Generally speaking Sorbothane is good for absorbing shock but the same reason that makes it good for insoles of walking shoes makes it bad for the sound - it absorbs and stores energy. Super balls, on the other hand, those little high bouncing multicolored rubber balls about 1" diameter you can get in bubble gum machines at the supermarket work much better, I.e., sound much better. They don’t store energy, they release it. It's the same thing with the Happy Balls and Sad Balls from Edmund Scientific. One is good for the sound, the other isn't.
Are You Sorbothane Experienced?
I couldn't find any discussions on user experiences with sorbothane isolation feet, so decided to start one. I recently purchased a set of 4 40mm sorbothane feet for my Music Hall mmf-5 turntable.
Setup was less than favourably a one-man affair, so it was a rather precarious endeavour.
One thing that adds to the difficulty of what I imagined would be an entirely straightforward installation, is the fact that the sorbothane feet easily distort under the slightest off-centre loading. That means you have to adjust them incessantly at both top and bottom contact points until you miraculously have all 4 perfectly vertically loaded perpendicular to your turntable's factory feet as well as your shelf. In my case the shelf is by Salamander.
Once you've managed all this and justifiably rather pleased with yourself, guess what? Your turntable may or may not be level as it was prior to the installation. So, level the TT at the shelf rather than at the adjustable feet, as are standard on the MH, because adjusting the feet would upset those super squishy sorbothane isolation pucks.
The listening verdict: I honestly can't say that I can hear any difference during before & after playback of Jimmy Cliff's Wonderful World, Beautiful People.
I'm curious to learn of your experiences, if any. Cheers!
Setup was less than favourably a one-man affair, so it was a rather precarious endeavour.
One thing that adds to the difficulty of what I imagined would be an entirely straightforward installation, is the fact that the sorbothane feet easily distort under the slightest off-centre loading. That means you have to adjust them incessantly at both top and bottom contact points until you miraculously have all 4 perfectly vertically loaded perpendicular to your turntable's factory feet as well as your shelf. In my case the shelf is by Salamander.
Once you've managed all this and justifiably rather pleased with yourself, guess what? Your turntable may or may not be level as it was prior to the installation. So, level the TT at the shelf rather than at the adjustable feet, as are standard on the MH, because adjusting the feet would upset those super squishy sorbothane isolation pucks.
The listening verdict: I honestly can't say that I can hear any difference during before & after playback of Jimmy Cliff's Wonderful World, Beautiful People.
I'm curious to learn of your experiences, if any. Cheers!
Showing 7 responses by geoffkait
Geez, there are so many different materials: variations of the same type of material like Sorbothane and similar viscoelastic material, lead, ceramics, many different types of hardwoods, including Mpingo, maple, but also granite, slate, bluestone, air bladders of various designs, racquet balls, squash balls, tennis balls, brass cones, steel cones, aluminum cones, springs, cryo’d springs, suspensions, magnetic levitation, sandboxes, glass microbeads, roller bearing assemblies, negative stiffness isolation, dual layer mass on spring platforms. And permutations and combinations thereof. Who can evaluate and compare them all? |
avdesigns OP Nov. 14, 2013 Blog post on S.A.P. Relaxa Isolation Platform http://www.mykindofmusic.com/s-a-p-relaxa-isolation-platform/ Is there an echo in here? I mentioned the Relaxa three days ago. |
Timely tip: generally speaking you will get more traction by abandoning soft, pliant materials in favor of real isolation, I.e., mass-on-spring techniques, with minimal internal damping, using very stiff and hard materials such as diamond hardness ceramics to interface to both the top plate and directly to the floor, plus thick granite, maple or bluestone slabs for the top plate. |
Whoa! As far as I can tell the Mag Lev thread doesn’t actualy talk about magnetic levitation, just a lot of extraneous stuff. Oh, well. Obviously Mag Lev has been around like forever for turntables. Exhibit A - Verdier turntable. The Relaxa, which was mildly effective, was the name of the Mag Lev stand they couldn’t come up with in that thread. |