Thanks Boxer12. I hadn't considered Corian.
Mike |
George, appreciate you replying. I actually do have one 3/4" thick piece of marble the exact 40" length I’d need. I had it made up years ago to fit on top of an old antique cabinet housing my stereo equipment. My Bang and Olufsen turntable sat on it. The cabinet's long gone, but I couldn’t bear to throw out the marble. I just wasn’t sure if reusing that would be helpful of not. Somewhere I came across someone saying that granite can vibrate in and of itself in response to sound waves. Who knows? Lots of contradictory advice on the internet.
I usually make shelving by dadoing slots into the uprights for the shelves to fit into. You might have a good idea there about using adjustable shelf brackets, and sitting the shelves on them with sorbothane in between the shelf, clips, and maybe the uprights too. I’ve lots of leftover metal brackets and clips out in the garage for adjustable shelving. Where do you get sorbothane?
I just read the instructions for my new VPI Classic 2 turntable. They said the turntable is heavy, like your amp, and has its own isolation feet, so it should not vibrate. So that simplifies that part of the equation.
Thanks,
Mike
Anybody else out there with ideas? I’d love to hear them.
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Bdp24, what are you using for the "constrained liner damping"? Also How are you connecting the two pieces of 13 ply Baltic birch together, or are you simply setting one on top of the other withe the damping material in between? I read somewhere where one person glued damping material on either side to two separate boards as you describe. Are you setting the shelf on clips, like a typical adjustable shelf like George described above or are you connecting the shelves to the vertical uprights? Do you feel the 13 ply would be less resonant than HD MDF. Sorry for so many questions but I think you’ve put forth some good ideas here.
N80, agree with you that MDF would sag spanning 40 inches. I figured on bracing the shelves with an upright in the center, probably have to do the same with Baltic Birch plywood too. I’ll look on Amazon, and also price, sorbothane as you suggest. I was hoping one of the big box stores like Lowes or Home Depot might carry it.
Stereo5, dill, and schubert4, thank you for the suggestion on using maple.
Czaeivey, I like you idea for using sheetrock squares. They likely wouldn’t vibrate, but also would likely collapse under the weight of heavy components like the amp, unless you are laying the sheetrock on another shelf material. I’ve lots of scraps of sheetrock laying around.
Steve (Williewonka), After reading your suggestion, I might try using my piece of leftover marble, and set it on the top shelf under the turntable with a piece of tool drawer liner, or constrained layer damping in between, once I figure out what that is and how to get it., Thanks for your ideas.
Thanks all for you input and suggestions. I'll be incorporating several of them. I’ve learned some new things already too, Never heard of using sorbothane, or of constrained layer damping before.
Also, and I’m repeating myself, if anyone knows which is less resonant between High Density MDF and 13 ply Baltic Birch, I’d very much like to know.
Mike.
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Bdp24, appreciate you getting back to me. I’ll give the 3/4" Baltic birch a try. I’ll track down some ASC Wall Damp too.
What I think I am going to try are shelves constructed as bdp24 recommends. They will be edged with a strip of sorbothane to butt against the vertical side walls as Steve suggests. I’ll make the shelves adjustable in height, sitting them on clips on vertical tracks with sorbothane between the shelves and the clips, as George suggests. Lastly I’ll set my slab of marble on the top shelf for the turntable, over a piece of padded shelf liner as Steve suggests. I’ll edge the slab with sorbothane too.
I’ll set the components on footers, likely the economical $6 virapods schubert recommended.
If anyone see any flaws with this plan or ways to improve it, please let me know. Thanks you all.
Mike
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Terry, I'll look Panzerholz up. Where do you access it?
Kingrex, I'll have to look up what a Druzy stone is. Thanks for the economical idea. There's few corners to be cut in the high end audio market.
Mike |
Kingrex, a couple of questions; when you say Sorbothane can suck life, could you elaborate on that. What would be the negative effect, and how and why might this be occurring? I am trying to learn, and really don't understand how that might happen. I could easily leave an air space as you suggest between the shelves and sidewall with maybe a few spacers to keep the shelf situated in place instead. Could you provide a link to that "Spock" reference on Audioshark. I'd like to read it. Maybe silicone would be better than the sorbothane.in this application.
Also, what are some of the things you learned about how to tune your system from the local builder from whom you bought your preamp? Sounds interesting, and I'd appreciate if you could share some of his ideas. Thanks,
N80, Interesting comments. I would have liked to put my components in a separate room, but read it was necessary to keep the cabling runs to the speakers a short as possible to prevent high frequency loss. I'm moving my equipment over five feet to the center of the room to accomplish this among other reasons, like not having them directly behind a speaker. Considering the high cost of high end audio cabling, there are certainly economic reasons for using the shortest wiring lengths possible too.
Mike |
Italian, thanks for sharing your experience.
Slaw, I've asked a few questions here. Bear with me. I'm uncertain which one are you referring to as misguided.
Bdp24. I looked at the Townsend pods you recommended and will track down the Youtube video.
Right now, what I need to find is basic. I will have metal clips holding up the shelves. The clips will be on standard vertical tracks, commonly used for adjustable height book or cabinet shelves. I'm sure you've seen them. The flat portion of each clip the shelves will sit on is approximately 3/4" x 1/2". I want to find some vibration absorbent material to sit on the clips between them and the shelves. I was thinking maybe 3/4" by 1/2" pieces of sorbothane. But, since you mentioned sorbothane doesn't isolate to low enough frequencies there must be something else to use, maybe silicone as suggested above.
In the interest of full disclosure, the top shelf to hold the turntable is already in place. It was built years ago to hold one of those old fashioned enormous wide screen televisions we were stuck with before flat screens came out. I am building the rest of the shelves for the amp, preamp etc underneath that pre-existing shelf. I will be placing my marble slab on that pre-existing shelf with a shelf liner under it, as suggested by Williwonka above to help defeat vibration and resonances. I wonder if bdp's suggested constrained liner damping might work for this as well under the marble.
I will later find feet for each component that hopefully defeat any remaining resonances or vibration. Any suggestions on what material might be advantageous to sit between the metal clips and the shelves would be helpful
Kingrex, I wish I could afford something like an electron microscope stand. But I'm hopefully purchasing some exorbitant for me, $10,000 speakers next week, so I have to not bankrupt myself otherwise. If my late wife was still in the land of the living, I guarantee you I would be doing none of this. I can hear her in my head saying "What do you mean you need an electron microscope table, what do they cost?"
Tweak, sorry the train is so close to your home. I'll look up the Machina Dynamica Springs. They sound interesting.
Thanks again all.
Mike
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Kingrex, I've been happily listening to my $790.00 pair of Dahlquist DQ-10's since 1976. So you're way ahead of me with with your Pure Audio Project Trio 10's. Since you mentioned the Trio 10's, I went and looked up a review on them, which coincidentally referenced my DQ10s a couple times. The Trio 10's got an excellent review and are striking in apppearance, so congrats on that purchase.
Gawdbless, thanks on the link.
Mike |
n80, you speak the truth. Years ago old pine, especially heartwood could be used for flooring due to its hardness, for example. Couldn't imagine any pine you find nowadays at the big box stores being used for that purpose.
Mike |
rcronk, yours is the exact situation I've got here. What I figured on doing is to raise the flat screen TV which covers the existing opening, only high enough to make a space for my VPI turntable to set, and high enough to be able to remove it's dust cover. I was going to leave the remaining unused space behind the flat screen open. I figured that would be a good area for heat from the electronics shelved below to dissipate. I hope that open space doesn't create audio side effects like you've experienced. If so I may have to try some of the treatments you've done. Thanks for the heads up.
The existing box is completely framed in with 2x4's and is made out of 1/2" plywood. So it will probably vibrate like crazy. Hopefully using my leftover marble slab with rubbery shelf sheeting under it will handle this issue adequately for the turntable. The rest of the shelves will be built underneath the current opening and will be of Baltic Birch and constructed as some here suggested and I've outlined above.
Gawdbless ,any idea of what the resonant qualities of bamboo are?
Geoffkitt, one of the advantages of Baltic Birch plywood, I'm guessing, is the plys' grains are cross matched, each plys' grain going in opposite directions. I would hope this would damp resonant vibration. I'm only venturing an uneducated guess here though. We'll soon see.
Mike |
rcronk5, thanks for you relaying your sound engineers advice and your accompanying explanation. I will go ahead and fill the spaces in to suppress potential reverb effects. I enjoyed your Jerry Lee Lewis "Whole lot of shakin' going on," reference too.
kingrex,read your link and was impressed with the quality of your DIYset up underneath your turntable, and the diagrams provided. Nice work, you should be proud of. I'm thinking over your suggestions about using beads.
williewonka, I hope that shelf liner works as I'm headed that way for under my marble slab. And thanks for the link and explanation on draining internal vibrations. I hadn't quite understood that process, and how to drain them. Appreciate your explanations of your methods for doing this.
bdp24, hopefully Baltic Birch plywood is the way to go as you say. I've never heard of Torlyte before.
geoffkait, I'd read years age there were concerns mahogany might be getting logged to extinction. So It's not surprising there's "fake" mahogany being imported.
n80, VPI does draw attention to it's turntable isolation qualities and isolation feet. Also how could you over drain internal vibrations? You lost me there. I thought the idea was to get them down as much as possible. Is there such a thing as "good vibrations" (outside of the Beach Boys classic). OK, that's a bad joke, but I liked it.
lowrider57, I'll have to google those DH cones and the Herbies link too. I've checked them out before but don't remember much about them.
jnovak, good tip on accessing scraps of granite to use from yards that fabricate counter tops etc.. Been to several of them, but never connected the dots to ask for leftover scraps. I bet they sometimes toss them or their yards would be overflowing with leftovers and remains, Even the common double sink cutouts would be fairly substantial in size.
Mike
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Thanks slaw4. I will do just that.
Mike |
N80, thanks for pointing out you were goofing around. Some of this audio and audio engineering talk gets a bit over my head at times. I used have a good sense of humor, and didn’t need jokes explained. A saving grace is that I still laugh at all my own jokes, good or bad. My wife used to find that amusing.Take it easy, Geoff. I’ll catch the next one, maybe.
Mike |
Slaw, I'm going to build the shelving like described earlier in the thread and use under the marble for the turntable shelf, some constrained layer damping. Sorry for the late response, but this thread did get away from me. Still not sure what to use between the tops of the metal clips holding up the shelves and the shelves themselves to dampen vibration, maybe some leftover scraps of the constrained layer stuff. Thganks for asking.
Mike |
Slaw, the top shelf for the turntable is already exists and was built in place to hold one of those heavy old big screen TV's that pre-date the flat screens, You know the type. I could set the Titanic on it. I'm building the shelves for the rest of the equipment underneath it.
Any idea what I should place on those metal clips to damp vibration under the other shelves?
Mike |
Slaw, thanks, I'll check out your link.
Wolf_garcia, I wish I could say the same for your Cocobolo suggestion. It does roll off the tongue though, in a Bananarama sorta way.
Mike |
Prof, thanks for you suggestions. It is confusing when you try figuring out what to do when you’re researching online. So much contradictory advice, all well meaning, but difficult to sort out. I got a estimate on some wall damping material just the other day. It turned out to be prohibitively expensive $400+ for just a small quantity of one inch squares.
I do like your idea of using a layer of sheet steel, Do you have the sheets steel connected to one the other materials with anything but the stickiness of the wall damp material?
I’m trying making a sandwich of two pieces of solid Baltic Birch 3/4" plywood with some better quality shelf liner in between as damping. These shelves will be for the CD player, amp, and power conditioner. The bottom piece of Baltic Birch will be screwed into dadoed (slotted) uprights, next the shelf liner, then the upper piece of Baltic Birch will float on the on top of the liner, not in contact with anything else. Next Isopods and cones. Well see if that works. This evening I’ll look up the Townsend Isolation Pods, as you’ve gotten good , measurable results with them.
Thanks for passing on your ideas and how they’ve worked out. I was wondering if I screwed some sheet steel like yours to the underside of the floating piece of Baltic Birch, rather than letting the sheet steel also float, whether that would dampen that shelf it in any way.
Mike
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Thanks prof, I'll have to give it a try. I've had a few sheets of steel cut for some of my vintage woodworking machine restorations, missing door panels fabricated etc, I've two more pieces for the steel fabricators to cut out on their laser machine, so I'll have them crank out a shelf at the same to to experiment with. Appreciate the follow-up,
Mike |
Thanks for the tip prof. Appearance is important. What I'm planning on doing is cutting a thin piece of veneer on my band saw and gluing that to the front edges. I'll then paint that the same color as the shelving, and put the whole operation behind raised panel doors when not being used. the veneer should cover every front edge including the edge of the marble slab my turntable will rest on. Sounds like yours came out nicely.
I looked up the Townsend Isolaton pods. If I hadn't already spent myself into oblivion on a whole new stereo system, I might have been able to afford those pricey little beauties. Unfortunately after I buy the power conditioner being discussed on another thread and a pair of speaker cables, I have to take a deep breath and impound my checkbook for awhile. Thanks again.
Mike |
Bdp. I’ll look into them. Were you refererring to the Super Baby Promethean Mini Isolators he wrote up on Stereophile or a variation on those?
Mike. |
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