Turntable cones/spikes or shock absorbing feet?


How about both?

I've dorked around with my turntable (SL1210) feet various ways over the two years. Recently I tried something that turned into a real keeper:

I had been using the Parts-Express solid brass Dayton speaker cones as the threads fit the Technics. They were seated directly on a butcher block turntable and were noticeably better than what I'd had before.

What I tried was taking a set of "floor savers"--those flat metal discs with an indentation in the center for protecting floors and shelves from spikes--and placing the cone points on the floor savers, and placed the floor savers on top of a set of weight-matched Vibrapods.

Voila! This made everything better--no tradeoffs. Lower noise floor, better imaging, better dynamics at both ends, better inner detail.

The problem is that it's hard to come across floor savers of sufficient diameter to perch on the suspension doughnut of the Vibrapod.

But there's another way: Herbie's (maker of the Way Excellent TT mats) makes these cone/spike grounding bases, which combine floor savers of various sizes with an underlayer of his dBNeutralizer(tm) pad.

The Vibrapod website also mentions this type of arrangement, but as I said, the challenge is finding a floorsaver big enough to use with Vibrpods.
johnnyb53

Showing 1 response by artmaltman

This might be a matter of taste. I have always loved sprung tables, LOVED them. They seem to have more depth, more imaging, more reality, to ME. By putting rubber under yours you have kind of taken a step in that direction. So I'm with you on that.

There are others, from what I've read in various forums, who vastly prefer solid "suspension" under turntables. I think they feel the sound is more precise and focused. I don't get it, but that's life I guess.