I can almost guarantee you will be as surprised as me. It was easy to see how Pods would improve my turntable. With amps it is harder to understand, but just as easy to hear. Pods are the most economical way, put them right against the bottom of the chassis. This way it totally bypasses the factory feet, which always seem to be the worst part of a component! So much so I have totally removed them from several components over the years. Like freebie rubber power cords and Buss fuses I keep them around and put them back so the next guy can remove them, and store for the next guy....
How to isolate turntable from footstep shake or vibration
Even while the Oracle turnable that I use has a built-in springs suspension by design there is a low or even sub-low frequency boom every time someone walks in a room. This becomes really bad with the subwoofer’s volume set high as the low frequency footsteps make straight to subwoofer where they are amplified shaking everything around. It seems the cartridge is picking up the footsteps very efficiently as even a lightest foot down becomes audioable. What can be done to attempt to isolate the turntable from the low frequency vibrations? Interesting, that the lower the volume of the subwoofer, the less the footstep shake is evident and with the subwoofer turned off it is a barely a problem at all.
Showing 13 responses by millercarbon
antigrunge2, Pretty sure you agree with me completely: Listen and learn. The point I was making is not that any old thing will make a fine arm board. The point is anyone can try these things very simply and quickly - listen and learn - as long as they set aside the urge to make it look good. Many times guys agonize over how to do something, spend hours debating this and that, when in far less time they could just go and do it and find out. Listen and learn. This is by the way very similar to what professionals do in designing or improving a component. They build a breadboard, basically just a board with room for all the parts. This makes it real easy to swap out parts and compare. They can even compare things like the same part in a different place, or oriented differently, all kinds of things. Only once they figure this out then they package it nice and neat. They listen and learn. Only at the very end do they make it look good. Same thing. |
Engineer, you say. Did they drive you out of the profession? Because all the engineers around here are the worst most tone deaf pontificators of that which does not in reality work I have ever seen. You must be a pariah or something. Welcome! Welcome to the club! The club of real world practical thinkers! Our motto: We get results! 🤣😂😁 |
If you are in audio, and especially if you are into improvement, then it pays big time to be willing to try stuff out without being overly concerned how perfect it is, how it looks, etc. People ask me this one all the time. What is the best one to do? What is the most important component? What is the weakest link? These are all based on a false premise. Every link is weak, at least in the sense it can always be made stronger. Every component is the most important. Before I came to this realization I was building shelves out of different materials, sanding and finishing, doing all this work that only makes it look good but has nothing to do with how it sounds. Eventually I figured out I can cut a piece of wood, stick it under something, and hear how that wood sounds without going to all that trouble. The perfect example of this is the tone arm board. This can be anything. Could be cardboard cut with scissors. For sure could be MDF, or any piece of wood, acrylic, plastic, aluminum, Corian, whatever. Don't even have to drill holes, because for testing purposes you could stick the arm on there with tape or blu-tack or heck some arms even gravity will do. Nobody ever does this. If they did they could learn a heap in no time flat. But they don't. Why? Who knows. Appearances. Everyone so freaking worried about how it might look. Me, I am concerned with how it will sound. What did Magenta say again? "Risk it!" |
Jordan Peterson sold me on the idea anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. His point being too many people put off doing until they can figure out how to do it perfectly. In that case it is better to do it poorly, because then at least you learn from experience and maybe make it better next time. If you improve something even if only by a little bit, but keep at it, eventually it will be quite good. Or in any case a helluva lot better than when you started! |
You got that one right, there are an awful lot of factors that go into it, which is why I lean so heavily on educating on principles first and recommending specific solutions second. If I was there in person it would be pretty easy to eyeball and come up with a solution. Over email we have to fall back on generalities. Mass will solve most problems, if you can get enough of it. That's the trick. Fortunately mass is dirt cheap. Literally: one or two 50 lb bags of play sand, in a box several inches deep, put a piece of MDF or butcher block on top, you are pretty much golden. Put some Pods on top of that, turntable on Pods, now you definitely are golden. You are doing it just like I did, Nobsound first as proof of concept, which then either is deemed "good enough" and you are done, or you like it and want more in which case Pods. If you do go to Pods remember Nobsound will work under all your other components, and you can make extra footers from the leftover springs. One of the all time great bargain tweaks. |
As others have stated, adding springs under a table having a spring suspension is a very bad idea (imagine a car having two sets of springs for each wheel!)They’re called helper springs. https://www.tarett.com/items/996-997-991-products/996-997-991-suspension/996-997-991-shocks~springs/... One way to consider going is to install Townshend Seismic Pods under not the base of the Oracle, but in place of the stock springs, with the Pods resting on the shelf, not the Oracle’s base. Good idea. Which is why I said: The most cost-effective answer will be if the Oracle feet can be replaced with Townshend Pods. |
Matter of fact that is exactly what I recommend doing, putting the spring suspended table here on top of a Townshend Podium or Platform. Don't know which Oracle we're talking about here and I'm not familiar with their suspensions either. But all we really need to know is the one we have here isn't isolating from people walking around. A Podium definitely will accomplish that. The only real questions are how bad does the OP want to eliminate this, and what is he willing to do? A massive rack like mine will just about do it, and it is very inexpensive to make. But it is incredibly massive (well over 500lbs) and a time consuming DIY project. Townshend Podiums will definitely do it, and improve all aspects of sound quality as well, but does cost a lot more especially as it will have to be pretty big, those Oracle have a big footprint! The most cost-effective answer will be if the Oracle feet can be replaced with Pods. Some turntables like Basis this is easy and the way to go. But Oracle half the turntable is about how it looks, so I don't know..... |
The Tacoma Narrows bridge collapsed twice. Neither time due to being suspended. Both times due to wind vortex. Wind blowing through the Narrows creates a low pressure on one side, causing the bridge to first vibrate up and down and then twist slightly. The twist creates low pressure on the other side. The twisting of the bridge increases until failure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrqdFxpM_N4 If you go looking for answers to problems it helps to find those who actually have the answers. In cases like this they tend to be engineers. Springs do work great, you got a good tip to go read the turntable spring thread. Springs however have the problem of resonance. Without damping they can sometimes create as many problems as they solve. A lot of things are like that. See for example all the ideas above. So springs are a big part of the answer. But they need to be damped. The trick is to engineer just the right amount of damping. Townshend Pods are designed to do exactly that. My rack is on a suspended wood floor. It is massive, because mass itself is one means of controlling vibration. Mine uses a combination of concrete, sand, and granite, with carbon fiber. But even this is not enough. Springs were a big improvement, and Townshend Pods the best improvement of all. What exactly will be best in your particular situation depends a lot on your particular situation. I can tell you though you can stomp around all you want in my room the woofers move only to the music. There are many possible solutions to your problem. They all start with first understanding exactly what the problem really is: vibration control. Pods are the easy fix. But there is a lot more you can do to go even beyond that, if you want. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 |