How to isolate turntable from footstep shake or vibration

it sounds more like damping rather than isolation although it probably isolates at certain frequencies. If you want to have some fun put the stylus down on a stationary record and hook your phono stage to an oscilloscope. Then play a sine wave sweep loudly and see what gets through.

@mijostyn Its both. I have tested it and the platform has proven remarkably wide band. I'd recommend the platform but the manufacturer went out a long time ago (Ultraresolution Technology).

isomerically isolated? Does that mean rubber feet?

No. Beneath my platform for my turntable I have some pads made of isolation damping materials- I don't recall the material (its certainly not rubber!). A different number of the pads are used depending on the weight of the device being isolated.

Being a perfectionist does not mean you are paralyzed.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

It is my biggest obstacle, GETTING started. I think and think and think.

If you can get started then you are not a perfectionist :)

they should have maximum dimensional and warp stability relative to the platter and ideally be free of resonance: Brass, acrylic blocks or panzerwood are way preferable to mdf or papp.

Off topic, but the arm board should be composed of the same material as the plinth and ideal be the plinth itself, so that any vibration present at the bearing of the platter will be in the same plane at the base of the arm, such that the arm simply can't pick it up. This does assume a rigid and dead plinth...

Mass does not solve everything. There is loads of environmental rumble that will transmit through anything. When it gets bad enough buildings fall over. Church bells weight tons and they ring like crazy. The only way to isolate a turntable is to suspend it. 

I guess that depends on what is meant by 'suspend'. My platforms are isomerically isolated from my equipment stand- does that count?

His point being too many people put off doing until they can figure out how to do it perfectly.

Perfectionism is procrastination and absolutely nothing else.

I have an oscilloscope program so when I get the table I'll have a look and see if there is any unusual distortion at various frequencies.

You'll need an LP with test tones. I cut some low frequency stuff on my lathe; its easier to see when lower frequencies are present.


Allen Perkins (the designer of the Cosmos) went through the setup of the machine with me. It was suspended pretty well.

I have been using a Sota since 1981 and have had it on everything you can think of playing through ESLs. I have not found anything to be as important as using a dust cover during play attenuating airborne vibration by as much as 20 dB (not sure how accurate the meter was). Like protective earmuffs for your cartridge. And, everyone thinks this is poison (except Mark Dohmann). I guess like guitar amps everyone likes listening to distortion? With subtle differences I guess people prefer sticking with mythology than really listening? Boggles the mind.

@mijostyn  I had a dust cover for my Sota as well. When I added the custom stand and platform the improvement was instantly audible- it was not subtle, and it was also measurable- the latter being done by playing a test tone and cranking up the volume- you could easily see on the oscilloscope how much less 'disturbed' the waveform was prior to the volume control (we had the 'scope on the tape outputs).


We had a modified Empire 208 (which was the platform for what later became our model 208; at the time the 'mods' where a damped platter and an SME5 mounted to it). As you turned up the volume the Empire 'fell apart' sonically compared to the Sota. But when either one was placed on the stand with platform neither one fell apart- at that point the Empire sounded better since it was so much more speed stable (the early Cosmos machines had a stability problem that was later fixed) and had a more massive platter that had more damping. Both machines used the same platter pad as I mentioned earlier and both used the same arm and cartridge.


It was thus very easy to show that the anti-vibration measures were having a profound effect on the system when the volume was cranked up.

Sadly for those who love them as one of the best sounding small signal triodes ever built, the 6SN7 is one of the culprits for being especially microphonic.

Actually @lewm IME the 6SL7 is the more problematic tube compared to a 6SN7.


@mijostyn Just so you know, the tubes in your ARC have to be hand-picked for low microphonics- every tube phono section manufacturer in the world hand-picks their tubes.


Electronics are indeed not as sensitive as a turntable. But they can be sensitive nevertheless which is why many people put platforms beneath their preamps as well as their turntables.

I get a Sota mostly because it has a dynamite suspension and is impervious to anything happening around it.

I had the Sota Cosmos for the same reason. However, I was friends with the guy that ran Sound Anchors (since retired; Sound Anchors has a new owner) and he helped me out with a custom stand. Immediately the Cosmos sounded better. Then I got an improved platform for the turntable and immediately the Cosmos sounded better. The thing about suspension and anti-vibration systems is that they work nicely together. We offer a damping package for the chassis of our preamps as an option; when a preamp with that package is placed in a good anti-vibration platform, the effect of doing so is more profound than if the preamp has no damping package. With analog I don’t think we’ve found how much you can do to improve its sound, on account of the operation being based on microscopic effects!

ARC put tube "prophylactics" (damping rings?) on the tubes. I have no idea if this cuts "microphonics"

:) of course it does! Warren Gehl of ARC came up with that material (he also designed the Sumiko Analog Survival Kit) and it is one of the best materials I've seen for controlling microphonics in low signal tubes.

If the military can make electronics that are immune to vibration so can the high end audio industry.

Yup! One of the ways the military does it is vibration mitigation solutions- for example EAR makes a bituminous based extensional damping compound that gets used in submarines. When tubes were involved they used isomeric mountings on the tubes sockets to limit vibration transmission to the tubes themselves.


BTW 6922s tend to be more microphonic than the 12Axx family of tubes since they were intended for instrumentation rather than audio. That you have a set that is so low in microphonics that you can't hear it when tapping on them is really unusual- so much that its in the realm of outright miracle.

You would think just looking at a tube with it's delicate appearing insides that it would be sensitive to vibration. Is this reality or lay instinct? I use a tube phono stage which uses 6922's. It is not the tiniest bit sensitive to vibration, at least as far as I can hear and I have done some pretty crazy things. I have 25 foot long RCA interconnects from my Krell amplifier days so we put my turntable and phono stage on top of a subwoofer just for fun and to prove that the Sota was impervious to vibration. I had no intension of testing the phono stage. But, tonearm interconnects are only so long so the phono stage went with the turntable.

@mijostyn  In case you are still looking for proof, please take my comments here as such that can be demonstrated **very** easily. What your test above didn't take into account was how much vibration was actually getting from the sub into your phono stage. At any rate its unimportant; the word 'microphonics' exists for a reason; it refers to a sound that an active device like a tube can make when its vibrated. For this reason Ampex iso-merically mounted the circuit boards in their famed 351 vacuum-tube tape electronics, just as we do. So as a tube equipment manufacturer I can tell you that not only are **all** low signal level electronics (like a phono section or line stage) affected by vibration, but when you take steps to prevent it, the electronics will perform better. This is both audible and measurable. And yes, I'm including solid state electronics here- if you think they are immune, you are incorrect, although they are certainly less susceptible than tube electronics. But that is different from immune.

Damping materials, anti-vibration platforms and stands will all help low signal electronics in this regard.

For a long time I had troubles with foot falls regardless of my turntable.

Bought a Sound Anchors equipment stand which helped the sound a lot.


But the foot falls were still a thing.


Then I got anti-vibration platforms to go into the stand, one for the preamp, one for the turntable. This helped the sound a lot.

But the foot falls were still a thing.

Finally I got a set of bearings which were placed beneath the stand on the floor. The bearings I got were Aurios Pro bearings which aren’t made anymore but I’m sure other bearings could be used. This helped the sound a lot.

It also got rid of the foot falls.


My house at the time was about 100 years old with hardwood floors and they were a bit saggy. But I could jump up and down in front of the equipment stand and not hear it. That was the biggest improvement. So I’m going with the idea that the bearings’ ability to relieve side to side energy is what is important controlling footfalls.