedback will attack the platter, tonearm and cartridge in exactly the same way as it does for rigid decks.
So? I've never found that airborne feedback comes even close to disturbing reproduction the way structural borne does. As for deliberately designing a turntable that "moves," all that matters is that the entire system move in unison. When the 1987 earthquake hit Los Angeles, my Sota Sapphire/SME IV/Talisman Boron was setup was playing. Although my townhouse shook some, the stylus never left the groove. Please show me the suspensionless turntable that will pass such a test.
Now, after that, go to all of your suspensionless turntables and rap the structure they're sitting on, and listen to what you hear. Better still, simply rest the stylus in the groove and then turn up the volume and listen to the howl that typically happens.
There is every good reason in the world, as Edgar Villchur demonstrated over four decades ago with his pioneering AR design, to design a turntable that "moves."
to add to this: what airborne frequencies just precisely do NOT do is attack the turntable in the same way that structural borne frequencies do because there is all the difference in the world between air and solid matter (try knocking on air some time).
To be sure, if you pressurize a room with enough deep bass frequencies you will probably be able to induce some form of airborne feedback that might actually break through, but I have never heard this happen (has anyone?). Whereas I have often heard structural borne feedback break through, but never with an AR, a Sota, a Basis.
I agree with Halcro that all other things being equal, it is much better to wall mount your turntable, especially if it lacks a tuned suspension. I also agree that granite is a very poor turntable plaftorm. The fellow who advocated this noted that he has a tavertine floor: in my opinion, the tavertine floor is far more responsible for his lack of feedback than the granite on which his turntable sits. It is extremely difficult to use mass as such to filter out structural borne feedback and most attempts to do so come acropper.
Well apparently some of the best designers in the world do not agree with you.
You would do well to actually listen to decks such as the Regas, Raven AC, Continuum Caliburn, Rockport Sirius, Gabriel DaVinci et al before dismissing their humble endeavours?.....oh, and if you refuse to read the other posts in this forum, you will continue to remain ignorant on the issues of feedback.
in fact I am right now only listening to but reviewing three turntables, all of which lack suspension, and I will be reporting on their performance in a future issue of TAS. I note with interest that many of the 'tables that lack suspension tend also to be very popular in the UK, where small twoway monitors lacking in real bass response are also popular. Draw your own conclusions. And, yes, I read several of the other posts in this string, thank you.
and for what it may be worth some of the best designers in the world also agree with me. Depends on which designers you're talking about, but I don't think anybody seriously involved in turntable design would deny that AJ Conti (Basis) or David Fletcher (Sota) or Edgar Villchur (the AR, without which the Linn Sondek, for example, would not exist) are or were not among the best turntable designers in the world!
And for what it may be worth, I do not doubt that there are some very good turntables that are designed without tuned suspensions--I've reviewed some of them for TAS and will doubtless review more--and provided one places them with some care they can produce satisfying results.
But I will also take a turntable with a properly tuned suspension over any of those.
Chacun a son gout.
Quote:But I will also take a turntable with a properly tuned suspension over any of those.
Well you sound like the ideal objective reviewer, destined to give these 'suspensionless' decks a fair hearing? Can't wait to avoid your reviews.
Please allow me to get your position straight.
If after reviewing several different, opposing alternatives, I come down on the side of the one that you prefer, then I’m open-minded.
But if, after reviewing several different, opposing alternatives—in this case, suspensionless turntables, several of which I have owned and thus lived with for long periods in over four decades of being an audiophile—and I come down on the side of those I prefer (i.e., with tuned suspensions), then I’m close-minded.
Got it.
Different strokes for different folks!
I've never seen a turntable without some serious suspension system that can pass the "boink" test.
That test consists of placing the stylus on a record while the motor is turned off and gently tapping the TT base (or if you are physically -inclined - jumping up and down near the turntable). If you hear a "boink" the TT flunks the test.
My experience with a Townsend base was quite positive except that it eventually failed due to air leaks.
The Bright Star air suspension base is very similar, but it is a manual pump system.My sample also has a very slow leak and requires periodic pumping to keep it properly leveled.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Thanks, Steven. Yes, no suspensionless turntable can survive the bonk test (although REG tells me the Well Tempered will), let alone the more dramatic one that AR used decades ago: pounding the plinth with a hammer.
I've never had a Townshend Seismic Sink fail, but I've not used many of them either. They're mostly a pain because you have to keep filling them with air, but they do effectively solve a lot of the problems of suspensionless turntables. It's a pity that Max Townshend himself--in many ways a brilliant designer--is so abymal a businessman. Townshend Seismic Sinks haven't been available stateside for over a year, and despite promises from the factory none is in sight any time soon. As I say, a shame, because they really WORKED and at a reasonable price!
Quote:try knocking on air some time
Maybe your transducers are different than mine, Paul, but my speakers do this vigorously every day--generally right around the area where my turntable, tonearm, and cartridge sit.
Ahhh....the famous 'boink test'. I think I learnt that one in physics 301?
We don't expect our audio reviewers to have degrees in physics, electronics, structures and the nature of materials, sound transmission and acoustics but.......we do have the right to expect a certain amount of professionalism and intelligence?
When reviewers begin to hypothesise about the 'possible' function of materials and equipment design without having any expertise in the subject, and without offerring a single scientific proof or explanation for their 'assumptions', the audio community has cause for concern.
When these so-called reviewers propogate their personal views as 'fact', their readers may tend to repeat and accept these 'facts' with the result that the community and the actual designers and manufacturers are at 'odds' with each other.
When Paul Seydor dived in with his denigration of suspensionless turntables, I was forced to take the opposing view. When he continued sprouting increasingless innacurate and misleading postulations on air-bourne and structure-bourne feedback I bowed out.
Now to his defense, springs another erstwhile reviewer Steven Stone who intoduces his 'boink test'!? How the actual designers of turntables (both suspended and rigid) must be breaking up if in fact they can be bothered reading this drivel?
I can understand how suspended decks may suit a large group of audiophiles, and, if properly executed, their designs may solve certain issues with analogue reproduction but unlike Paul, I CAN understand the preference of many audiophiles and designers for non-suspended decks.
It only takes a cursory glance at the new 'SUPER' decks which have hit the market in recent years, to form a conclusion as to which camp holds sway at the moment?
For reviewers like Paul and Steven to appear to be oblivious to these recent developments and not at least question their former precepts is surprising.
Thank heavens for Jon Valin, who, if he doesn't know, at least talks to the designers and makes himself aware.
Halcro,
Thanks for the moral support, but heaven has better things to be thanked for than my opinions on turntables (or anything else). In fairness, Paul and Steve "talk to designers," too. (Paul for longer than I have.) As you, I, and they obviously know there are pros and cons to suspended and unsuspended 'tables, although you are correct that unsuspended 'tables are currently more prevalent in the ultra-high end.
BTW, I don't think this "boink test" business should be the center of a dispute about 'table design. You can literally hammer an air-suspended Walker's plinth while music is playing (provided the 'table is properly supported on a proper stand like a Walker or a Symposium Acoustics Isis) and you won't hear anything but the music coming from your speakers; you can hammer an unsuspended AAS Gabriel/Da Vinci "plinth" (well, it doesn't really have one since the platter's magnetically suspended within a surrounding cylinder, although the cylinder does have a "lip") while music is playing or hammer on the Gabriel/Da Vinci's cylindrical tonearm support while music is playing, and you won't hear anything but music coming from your speakers, either.(I've tried the test with both 'tables, so I'm not cracking walnuts with my ass.) And Paul already mentioned that Robert says you can do this same trick with the dense constrained-layer plinth of the unsuspended Well-Tempered 'table/arm.
If passing this test were a key indicator that the sound engraved in the grooves of an LP was being more accurately reproduced, then wouldn't you think that all of these boink-free 'tables (including Paul's SOTA and Basis and, for that matter, a Linn or AR original) would sound more or less the same, assuming they were properly set up with the same cartridge, arm, and ancillaries? And, yet, they manifestly don't, which, to me at least, suggests that passing the boink test (and, for that matter, the question of the 'table's suspension or lack of it) doesn't come close to telling you the whole story.
Jon
Jon,
That just about says it all in a nutshell.
Keep on enjoying all that supreme gear that we all envy you for?
Regards
Halcro
Quote:we do have the right to expect a certain amount of professionalism and intelligence?
And courtesy?
I've found after 30 plus years in this field that some form of isolation for a turntable is a must. Isolation can take many forms, but without it a turntable will NEVER perform optimally.
Some audiophiles have the luxury of building or moving into a listening room that allows their turntables are physically isolated, so for them a turntable sans suspension is an option, but most (nearly all others) have to employ some other means of isolation.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
Quote:I've found after 30 plus years in this field that some form of isolation for a turntable is a must. Isolation can take many forms, but without it a turntable will NEVER perform optimally.
And this says it "in a nutshell" too. You're quite correct, Steve. (And you're also correct about courtesy.)