Turntable placement and isolation

FWIW, before you try anything elaborate (and expensive) you might try just placing a solid piece of wood on the carper (not on points) so the effect of the carper and its pad is spread over a wide surface and put your turntable on this and see what happens. I doubt that foot falls would be an issue - foot falls more often occur with suspended turntables which can just bounce like crazy. Personally I'd be more concerned with the effect of sound waves - bass notoriously live in corners and at wall boarders and this is where your turntable would be (I think).

The floor is the best place by far. Its very difficult to make a rack that is as good as the floor. I know. Mine was on the floor for years. When I finally developed a turntable rack better than the floor this is what it looks like https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Its a massive 750 lbs of solid cast concrete shelves, legs, and granite, with sand beds for the phono stage and turntable.

Mass is sort of the basis of a really good turntable rack. There's lots of different ways it can be done. You could more easily build a sand box and put that on top of any reasonably sturdy rack. 

However you do it, this is only the foundational first step. Next is springs. Because its all about vibration control. A lot of mass solves only a part of the problem because high mass physically cannot move a lot. It takes too much energy. It does however vibrate all by itself. Everything does. So what the mass does is eliminate large amplitude vibrations. Then springs are used to further reduce small amplitude vibrations. 

I've used the mass approach for decades and it works great. Recently I've started working with springs and they are great on the floor. So I have some ordered, hopefully they will be tuned to work well with the turntable, and will be able to let you know for sure. But for now, go with what we know for sure will work.

@newbee- Thanks for your feedback. I have a 2 inch thick maple butcher block which I would use to test the carpet scenario and report back. None of my components are going to be near the corners because of the exact reason that you mentioned. They are somewhat going to be close to the front wall. Components will start 18 inches away from the front wall at the center and they will be placed in two or max three rows ending near the speakers. The turntable position if on the floor would be on the third row after all components, starting from the front wall. So it will be centered between the two speakers and positioned slightly ahead of them. Thanks.

@millercarbon- Thanks for your feedback. Your system looks nothing short of spectacular and it is very advanced. I guess I am just a beginner...
I am a believer when it comes to isolation and seismic vibration control. I spent some time with springs and roller blocks to build my DIY platform for all of my components but couldn’t complete the project. The mass-spring low pass filter concept does work but the key challenge is to figure out the optimal combination of load and the natural frequency of the springs which will bring the resonance of the component and platform together to 3-4 cycles. The other challenge was to find a surface which will not ring. Many suggests marble, granite, etc for adding the mass but in my experience these natural stones without any damping always tend to ring. Then you get to handle the damping of these surfaces as well. It is at that point I kind of decided not to spend any more time on this research and may be look for a commercial product which is always going to be very expensive. 
So please keep in the loop with your spring isolation work.
On a separate note, did you notice any imaging degradation when you introduced the taller rack behind the speakers?
Thanks

It would be a lot easier for us to give you recommendations if we knew a little more about your Stereo. Wood floors are notorious for footfalls I would never never put a turntable on a 1 inch wooden platform on a wooden floor it’s like asking for trouble. All the best

indranilsen, I think you know where I was going with this but, in view of other comments I thought I'd amplify for what ever that may be worth. 

Needfreestuff is absolutely correct - 1)Wood floors can be lossy (as hell) and 2) I too would never place a turntable on a wooden floor. That said...

My thought was, starting out as I suggested, you would find out if the combination of carpet and pad under the 'board' sufficiently reduced vibrations from the floor. If so you might not need (as opposed to want) to use mass loading onto the floor. You might want to introduce some vibration reduction (insulating) materials under the board supporting the table(as in a boxed enclosure, like a sand box, with sand or thick latex foam) directly on the carpet. And don't be shy, jump up and down a couple of times and see what happens. If the arm doesn't jump out of the groove you might be good to go. What I'm getting at is trying to isolate the TT from the floor.

 If it does the first thing I would explore would be shoring up the floor under the TT. A pier or shim might do it and it would be cheap (if you can crawl under your house). If that works then you could mass load to your heart's content. Hell if you want you can even play with springs, although I must say I think springs introduce more issues/problems than other forms of isolation. 

I'm probably just a cheapskate but I find little on the market that has ever interested me, although highly touted (and overpriced). I think TT set up is the last great DIY opportunity. Enjoy. :-)

Millercarbon has put into action what I'm always meaning to get around to. Concrete really is a superb material for an equipment stand. I would add to this reinforcement of your wooden floor or ideally removing (only if you own the house and it hasn't got a basement and is on the ground floor) a section of the floor and set you the base for your rack directly on the ground. An open fireplace can have the same effect and I have successfully set many a turntable in one with great results. The downside of the fireplace being its not quite the same listening to Jade Warriors Last Autumns Dream in front of a heater

@needfreestuff- In my two channel system I am using Aerial Acoustics Model 7T as the front loudspeakers, Bricasti M25 stereo amplifier, Bricasti M25 DAC/source controller. For the source, I am using Oppo UDP 205 (rarely used) as a universal player and Clearaudio Concept as the turntable. I am using mostly Nordost cables, Heimdall 2 & Frey 2 in my system. I also use Audio Sensibility Signature speaker cable and digital coaxial cable. I use two dedicated 10 guage circuits, Furutech GTX D NCF(R) receptacles and Nordost distribution boxes. There is no power conditioner in my system. My room has GIK acoustics bass traps at the corners and at the 1st reflection points on the side walls/ceiling.
Thanks.

@pjr810- My music room is over the basement and hence I have very limited option of doing any invasive work on the floor.
Thanks.

Thanks for your equipment report I was worried that you might have a couple of subs too close to your turntable and that could produce havoc as far as Acoustic feedback congratulations on a nice stereo system and let us know what you decide wanted to give you a heads up that there’s a company in the UK called Quadraspire and they have some excellent wall racks for turntables, and I’m sure there’s a couple of them in the USA also, let us know what you decide best of luck

SYMPOSIUM ULRA STEALTH for best sound.

No amount of insulation will compensate for springy floor boards. Conversely there are any number of solid wall mounted racks that would solve your problem comprehensively.

@antigrunge2- Did you mean wall mounted turntable shelf? It is an option that I am also thinking about. Any solution other than a tall tack would work for me.
Thanks.

My Linn Basik/Akito instructions recommend a light but stiff shortish table which I happen to have. They're right, and it worked amazingly well (suspended wood floors). I switched to an "audiophile" table with room for LPs and an extra amp on a shelf (room for my phono preamp also), and it works somewhat less great but still effective enough to leave it...but yeah...a light low table...who knew?

Indranilsen, that is the absolute worst thing you could do. Bass is loudest at boundaries, walls and floors. The turntable should be on a heavy platform as far away from the system as you can get it 3-4 feet off the ground. Ideally you would take your turntable and phono amp put them in another room and use balanced interconnects. The best lay out is to use mono amps next to the speakers with very short speaker wires then long balanced interconnects to the low level equipment back near the listening position in a free standing rack, turntable and phono amp in the next room with long balanced interconnects. If you have an IR repeater and a remote control you can put everything in the next room. This is the absolute best if your system doubles for theater work.

@mijostyn- I agree with you on moving the turntable and other electronics to a different room as possibly the best solution but it is going to be a lot of work for me. So it is an option but I am really hoping that something else would work out and I don't have to move everything to the next room....
In the mean time I have tried putting the turntable on a 2 inch thick maple block placed on the carpet and it didn't do anything to stop the footfall issue.
Thanks.

@wolf_garcia,

"My Linn Basik/Akito instructions recommend a light but stiff shortish table which I happen to have. They're right, and it worked amazingly well (suspended wood floors). I switched to an "audiophile" table with room for LPs and an extra amp on a shelf (room for my phono preamp also), and it works somewhat less great but still effective enough to leave it...but yeah...a light low table...who knew?"


Basically that was my experience too. Vastly better than any wall shelf I tried. And I tried a few.

@wolf_garcia & @cd318- Thanks for your feedback. Could you tell me the dimensions of this audiophile table? A picture would even be better if possible. I am trying to avoid placing any large rack/table between or behind the front loud speakers to enhance the imaging and hence curious about the dimensions.Thanks.

The newer table is a Pangea from Audio Advisor, the older and slightly less "audio freak" table is a rattan end table from "my past" and simply flies in the face of everything "mijostyn"stands for and likely trips his mind into the cosmos not unlike a good Zen koan. There ya' go.

Indranilsen, Well that pretty much rules out anything that is 'anchored' to the floor. You might try mass loading but frankly I doubt that that would help much either., the floor would still transmit foot falls.  Wall mounting might be your best solution if the wall is well constructed and you can find the vertical 2x4's to anchor it to. If your wall has 2x6's that's even better.

Good luck. :-)

@newbee- Thanks. The two options that I am currently working on are
1. Using mass/spring combination. Might try HRS/Townshend products to see if this concept works.
2. Wall mounting with some isolation stands placed on the wall-mount shelf
I really hope that one of these two options works out for me. Otherwise I have to consider moving the turntable and the phono pre-amp to an adjacent room which would be a lot harder option.

indranilsen, If you're not in love with the results of #1 and don't/can't do #2 you might consider a different  TT with a spring suspension where the springs are between the top of the plinth and the supporting plate for the arm and platter. I used and appreciated an Oracle for some years. The only issue I ever had with that TT was getting the springs balanced out when I put on a different arm and the spings where easily adjusted. I never put springs under anything - for me its counter intuitive.

@indranilsen,

I'm sorry but I can't post any pictures of it. I think it eventually got put in a shed somewhere by my wife after I sold off the turntable. I knew then kids and a turntable might not work out too well.

I can still remember it quite well. It was all real wood with a rectangular top surface large enough for an LP12. About 20 inches high, lightweight enough to lift easily with one hand but extremely rigid too.

The main feature was that instead of 4 individual legs it was supported by what I would describe as 2 flat wooden frames (imagine the letter 0, or a slightly rounded rectangle on its side) which were glued to each side of the table top.