A reappearance of Black Diamond Racing?

Yes it is amazing stuff. All the more amazing considering its been around over 20 years and still about the best, if not the very best, you can do in terms of a shelf. 

Looks like a HUGE Source Shelf in one pic. A smaller one that looks rounded. And another normal Shelf. Plus a few Round Things with Cones. 

I have these everywhere. Mine are the original rectangular version. Did you get those? Or the newer ones with the curves? https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
Do you have Pucks or Round Things? Or will you be using them with Cones?

Oh yeah, definitely worth the price.

Something very important that never seems to come across in any of the websites. The BDR vibration control approach is modular, flexible and progressively complimentary. In other words the stuff is designed to work together, and the more, the better.

The first and most cost-effective step is three Cones under everything. The next step up from Cones is Pits, Pucks or Those Things- but they are all slightly different versions of the same thing, basically a pad or base that spreads and improves the effectiveness of the Cones. A Cone can go between the component and a Pit, or be screwed into a Puck and placed under the component. The improvement either way is big but like everything else you just have to experiment to find which way is bigger. One thing you learn doing this, the conventional wisdom about points and vibration flowing is just bonkers.

The next step up from this is to add three more Pits or Pucks. So at this point it goes component, Puck, Cone, Pit. Huge improvement. By the time you get to this point you have added something like $500 in BDR but have a component that sounds something like $2500 better. 

Only when you get to this level does it make sense to go to a Shelf. Then you are back with the same deal of adding Cones and Pucks under the Shelf. Doing the same thing only now at an impressively higher level as the Shelf drops the noise floor, grain and glare letting you hear impressively deep into the recording. 

I know everyone says that about everything. But the Cones alone deliver the same, only less, but enough so that at only $60 for a set they are still one of the best bargain tweaks in audio.

Know what you mean. Every time the choice is sit and listen and enjoy what you got or do something else to maybe make it better. But its so much easier to sit and listen, so much work to make it better. It seems I am more lazy than energetic so often its a little surprising I have a stereo to listen to at all.

Sounds like you are most of the way there. Whatever you build, will work great on a Shelf. Think you'll be able to finish it this year?

Ideally slaw you would find a used Shelf, or two, or even better a Source Shelf. If you are unsure a simple proof of concept will remove all doubt. Simply drill a hole or two to mount a bearing, add arm and motor, see how it sounds. I bet even without being careful, just slapping a motor on, piece of wood or MDF for the arm board, hardly even trying you will still be hearing a deep dark noise floor and more inner detail than ever. I mean it just kills it in terms of dropping the noise floor. 

This way if for any reason you don't want to go on well you still have a Shelf only with a hole in it but still perfectly good for sitting components on. But that won't happen. You will want to go on.

If you look at mine one of the top images shows the Miller Carbon sitting on a Source Shelf. https://www.theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm The table itself was all built from one Source Shelf. The plinth was cut out of a Shelf much like it looks in the photo. The left corner was then cut into a 5" diameter circle to be used for the nut that screws onto the bearing. Scroll down the page to a side view to see this. The right corner was cut into a smaller 3" circle to make the tone arm mount. Those Things and Cones thread right into the plinth. 

This is all based on a modification of Chris Brady's Teres turntable. http://www.teresaudio.com/fame/index.html Chris no longer makes the tables but he used an arm board so you could run virtually any length arm. https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649452242-teres-255-baltic-birch-turntable-with-signature-motor-... Mine goes for maximum strength and stability by making the sides more curved and using a solid arm base instead of the board. Either way works fine it just depends on what you want.

Every time I go back to that site it reminds me how long I've had my table. More than 16 years now!

Well if you are building a plinth, I really don't think you can do any better than a BDR Source Shelf. Even the thinner Shelf would be better than pretty much anything else you could find. I built a few and nothing came even close to the Source Shelf. The stuff is just so damn stiff and dense and highly damped- perfect for a plinth!

Don't be put off by it being carbon fiber. There is really only one layer of carbon fiber on each side. As far as cutting, shaping, machining, sanding, polishing, it works just like wood. Very, very hard wood. Not as hard as aluminum. But I have some very dense hardwood in my shop that is actually harder to cut and sand. Very doable.

Mine was cut first on a band saw, then hand sanded. Other parts were routered, drilled, and cut and threaded just like any other material. 

If you decide to try it first wrap the whole Shelf in blue painters tape. Leave the tape in place all the way to the end. That way only the areas you work get exposed and you wind up with a perfect blemish-free finish.

One Teres platter version, the black one, was I think Delrin. Most of these materials- acrylic, Delrin, aluminum, MDF, stainless, all the usual suspects - are used more because they are affordable and easily worked with than anything. In other words its not like they are the best materials, its they are the least bad materials that can be used cost-effectively. That is why those few materials keep showing up and being used again and again.

Its like the band-aid or system matching MyFi approach to cables- instead of doing the hard work of finding something genuinely across the board excellent we'll take the easy way out and try and balance a lack here with a surplus there.

That's why you keep seeing these things being laminated together. Its like wine or whiskey. This one's too sharp, that one's too mellow, hey but if we blend em all together.... Only at least the wineries are honest and up front about it. In audio for some reason they feel compelled to make up BS like constrained layer damping. Please. Its a blend. Because you don't really know what you're doing. Just come out and admit it.

In the case of BDR its not just the carbon fiber. A lot of it is the material in between. Which I know for a fact because DJ sent me a Shelf with no carbon fiber that works as well as the more expensive ones with. Hard to say exactly since you cannot compare different sizes and this one was an odd size but it sure seemed to work just as expected only without the CF.

The lead platter is mostly for looks. Chris came out with a much better platter, but it was all black and my lead shot platter just looks so good especially spinning..... besides, that upgrade would have been in my eyes a half-measure. The Full Monty which I still may do one day, is to have the platter machined out of a Source Shelf.

Right around the time I would have done that DJ decided it would be a good idea to steal my turntable design, and so never did get one thick enough for a platter. Could still be done easily enough, bonding a couple Shelf together for thickness then machining the platter. Chris’s brother Bryce did the Teres platters and could probably do one for me easily enough. Just need to get up the motivation to get into it again.

mofimadness, a man who clearly has ears and knows how to use them, writes:

I knew DJ. Very intelligent and creative. I use BDR products all over my system.

I’ve tried just about everything out there over the past 40 years and the BDR stuff is probably the most effective that I’ve used. I really believe in it.

WONDERFUL and highly recommended!

Right. Excellent. Same here. And totally agree.
BDR is so good, when first discovered I showed it to a friend. A driven, highly motivated audiophile with 30+ years experience constantly trying to find and reverse engineer and DIY every tweak he could find, he rolled his eye at me. "Yeah I’ll try em. But do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that?" He then proceeded to rattle off a seemingly endless list of stuff he had tried. "It won’t be any good. I’m not paying for anything that doesn’t work." On and on.

Next day, same guy calls and you can’t shut him up, just going on and on and on about all the great things he’s hearing, how much better than anything else he’s ever tried, how in the world is this even possible, on and on.

This was way back in 92, 93, something like that. Nobody in Washington State had any. DJ agreed to sell to me wholesale until a "real" area retailer came along.

Being a stupid stoked audiophile I took them to audio clubs and spent the next year or three taking these into scads of audiophiles homes where they were auditioned under literally hundreds of different components. In all that there were maybe one or two times when the improvement was hard to hear. All the rest of the time it was immediate and obvious.

At $60 for 3 BDR Cones are still the best tweak for the buck.

Now I didn’t just buy and sell and use. I also tried my best to reverse engineer. Nor did I just use the stuff as intended. I fabricated with it. Had DJ make me some custom bits. Never did find anything or any place the super stiff, highly damped, moderately massive material didn’t perform beyond expectations.

Here’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. https://www.theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm

It looks a lot different now with a Conqueror arm and new motor drive, but that’s my table. Built from a Source Shelf. Tried building the same from scratch, tried different methods of carbon fiber. Probably have a hard time finding anyone this side of DJ who knows more about this stuff than me. Fairly hard even just to make it look as good. Then use it, never sounds anywhere near as good. Built a plinth or two, built a bunch of Cones, Pucks, etc. Mostly all I got to show for it is a healthy respect for how much work goes into developing something as good as BDR.

Well, that and one pretty darn fine turntable.

Every single component in my system is on Cones. Everything but the speakers are on the Shelf. With Cones and Those Things. Speakers on Cones with Pucks. CDP and phono stage each have a small Shelf on top. Still never have heard anything better. DJ died some years ago, thought he took the secret with him. Makes me wonder if its still being made how its being made and who knows how to do it?