Best building material for vibration free shelving

@skyscraper - I use...

for amp and turntable
- 3/4" MDF shelf
- 1/2" 18" x 14" granite tile (cut to tat size)
- with tool drawer liner in between them

Tool drawere liner like this product
https://www.banggood.com/3x0_3m-Drawer-Padded-Shelf-Foam-Black-Box-Liner-Non-Slip-Lining-Grip-Rubber...

I buy it from the dollar store - very cheap :-)

For smaller components (phono and Bluesound Node 2) I use 3/8" MDF and 3/8" granite tile with the same drawer liner between them

Each shelf has sorbothane between the shlf and the Rack;’s metal frame

My TT plinth is also made from 3 sheets of 3/4" MDF glued and clamped. It is very dense and does not vibrate - I would have to believe 2 sheets glued would make a very good shelf.

Each component is currently supported by 3 wooden feet like this...
https://www.hificollective.co.uk/catalog/glasshouse-large-wooden-cone-feet-p-9728.html

The Amp and TT has the large feet, the phono stage has the medium feet and the Node 2 has the small feet

The wooden feet made a noticeble improvement in the size and precision iof the mage.

I have heard good things about Mapleshade product and their web site may contain some useful info for a DIY person

Hope that helps - Steve

@lowrider57 - I have not tried the wooden blocks.

The cones look very similar to those beech cones I purchased and cost less, but they are Oak and it might depend if it's white oak or red oak.

I like maple for audio purposes - quite hard with a very uniform and tight grain.

I also hear ebony and rosewood is vrey good

I'll keep you posted as to how the brass and Bronze feet turn out, but at this point in time the beech feet sound great

Cheers - Steve

@lowrider57 - the difference between various woods depends on their grain. Oak has two common varieties white and red and while both are considered harwood they have very different properties.

I’ve forgotten which is which, but one of them is actually much more porous than the other and would result in resonance from airborne vibrations

For feet there are several good hardwoods to choose from - like ash, maple, beech ebony and rosewood, but again they have quite different properties.

The verdict is still out on man-made products

Problem with hardwoods used for shelving is they tend to resonate with a different frequencies. To prevent resonance you can glue two or more pieces together, but you have to clamp them tightly

An easier way to successfully eliminate most all of the vibrations, I have found that if you place a layer of drawer liner on the shelf and then something heavy on top of the drawer liner - I use a granite tile, but a butcher block will work, then the "sandwich" formed prevents a great deal of airborne vibrations from resonating.

Any type of plywood is not a great solution mainly because you do not know what woods have been used in their contruction. Solid wood is better, but more expensive.

Marine ply is perhaps better than most because it is well constructed with quality wood and very good glue.- but it is expensive

Hope that helps

@lowrider57 - a couple of weeks ago I had feet that had a layer of sorbothane between them and the amp and they seemed to isolate the amp from the shelf quite well.

Then a fellow DIYer pointed out that the feet were not allowing internal vibrations from the transformer or airborn vibrations that might vibrate the cabinet, from being "drained" from the amp - he suggested I try brass cones or wood cones without any "cushion" material between them and the amp.

Take a look at this site on drainage and isolation
http://www.symposiumusa.com/tech1.html

I now have wood feet under the amp and the improvement in sound changed the mind of this old skeptic :-)

I’m now having brass and bronze cones made to see how they change the sound.

I did try steel ball bearing feet, but the result was far too harse and bright and the image was pushed far in the distance - the wood cones are a little  more forward.

I have also used glass marbles mounted in a steel washer and the effect is a little brighter and more detailed than the wood, but no where near as harsh as the steel ball bearings

I’ll kjeep you posted as to how the brass/bronze cones turn out

Hope you find this useful - Steve

@lowrider57  - many years ago when I first started looking into isolating my components I "created" my own low tech version of a foot using a steel washer and a hardened steel ball bearing - see...
http://image99.net/blog/files/0915f27ce41639dc6e4bf13bff2cbcbb-24.html

My thoughts were - I figured cone  anchors the component to the shelf, even if the small protective disks were used to prevent the spike digging into the shelf - whereas the ball is less prone to digging in.

It did a great job of isolating the component from the shelf, but a lousy job of draining vibration from the component, because of the sorbothane

Since I now use a piece of granite under the component, using  cone would have less tendency to dig in.
 
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I started looking into "draining" and I thought - what if I remove the sorbothane and just used the washer/ball "foot" attached directly to the case of the component.

It does drain - e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!

The resulting image was presented so far back behind the wall (i.e. behind the speakers ) it resulted in lower volume. I had to crank the amp to 1 o'clock (normally between 8 and 10 o/clock.) to bring the image back into the listening room But it was very detailed and crystal clear, it just sounded very far off. It also sounded quite "harsh" or "Brittle"

I found the wood cones have the same clarity and a warmer, but the image is more forward and as a result the listening level is back between  8-10 

I have also tried the washer with a glass marble - this is very much better than the steel ball - it does not have the harshness or image issues

The Terrastone looks as though the ball is either steel, brass or ceramic  (from the images on the web) - not sure what the body is made of though and cannot find any details - could be an alloy of some kind?

I've heard aluminum cones are very much like wood, but I have not tried any to date

Maplegate uses brass - like the Bear Paw,

I now have a guy turning some cones from brass and bronze in different sizes - fiigured I would give them a try, see which material provides the best sound.

Hope that helps - Steve

@lowrider57 - RE:

@williewonka; cool website, I bookmarked it.

Thanks - hope you find some useful ponters - However, some of the information on there is a little dated and my current thoughts on a few of the DIY postings may have changed a little - e.g. the ball bearing foot with sorbothane is one that will get updated

The Helix cables psotings are still current and I stand by the KLE Innovations reviews, but some of the older DIY cable postings will require some updating, which I will tackle this coming winter season

The Herbies Grungebuster Dots look very interesting and very reasonably priced - I might just give them a try - Thanks

Regards - Steve

I picked up my brass/bronze feet (cones) today. I had them turned at a local metal fabrication shop the make bearing, spigots etc...

I purchased the bronze and brass from Metal Supermarkets - they have locations globally.

I had three diameters
- 2 1/2" bronze
- 2" brass
- 1 1/4" brass
- 3/4 " brass

The angle of the cone is 10 degrees from horizontal. I kept this angle shallow (less pointed) because from what I had read, maintaining mass seemed to be quite important.

The vertical shoulder
- on the 2" and 2 1/2" cones is 3/4"
- on the 1 1/4" cone is 3/8"
- on the 3/4" cone is 3/16"

Botom line - they improved the clarity and details and expanded the image over the Beech cones I had purchased

Bass seemed to have more tone without the loss of detail or texture

Some instruments seemed to be placed further back into the image - so they seemed to get lost a little compared to the Beeach cones

The Beech cones sounded a little richer in that you could hear more of background instruments

I think it’s all a matter of taste as to which ones each individual would prefer

There was no difference between the Brass and the Bronze cones - except the bronze was a little more expensive - there was also very little difference in appearance.

The Brass/Bronze cones (5 sets of three) cost a little over $330 CDN.

The wood cones (3 sets of three) cost $100 CDN

All of the cones worked great on my Granite/Foam/MDF shelves.

The brass/bronze cones looks so much nicer than the Beech wood

Hope you find this info useful

This isn’t an exhaustive comaprison into Feet/Cones - just something I was able to try to satisfy my curiosity:-)

I will try to post pictures in a couple of weeks on my system page

Regards - Steve

Oops - I think I may have missed responding to a couple of people ...

@n80 ...

williewonka, I made some feet for my preamp out of walnut that I had lying around. The rubber feet of the pre-amp sit in the little divots on top, the wood blocks sit on 1/4" sorbothane pads. Does any of this make any difference? I have no idea. Kind of doubt it, but total cost was about $12.

I originally had sorbothane on some DIY feet I positioned under the components foot, but after trying the same feet placed directly under the components case I found the image became much more focussed and larger, with more clarity

@skyscraper...

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.

There is a company that builds shelves for components racks that utilize the constrained layer damping for their shelves made from foam filled stainless steel - but I have forgotten their name.

Here’s one that makes complete racks
http://www.symposiumusa.com/mysrack.html

But since I am all about using  an affordable DIY approach I found the tool drawer liner "sandwich" approach to be very effective - but the above rack does look very nice :-)

I also take a similar approach with my speakers because they are on carpet...
- Speaker has cone feet and sits on a ceramic tile
- then a layer of drawer liner under the tile
- then a granite tile with one of the multispiked carpet protector feet at each corner
https://www.amazon.ca/Spiked-Plastic-Caster-Short-Carpet/dp/B000VYHCYM/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UT...

I didn’t want to allow the speakers coned feet to penetrate the carpet/underlay

It is a very stable solution once the carpet and underlay compresses, which takes about a month - my speakers weigh around 50 lbs each

WRT cone feet - I have had a chance to experiment a little more and found the position of feet makes a difference e.g.
- my amp has a foot either side of the large transformer and the third foot positioned for optimum stability
- my phono stage has one foot under the transformer, another under the circuit board and the third foot positioned for optimum stability
- My Turntable - was a little more complex - please see

• "Rega Custom Turntable Foot Placement" (last entry)
on My System...

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/3760

I only use three feet - for stability

The larger feet are not attached to the component - the component simply rests on top of the cones

The smaller feet however, are attached with a piece of double-sided tape.

Hope that helps - Steve

@lowrider57 - as promoised above - here is a link to my site that details the Cone feet I have tried.

http://image99.net/blog/files/505119d0be04fa00f053d1e3491df5c8-80.html