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Help! Tweaking My Lovan Rack for new Big A**ed Transrotor Turntable!

Folks, some input would be mighty appreciated.

I’ve been using a hand-me-down (though very nice!) Micro Seiki dd-40 turntable for a number of years and finally got the upgrade itch (it helps the upgrade itch when your cartridge is going on 30 years old, and sounding like it!).

I went down the rabbit hole and picked up a Transrotor Fat Bob S turntable, with an Acoustic Solid 12" arm and a Benz Micro Ebony cartridge. All with only about 30 hours of use at a great price. Yay!

Though I have considered getting rid of my old Lovan Classic rack for a new custom jobby, I’m pretty much spent out and I think I’ll have to make do for now, working with the Lovan.

The Fat Bob turntable is 55 lbs of solid aluminum and built like Thor’s hammer.

I figure this will finally get me to fill my Lovan stands for a bit more rigidity - probably with rice. The stand is the old 3 legged triangular shaped bass, which means the thin MDF shelves can feel like they sit sort of precariously on top. But the stand itself feels quite solid.

I want to incorporate a wood platform base, as many do, because I really love the look of a nice wood slab.

At first I thought maybe I’d have 3 spikes drilled in to the bottom corners of the wood base to directly couple it to the rest of the Lovan frame, vs resting it on the top mdf shelf. But I’m not sure that’s really necessary. And I’d like to incorporate some isolation as well, I think. So I’m thinking of just laying it on the top shelf, with something in between.

My first thought is to place a Symposium Segue shelf between the top of the Lovan shelf and the wood base.

Other than that...I’m flummoxed as to all the other choices...roller blocks? Symposium Fat Padz? Vibrapods? Herbie’s Tendersoft footers? Voo-Doo Isopods?  What should I put between the wood platform base and my Lovan shelf?

Any comments of suggestions on the direction I’m going?

Thanks!

(BTW, I’m an resolutely NOT a DIY/Handy-man type, so I’m not trying to go to heroic efforts, wishing this to be as painless as possible).
prof

Showing 3 responses by audioquest4life

audioquest4life
775 posts
 
OP; Welcome to the Transrotor club. Your Fat Bob S will give you years of listening pleasure. I have a Transrotor Apollon with 3 motors and the triangle design with spiked feet going into cones with rubber feet, I think somewhat similar to yours. I too looked for wood but since the system was heavy, over 100 pounds, and large, I opted for a dedicated stand from Clearaudio, the MontBlanc. It’s really a solid beast with a plexiglas as the base, and concrete filled CNC polished stainless steel foundation. It’s more of a modern design, rather than the homey warm classic feel of wood. I have a zebra wood platform for my preamp power supply😀

My floor is basement, bamboo floor, and no vibration issues. Even with multiple subs blasting. I am a firm believer in rigid isolation with minimal bouncy isolation things for the turntable. I also highly considered the Finite Element stands due to their nice wood craftsmanship. Good luck.

Audioquest4life
audioquest4life
775 posts
 
@prof, 

What makes this hobby fun is the shared interests and experiences of others to help each other out. In terms of isolation, the more rigid and robust in terms of mass your base platform is, the better it will isolate the rest of the equipment from vibrations. My experience with that method is to spike the base platform to isolation footers to your floor, tile,  carpet, bamboo, concrete, wood, or whatever. This type of isolation works extremely well especially if the base platform sits on a rigid base...non floating floors, etc. Minimal vibration transfer will occur using this method. Then, the platform on which your components sit, you can experiment with a variety of absorbers, cones, or rubber feet,in the pursuit of vibration free happiness. I for one have relied on the spiked feet platform approach, and the turntable rests on a one inch thick plexiglass with semi-rigid rubber cushions. Works fine for me. The knock on the platform test does not reveal any vibration through the turntable. Of course, my platform mass consists of nearly 300 pounds of concrete poured stainless steel columns, ala, Clearaudio, with the aforementioned spikes. The mass of your Fat Bob will aid in helping to damp any vibrations as well. At the dentist nd of the day, spiked feet to the floor is one step in the pursuit of isolating vibrations. 

On another note, if you play music extremely loud, I have not found any way to isolate high pressure air disturbances on the tonearm due to extremely loud volume, which is probably not safe for hearing anyway, LOL. Unless, you move the turntable into another room. Once you pressurize a room to cause harmonic and resonant distortions, you are in another league, haha. I have not reached that point in my new room yet! 

@mulveling,

I fully agree with this statement “But your beautiful table really deserves a rigid-framed, 4-point rack”. 

Cheers,

Audioquest4life

audioquest4life
775 posts
 
@prof, 

Yes, exactly. Something like that should aid tremendously in your vibration mitigation strategies. Glad that you don’t have to worry about airborne transmitted vibrations either👍😀
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