I am in that stage of my analogue expedition where I find the weakest link in my vinyl chain is the platform on which my TT is placed. I currently use a simple coffee table like furniture to keep my TT on. My TT is a Nouvelle Platine Verdier and as I see it, it is quite sensitive to the platform it is placed on. I suppose most TTs are like that.
My TT was acquired only few months back and I do not have any rack space for it so I placed it on a wooden furniture near my system. The sound is slow and woolly :-(. I tried placing a TAOC sound creation board between the TT and the furniture, this improved the sound quite a bit but still the immediacy, springiness, transparency that this TT can do is not yet there. I then tried inserting a Finite Element ceraball and that really got things going. Great transparency, speed and immediacy albeit at the cost of lean, hard tones.
These small experiments leads me to believe that the platform for the turntable is extremely crucial to make it perform anywhere close to its potential. More crucial than cables and power conditioning IMO.
The questions that I am trying to answer is: 1. Is it a wrong approach to try variety of platforms on top of a coffee table ? Do I need to invest on a dedicated rack to sort this out ?
2. Can I solve this problem within a budget of $1k ?
The rest of my chain is: 1. RCM Sensor Prelude Phonostage 2. Naim CD5X + Flatcap2 3. Naim Nait 5i integrated 4. Tannoy Turnberry SE speakers
I use some old steel speaker stands cut into L brackets with a cross brace. All are lag bolted into the studs. I have a 15" square piece of porcelain on top of the L brackets andy Pro-ject Xpression III's spikes sit on top of that. Pro-ject makes a wall mount rack like this with a wood shelf for $160. I will probably get negative feedback on the porcelain shelf but it is working for me.
The benefits of isolating your TT will be great. There are a variety of options: wall mount TT stand might be best, a high quality equipment stand is expensive, a combo of vibrapods and vibra disks are effective, do it yourself platform with bicycle intertubes as isolation device.
Wall mount is not an option for me because currently I am not in my native country and live in a rented place. I will be here for couple of years so I am looking for a rather effective solution.
There is no real reason that it has to be placed high on a rack. It could be placed on the floor, on top of some cinder blocks or something equally massive. Unless of course you have animals or little children running around.
I use a Black Diamond Racing shelf sitting on Simm Novcom Pucks, the sound is fast, dynamic, transparent, maintains a balance sound through the spectrum and is within your price range!!!
I use Vibra pods and cones, under a wood platform with TT on top. I too have my components on a wood table top. The floor is slab on grade with carpet. I have no issues with feedback, hum, etc.
If your "coffee table" is substantially less robust than the platform you are placing on top of it for the turntable to rest on, this will not be sufficient no matter what platform you use. Further, your Verdier is quite heavy and could be exacerbating the spring effects of a relatively light underlying table.
Unless you're using a wall shelf, which you already ruled out, I advocate placing heavy turntables relatively low so they are sitting on a strong structure with short legs spaced widely apart -- wider than the width of the turntable. I have three turntables on floor-standing tables. Two of these turntables weigh 65 lbs. each. They rest on custom-made solid maple tables. The top surface is 4" thick, comprised of twin maple boards laminated. The legs are inset and are 2-1/2" square. a 1-1/2" solid maple lower shelf further anchors the legs. Each leg has a 2" dia. sold brass cone resting into Herbie's brass/rubber/teflon receptor pads. The top surface of these tables is 18" off the floor. The turntables rest on Aurios Classic Media Bearings.
The third turntable is a Garrard 401 in a solid teak Loricraft-style plinth, altogether weighing about 50 lbs. This is on a similar maple table but is taller -- the top surface standing about 25" above the floor. That turntable rests on magnetic repulsion levitation feet, which breaks a feedback loop I'd otherwise have where I must place it.
There are many manufactured racks that can help you but you must remember that your table is quite heavy, and placing it on a tall, light, less-than-rigid structure may result in a variety of problems during rotation, from micro-teeter-totter to transmitted bass vibration via your floor into the structure. It's hard to go wrong with maple or laminated maple, and lower/wider will help your Verdier deliver what it was designed to reveal. Bearings may help further but you should experiment and be driven by results.
I made a Cherry Covered MDF Plinth to match the base of my LP12 and have 3 Aurios imbedded in the bottom of the MDF core. This all sits atop a homemade cabinet. I have it braced to the wall to prevent rocking and this works pretty well, although I still can't do any Pet Townsend Air Guitar Windmill Jumps without the tonearm skipping.
Make a cheap mans Ginko Cloud. Just get a maple cutting board of an appropriate size. Then buy a bunch of squash balls on Amazon or at your local sports store (if they carry them). Place them judiciously with more under heavy parts of the shelf and less under lighter areas. They will flatten a bit over time and not roll around, like a racquetball would.
It will be at the limit of your budget, but I would recommend a very solid DIY shelf (concrete blocks/ maple shelf) and then a used passive Vibraplane for $1000. If you can find one, short of a Halcyonics or Minus K, there is no better isolation platform for an unsuspended turntable, IMO. You will be very surprised at the sonic improvement.
I once lived on the second floor of an old farmhouse with a springy floor. How it got in my pants, I'll never know! I had a VPI TNT turntable at the time, on a VPI stand that had been filled with leadshot and sand. It was heavy! But the stand still shook and the 'table's suspension couldn't deal with it so the stylus jumped around in the groove, which was not good for it or for the speakers that had to endure intense "pops."
The large horizontal mass of the Eminent Technology II air bearing tonearm only intensified the problem. It was not a good playback environment for any stylus. Nothing I tried worked to limit the floor shaking, particularly at one location between the couch and turntable stand.
Then someone told me to try a turnbuckle or two and that solved the problem—as long as your stand is within a turnbuckle's distance from the wall behind it. Just wedge one turnbuckle between your stand's top shelf and the wall behind it, by turning the screws outward until you achieve a tight fit. Try a second on the other side of the stand but be careful not to wedge the second one in too tightly or the first one will fall down.
Getting both turnbuckles equally tensioned may take a few tries but it will be worth the effort because then you'll find the turnbuckles have mechanically grounded the stand to the wall behind it and the shaking and groove skipping will stop—at least until eventually the micro shaking will cause the turnbuckles to both slip and fall.
I found on the limited budget nothing can beat the sand box with the top plate of 1" aluminum and bunch of transistor heat radiators bolted to its bottom and fully sunken into sand. Tried marple blocks, all kinds of compliant and rigid interface devices.
Has anyone tried hard solid wood like Ebony platforms on top of a generic AV rack. I am trying to understand how important is the rack itself compared to the platform on which the TT rests.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
