Building high-end 'tables cheap at Home Despot II

WOOO! Peter has upped the ante! Better get our garages cleaned out for some serious work this winter.

My brother has been complaining of late about the harshness of his CDs (hard clipping). If ever the time was ripe for an analog intervention this was it. Since his music listening has been via one of those integrated Bose units, I had to assemble a complete, stand-alone system. The goal was to keep it around $200 - and with the help of the Salvation Army, we came in under.

Anteed up a rim-drive Garrard Zero-100 that I purchased nearly two years ago for $90 in my “waiting for Lenco” phase. It came with a Grado green cartridge. After pulling out about 2 to 3 lbs. of automation and a full servicing, this Garrard was still too terrain intense underneath to mount into a solid plinth. Instead, I left it on ¾” dowel stilts and put a black fabric skirt (more like bunting) around it. Made a couple of modifications. One was to place the neon stroboscope lamp on a micro-switch circuit, activated by new linkage added to the “auto” toggle, so that it stays off unless selected. The second was to hardwire directly to clips/cartridge and by-pass the contacts on the sliding cartridge tray. This allowed correcting the azimuth which was way out of whack.

For turntable sundries, I bought him a new AudioQuest anti-static cleaning brush ($20) and Silly Putty (original version) for a stylus cleaner ($1.99). For a dust cover, I used the thick clear vinyl that comes with comforters purchased at department stores. Just had to unstitch two of the reinforced seams; cut to fit depth; then restitched.

My good buddy, Stephen does the rounds at the thrifts, picking up various vintage receivers and he brought over three to audition before I left for New York. A hulking Kenwood KR-4600 ($20.00) won out for its excellent phono stage and bass response.

Speakers came by way of the Salvation Army – a pair of Pioneer CS-470 sealed 3-ways in excellent shape ($20.00/pair). The bass on these is commanding, if a little out of control. But the low-end distortion is pretty natural sounding and easy on the ears. My wife helped out with a little refinishing on the cabs and I bought some new grill cloth ($8.95) plus glue (2.95).

The big score at the Salvation Army was in August when somebody dropped off a nice LP jazz collection – Miles, The Duke, Zoot Sims etc. I culled about 20 of these – all scratchless ($20).

So for $183, a pretty sweet sounding analog system with a starter collection of LPs.

Next week, I’ll head down to Southern N.J. to deliver the goods. In the meantime, the gear came with me to New York for a three-week long visit with another brother. The traveling analog show seems to have wowed another – so I may be doing this again.

Sailing on the Analog Sea.

My friend and I are about to embark on our plinths. 24"x"20" using alternate layers of 3/4" mdf and birchply (top layer 1/2") .There are a couple of things we are a bit unsure of. What layers are we bolting the t/t to? Is it just the top layer of mdf or the top two layers and then subsequently gluing all the other layers.Do we use the original mounting screws? Do we use any other screws as well?One other thing, where can we get neoprene sheets here in the Uk? Many thanks for your help, this is the most exciting thing I have ever encounterd in hifi.Nigel.

Nigel,
At each corner of the table, underneath, there is a 4mm threaded nut/knob. The plinth should be screwed to these 4 threads from underneath. The trick is to get a straight hole up throught the layers of mdf and ply. Make sure you leave area (larger than the 4mm screw) so that the head of the screw is braced against the plinth. This depends on how long the screws are and how deeply they are threaded into the nut/knob. I would make these drills after you have glued all the layers together. I advise against only the first couple layers ( then covering those holes with subsequent layers) because you won't be able to get to these screws when you want to remove the plate from the plinth- I am 99.9% certain you will remove the plate for tweaking/adjusting.
Secondly, looking at the top plate from above, platter removed, there are several holes in the top plate. I am referring to the top plate under the platter with the platter removed (I repeat). Screw the top plate down onto the plinth. 3 or 4 screws are enough. The plate should be resting flat on the plinth, this being your first layer of ply routed to the correct depth.. You don't want it too high nor too low, otherwise, when you couple, or screw the plate down, you might bend, or warp the plate, causing the platter to rub against the sides of the plate.
Neoprene, which should be glued onto the plate, not the plinth, can be found on eBay. I used dynamat which is used to dampen car doors.
Of course, other folks may have done things differently, and hopefully they will share their ideas, but I hope you get the general idea.
Let us know how things proceed and email some photos.

Hi Nigel,

Oregon’s post follows the most up-to-date recipe for the “sandwich”. These are two distinct areas of attachment: 1) perimeter bolting (4) of the top plate to the top layer of plinth – usually to mdf, and 2) coupling the platter well (pan) with wood screws to the 2nd plinth layer – usually birch-ply – sometimes with the addition of neoprene gasket material or hardwood shims to make up for any gap.

The first phase of the attachment was always part of the recipe. The 2nd phase – also known as “direct coupling” - came later in Jean’s development of this grand project. Because some (including myself) had difficulties in getting the torque just right on “direct coupling”, you might consider taking this as a two-step process: 4-Bolt the Lenco to the plinth and listen to it for a few weeks – then direct couple. This way you’ll be better able to discern any sonic improvements/degradations.

Since the bolting of the Lenco to the plinth is to draw the top plate perimeter edges into the top plinth layer, I see no reason to be locked into the bottom/up 4mm bolting. I drilled out the threads of the top plate lugs and bolted top to bottom using ¼” bolts with cone washer with black neoprene on the contact surface. This eliminated tricky alignments procedures. Initially, I drilled smaller holes to align a couple of plinth layers at a time using nails while I made internal cutouts. Once all glued up with top plate in place – I drilled down with a ¼” bit. Then recess the nut into the bottom layer by drilling partway through the bottom layer with a ½” bit. You can almost always find ¼” bolts for the correct depth.

Nothing is written in stone about how you get there as long as you adhere to the basic principles of the sandwich recipe.

Sail on!