For some 20+ years in the middle of my speakers, but set back, I had a vertical Solid steel vertical rack with first the supplied MDF shelving, then over time various thick wooden cutting boards (John Boos, etc), and a couple exotic shelves made with violin wood. However, the height of the rack bugged me as I was convinced it was messing with the sound stage and imaging. A couple years ago I got the urge to go horizontal with maple (IMO) quartz/granite/glass, etc ring: YMMV, but it was way too expensive, but I got super lucky and found someone selling a DIY solid maple table for $200!. The top is ~ 50 x ~ 28 x2. Not only was it more visually appealing, but the both the imaging, sound stage and warmth that was missing from the vertical rack improved in a huge ways
See my Virtual System photos of both
hth
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Go check out the 'boneyard' of your local granite/quartz/marble countertop fabricator. They'll have all kind of options for very little. It's only when they cut and finish the edges does it get spendy. I like quartz because it's a mineral filled resin that is very dense (25 lbs/ft2) for the 3cm and very well damped because of the resin + mineral composition.
Guitars are different - you want them to resonate, but in a very controlled way, that's why the bodies are thin wood, usually very stiff, but no one would ever confuse rosewood with mahogany or maple used in the backs or sides. Spruce of varying species is preferred for the tops, with mahogany and maple used for specialty instruments, like a 'Hogtop blues guitar, or a Gibson Maple Jumbo with a midrange voiced to cut through the rest of the band. A neither sounds anything like a Martin Dreadnought.
But I don't think most people want to use vibration platforms as tone controls, so dense and non-resonant is the better way to go.
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You want hard over a soft maple variety. Hard maple comes in with a 1450 harndness rating compared to red maple 950 or silver maple 700. Beech is a nice choice,straight grained and hard,1300.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test |
There isn't any sounds soft like wood. |
How much weight can one of the TS platforms support. I would like to experiment with a pair of B&W 800's, each weighing about 275 pounds. It would be very interesting to see how these would sound with those speakers coupled to bamboo flooring.
Thanks. |
The trouble with oak is it is far too lofty and grab up all the light. Maples have been oppressed. Nice Rush "The Trees" referance Shadorne |
Try Symposium Isis rack the best neutral wonderful stage,bass,imaging etc.Symposium ultra or Svelte shelfs are great as well. |
hi,
well I got them and have them set up but I was doing two things at once as far as changes to the system so I cannot really say how the sound was specifically effected.
I recently went to a mac mini based pc audio set up and added a QuteHD dac and then a linear power supply. So I have made a lot of changes including these.
They look really nice even with the industrial finish and my system does sound pretty good with those "wow" moments so I will attribute that to the sum of the parts. These Terrastone plinths are only 1" thick compared to the 4" of maple so for my tower set up, this was much more reasonable.
sorry I cannot offer much more feedback. |
Hi Photonman, any updates on your experiences with ts plinths?
Saluti, G. |
Fabulous... Keep us posted Photonman! G. |
Finally received my TS plinths.
They are very nice looking, even with the industrial milled finish. For twice the price you can get the nice furniture quality polished finish butI opted to go cheap.
I go away for a week so I will not be able to audition them but will be back here with my impressions. |
Just an update, my TS plinths will be in hand in about 2 weeks. |
Maple is a true hardwood. Very strong and dense. |
Thank you Photonman.... Keep us posted with your results once you install the new platforms! Guido |
I ordered 12" x 16" x 1" for my speakers with a 8" x 13.5" footprint, with three 0.5" radiused brass footers. $534 + shipping. About 3 weeks for delivery for custom order. Paraphrasing my received responses to my questions:
The grain structure of hardwood makes it resonant. This means sympathetic vibration at one or more frequencies within the audible spectrum. The resulting reinforcement can be benign, with a boost in the midrange.
Often this is experienced as non-problematic, or even welcome at first. Less resolving or coherent systems may sound, initially, more musical for the artificial bump in midrange fullness or warmth. But longer listening reveals the effect for what it is: coloration, inaccuracy. Where accessories and furniture are concerned, the ideal is to avoid internal resonant frequencies which result in distortion or coloration. Maple stands WILL color the sound, or even, in some cases (inferior-grade hardwood or that which is incompletely and inconsistently dried) contribute uniquely audible distortion. Also, wood is subject to environmental conditions such as humidity pressure and temperature which can also add to the effect.
TS is some "space age" polymer claimed to be more neutral and will not color reproduced sound. TS is non-porous and inert. It is completely stable and cannot absorb moisture, therefore no warping, cracking, etc. Complete dimensional stability. It does its work of dissipating mechanical energy without adding any evidence of its presence. And the TS platform can be lower than the recommended Maple 4" thickness keeping my drivers at the approximate same height.
The maple platforms would be almost twice the price. |
Hi Photonman.... Could you give us more info about the particular Terrastone platforms you have ordered.... Size and price.... What is your hypothesis about sonic advantages over 4 inch maple? And of course, let us know actual results once you install them.
Saluti, Guido |
Well, I could not resist, I went ahead and ordered TerraStone platforms for my speakers. There was a good case for the TS over the maple and the TS was actually more cost effective and instead of raising my towers up 5.5", the TS platforms will only be 1.5" high (1" platform and 0.5" brass radiused feet)
And the black looks nice too :) |
Guido, Here are the maple platforms. Actually, the maple platforms themselves are reasonable, it is the brass feet that run up the price. For example, their 4" platforms with large brass feet are $505/pair. The retail of the brass feet separately are 8 ea at $35 = $280 so that means the two platforms are $225 total which is not bad taking into consideration the finishing and labor. I was thinking of doing a custom setup with 3 feet, but the third would be a bolt through megafoot. Each megafoot retails for like $110 each. |
Hi Photonman, what is the source size, and pricing of the 4" maple platforms? Those things tend to be ghastly expensive as well.
Post the URL if you can.
Saluti, Guido |
Guido,
well, the vendor says the gains in sonic performance of the 4" maple vastly outweighs any effects of the increased driver height. As a compromise, I could do 2" plinths but they recommend 4" for tile/concrete floors.
as for trying out the polymer footers, did you see the prices of those things, that would be an experiment I cannot afford!
I do believe the platforms make a difference as I had my monitors on 2" maple and they sounded better than the stereo shop setup on the mfr stands and using better components than my rig. |
Hello Photonman, the problem of 4" of maple butcherblock under speakers is probably not going to be the maple.... 'Tis the darn 4 extra inches, which my raise the drivers too high for ideal listening... Why not experiment with some Terrastone footers first.... They should give you an idea of what the proprietary co-polymer does for living... compared with brass. G. |
Photonman, the old saying is that a violin maker will spend all day telling you about his/her varnish but won't talk to anyone about the grounds they use. |
Yo Guido,
I am not crazy about the idea of "plastic" platforms as wood has more of a romance to it. The advantage of the plastic is that I would only need a 1" plinth according to Eden whereas with the maple, 4" was recommended which wood really make my tower speakers TOWERS.
I have lots of Eden brass footers on my equipment and the guy is really great to work with as far as customizations go.
Goofy,
I saw a show about the Stradivarius violins and I vaguely remember what was the cause of the unique sound and how it has not been duplicated to date. Maybe it was something with the varnish? darn, now I will have to google it. |
Thanks Guidocorona for your comments concerning string instruments. Funny as it may seem, some violins are now being constructed out of graphite. There are no worries over temperature or humidity but I believe most string players would prefer a natural wood sound over the graphite sound. Using graphite for building violins seems odd as some record mats and isolation cones are also made with graphite. So does graphite in some way offer the best of both worlds with respect to resonating and decoupling?
I knew someone who owned a beautiful sounding guitar made of course, from Brazilian Rosewood and I'm not convinced that other woods can achieve this quality but it's still too early to tell.
My other question involves varnish. As you know a Stradivarius is a Stradivarius because of its ground and varnish. How do certain finishes add or take away or alter wood TT plinths, decoupling platforms, etc...? |
Hi Photonman, I have never heard of "TerraStone from Eden Sound"...
But here is the URL....
http://edensoundaudio.com/FAQ_TerraStones.html
The product line is intriguing.... Whether it works better/worse than maple bases, or Adona bases, or HRS... I have no idea.
GUido |
I had my lil' Paradigm Studio 20's on 2" thick maple with brass feet and tilted up and I can swear they sounded almost as good as my new floor standers sitting on the same tile floor with only brass footers. They were detailed and really smooth and really nice to listen to.
Because of that past experience, I am back in the market to get some platforms for my new floor standers.
I am considering 1" TerraStone from Eden Sound or 4" maple.
Synthetic fancy "plastic" vs. real wood, not sure. |
Thanks, I'm going to try that. I've heard of others using bamboo, and it's a lot cheaper than maple. |
I use 2" thick bamboo cutting boards - work very well. |
Has anyone tried any maple platforms under their speakers?
My old wood floors are a little soft, and I've been using small sheets of birch - 1/2inch thick- to set my speakers on. It did tighten the bass. Some of the maple platforms for speakers I've seen aren't cheap. |
Typically 2" - 4". Some application may work better with thinner platforms. For turntables and CD players for me, thicker has worked better.
By better I mean less exaggerated and more "natural" sounding highs, smoother but more detailed midrange, cleaner and better articulated bass. The whole presentation just sounds more coherent and better put together. |
How thick should this maple platform be? |
Steven, FYIF, many baseball players have been using maple bats for years now. In fact, the maple bat seems to have taken over those bats made of ash. |
Maple isn't really all that hard, IMO. The vibrations that enter the platform are bounced around and some converted to heat within the wood. With most butcher block platforms there are many surface boundaries which effect the waves traveling through the wood. This causes even more scattering, but there is also attenuation as some of the energy is lost in the reflected wave. Eventually, things settle down.
The butcher block I used caused a smearing of the midrange that resulted in loss of detail and too much warmth. I may try a solid chunk sometime, but I suspect it will still be too warm for my preference.
There are many folks using big hunks of maple as shelves and I'm sure it does work in many applications. But obtaining better sound by using maple is no guarantee.
And those spikes that folks think act like some kind of mechanical diode, well it doesn't work that way. The spikes provide coupling which means vibrations can travel in both directions. They can be effective in some cases and detrimental in others. In general, spikes help emphasize bass and devices like rollerballs (non-compliant) help emphasize air and space around instruments. Products like Stillpoints are somewhere in between as they have both high-rigidity and some compliance. Personally, I have better luck getting the sound I want by using these kinds of products over what material the shelf is made from. YMMV, and all that. |
Stevenball,
Your example of the vibrational consequences of a poorly hit ball is quite graphic, but if efficient transfer of vibration is the only story wrt audio platforms, then I think wood would not be the material of choice. There are much stiffer materials available that would pass all the vibration through to whatever your block is sitting on. Unfortunately, they would also pass ALL the room vibration imparted to the rack-footer-platform "system" back to your electronics gear. So if maple absolutely "does not absorb vibration" as you suggest, that would not necessarily be a good thing for your hifi. Fortunately, for musicians, music lovers and audiophiles everywhere, this is not the case.
Maple is very dense and very hard for a wood, but in applications for musical instruments and audio equipment platforms it displays complex behaviors. It functions to dampen some of the vibrations, transfer others, and under certain conditions, it can actually amplify or increase the resonance of certain frequencies. The tendency to accentuate certain frequencies may have positive or negative effects on overall sound in hifi applications.
From the Imigi Audio Products webpage:
"...The benefits of solid-maple as a component platform have been known for many years. The sonic properties are unique. In addition to the natural damping properties of maple, when the platform is properly designed, it has a unique ability to allow upper harmonic overtones to fully develop. This is often apparent in the way you can hear a bow drawn across a violin string, the crispness of a sax or in the decay of a drum beat..."
In fact, these complex and unique resonance and damping properties are what makes maple valuable for certain applications in acoustic instrument manufacture.
See this exert from "Tapping Tonewoods", by Dana Bourgeois
"How the Selection of Species Helps Define the Sound of Your Guitar"
Acoustic Guitar Magazine, March/April 1994
"...Maple and walnut tend to be more acoustically transparent than other tonewoods, due to a low velocity of sound and a high degree of internal damping. That is to say that they allow tonal characteristics of the top to be heard without the addition of extraneous coloration and may even serve to attenuate some of the overtones emanating from the top.
The harder, denser examples of these woods, such as sugar maple and black walnut- particularly quartersawn examples-tend to lean slightly more toward the tonal direction of mahogany, while softer examples, such as bigleaf maple and claro walnut, tend toward greater tonal transparency. Curly, quilted, or birds-eye figures do not seem to have much effect on the tone of the wood, but they can be used, like bearclaw, as an indicator of other properties. Quilted figure, for example, occurs most often in softer species and is best displayed when the wood is flat sawn-two characteristics that tend to produce higher damping properties..."
So I surmise that, in addition to wood type, thickness, mass and angle of cut of the piece of wood will alter the way the wood responds to, absorbs or resists vibration. Greater thickness and mass means greater energy required to get a maple or other wood platform to resonate. Thickness plus cut can also increase the internal path length, and the number and configuration of wood fiber bonds available to dampen vibration. That's why guitar backs aren't four inches thick! For some applications, a thinner platform may be better because the resonant frequency of the wood actually enhances the perceived performance of certain electronic gear. |
You know its fishing season here in Oregon and even tho its a slow year there's lots of out of work people trying to catch dinner. Well, I went to the local fishermans supply store with the same notion in mind until I came across a bunch of lead weights in the shape of doughnuts called sand dollars. They ranged from 4 to 10 ounces. Naturally my mindset shifted to the potential of for these toxic beautys as audio vibration isolators, so I scooped up 8 of the 6oz weights and some 1.5" cork bobbers and forgot all about fishing.
Back home I went to waste another weekend with obsessive experiments. The guilt soon vanished as I found audio nirvana in a funky configuration that was insightful about vibrations both coming and going from my system. It may be germaine to this discussion.
My Primaluna CD player rests atop 2 inches of maple plywood and mdf. It sounds great but gets little use since hddtv dvr and plasma caught my eyes.
Anyway, If your not familiar with it, the primaluna8 is a tube hybrid cd player with a nice heavy chassis and some beefy rubber feet. I recently swapped the power chord out with a CCAC silver one and rolled the tubes for the first time to some NOS ones that came with it but I had never tried,the improvments were beguiling and compelled me to see what else I was missing out on..
So I started balancing the player on various things. I tryed the dali speaker spikes and their bases. It was an improvement, but the biggest improvement came when I balanced the player on 1.5" smashballs resting on the lead dougnuts. The players big rubber feet have a cavity in the center that somewhat fit the smashballs. The smashballs are quite squishy or resiliant, and so reduced to 1" in height. and the lead sat atop the maple. The lead seemed to act as a heet sink and the air cushion of the ball under stress seemed to insulate the player from ground vibrations coming the other direction.
So long story long, I think you a right, mass matters.
What was cool about this setup was it is a very delicate balancing act and one can see the effects of vibration by simply walking up to the player, the balls would start to roll off balanc.
By the same token the vibrations coming from the player could also move the balls out of alignment. eg I got the balls perfectly aligned under the feet and in the lead doughnuts, turned it on and sat down to listen, After a time the balls would move. I know they are under constant pressure to push back just from being squashed, but the they moved more when a cd was playing.
Bottom line is the improvements were huge with an air cushion separating sources of vibration and the density of the lead as an asorber was astoundingly better than just the balls on the maple itself. |
Does that mean that, at least in principle, ash platforms may be preferable to maple platforms? G. |
Ok this is what happens. Your amp stand carries the vibration to the spikes and they in turn disperse it into the floor.Maple does not absorb vibration what so ever it acts like a conduit carrying it away.When the vibration reaches the softer pine in the floor it is absorbed. The pine being the subflooring and joistes.That is why baseball bats are not made of maple it would carry all that energy into your hands.Ever hit a ball and gotten that sting well the bat carried the vibration instead of absorbing it. Ash absorbes vibration thats what bats are made from. Thakyou Cyclonicman I needed that investagation to keep me interested in audio.Some times I get bored and take crap forgranted. |
My guess is that the wood "absorbs" the vibration, just as your house absorbs and dampens noise (to a greater or lesser degree). The thicker and heavier the wood, there greater its ability to absorb and dissipate vibration from either direction. I am sure certain woods are better at this than others. |
The way I understand it the maple will not pass the vibration on, as it is so dense and has so much mass that it is very hard to get it to vibrate at all. I have Know idea what happens to the vibration given off by the component it self. Now you have me reading more to find out what happens on that side of things. I will do my best to find an answer. |
Steven, I am curious as I have a maple platform for my power amp and was under the impression that the Maple did absorb the vibration created by the amplifier and any external forces. If the vibration is not being absorbed by the Maple or the component, then what is actually happening to the vibration? |
Maple is a very dense wood and does not absorb vibration,it is also very heavy. thus not passing the vibration on to your components. |
got to get me some of them pure plutonium footers and some extra virgin maple :) |
Dan_ed,
I think you are most certainly right that different approaches and materials work better for different components. I use heavy wooden bases for many because I haven't found something better yet (but may try some of your suggestions - especially for my TT which I don't think I have quite dialed in yet!?!)
One generality - for most applications I haven't found a piece of wood yet that I thought was so thick and heavy that it actually degraded rather than improved the sound of the supported component compared with a thinner and lighter board.
Thus I see we are at the dawning of the era of the "salvaged timber component stand look" where, as a backlash by pocket protector'ed electronic hobbyists and knuckle dragging hedonistic red meat audiophiles towards the new effeminated PC Enviro-Nazi Congress and Administration, and in search for the ultimate HiFi "High", we as a group reject the increasingly passe' B&O minimalism along with our Volvos, Cuisinarts and All Other European Kinds Of Things in favor of large old growth stumps in near natural condition arrayed along one wall of the listening room, each one supporting a single massive tubed component resting on pure plutonium footers, connected by Alpha Beta Gamma Delta Double Triple Helix "Atlantic Crossing" cables to taller stumps on each end, hollowed out to contain the 35 blood diamond speaker drivers and the finest PBDE and pthalate laden crossovers. All in Pennsylvania (USA!) Amish Maple, of course... |
I don't know about Mapleshade but I purchased some 1.75" thick maple butcher block counter top pieces from Grizzley and cut it up to fit my components. Seems to work just fine. To be fair though, I have not done A/B tests with other materials or with Mapleshade products. Seems like it would be a lot of effort for what would be minor, if any, noticeable results. |
Dan,
My cabinets are Maple on the oustide (MDF shelves and acoustic batting inside) and my Roland electronic drum set has a V-Expressions "Maple" acoustic set that sounds absolutely awesome (when played with maple drumsticks);-)
Frankly, I agree with you that when it comes to wood I think it is the finish/durability/wear is much more of a consideration than any "technical" consideration. For example, if I made my cabinets out of pine - it would look ugly and would get dinged all to easily, as pine is so soft. |
In reality, is there a difference between someone placing their components on a $380.00 4 inch maple amp stand from Mapleshade records vs. a maple butcher block of the same dimensions that probably costs $150.00? |
Interesting thread.
Not sure how the density or hardness of wood types have on vibrational adsorbtion, but in the process of experimenting.
Per the Janka rating for density of hardwoods (steel ball thrown at material) I believe American cherry is 950, Oak 1250, Maple 1350, hardest being Brazilian Cherry 2750
I have some exotic hardwoods I will try under my primaluna 8 tube cd player, that should be revealing device to test.
Just made an entertainment center from 2 layers of 3/4" maple plywood with mdf in the middle, 2" thick. Seems to decouple well between components.
Also Picked up some squash and racketballs to add a poor mans floating layer on top of that by routing a cove bit pit to keep balls in place. Will let you know how it works. |
Shadorne, and they quite believe they are right!
Maple is easy to look at, reasonably stable, easy to source, easy to machine, and easy to finish. That's it, nothing more. Well, except that in some uses people believe it sounds better.
I built my stands using maple and walnut. Why? Because both woods are easy to look at, reasonably stable, easy to source, easy to machine, and easy to finish. ;-)
In my system I found that maple shelves (all of my shelves are on sandboxes) work ok under most of my components. It was horrible, IMO, under my turntable. So I tried granite. it was horrible in another way. I eventually wound up with 1/2" aluminum plate under my 'table, the table is spiked into the plate, and the plate is supported above the granite shelf with Stillpoints. I'm using rollerblocks under my source power supplies (that's where the tranny vibes are), and I let the stock rubber booties handle the CDP, preamp and phonostage chassis. So, in the end, I'm finding that no one shelf material works for me in all applications.
But if you notice I'm using several forms of vibration control. Some isolation, some damping, some coupling. It all just happens to be sitting on those maple and walnut stands. |
Interesting - I had a similar result with solid state amp. Wooden platform had almost no impact on sound. Wooden blocks in place of amps rubber feet and placed on polyethylene board = little but slightly less appealing effect. Amp's rubber feet directly on poly board with the board on metal blocks on shelf - slightly better.
For all other applications (speakers, CDP, TT) I use wood - maple, ash and bamboo. The applications of these materials are driven more by cost, size available and aesthetics of a each piece, rather than focusing on the particular variety for given use. As long as the wood is fairly hard, it seems to work pretty well, again the thicker the better. Someday I may get around to doing an independent test of Mapleshade's claims for NA maple.
On a related note, I have tried Sorbothane dots directly under my gear, and used it to isolate shelves from stands and heavy wooden platforms from shelves. In these applications, I was not happy using the material to decouple equipment from whatever is directly supporting it as it seems to suck some of the life out of the sound. But I am happy using this material to decouple the platform from the shelf, or the shelf from the rack (can play system louder through room speakers before compression or distortion sets in).
This leads me to believe the purpose of the wooden platform is to drain INTERNALLY generated vibration away from your gear, while the purpose of an elastic material like Sorbothane is to decouple or isolate your gear from room vibrations originating from your speakers and transmitted to your gear through your rack. I say this because the benefits of the wooden platforms and anything you put between the platform and your TT or CDP (e.g. wood or metal blocks, cones, Sorbothane, etc.) are clearly apparent even when using headphones, and so must be interacting directly with the gear irrespective of room vibrations.
Finally, for your tube amp, I would think the platform material is a more critical factor than it seems to be for my SS rig. Since tube amps generally have big transformers, they can generate a significant amount of vibration on their own, and since the tubes can be affected by both internal and external vibration, I would also experiment with heavy wooden platforms and spikes/cones/Sorbothane as well for that application. |
thanks for the interesting reponses. It appears that maple may be worth experimenting with. It is mysterious, or at least, not clear to me, how the coupling/draining vibration thing works, but that it can audibly improve things I have no doubt. There seems to be some combination of equipment coupling, vibration draining and isolation that works, but it appears to be difficult to predict how or why or what works. For example, I tried putting my amp (large tube amp, has large rubber=type feet) on spikes (i.e., instead of the "rubber" feet), on a white acrylic cutting board, sitting directly on the floor - poor result. Then tried the amp on the cutting board which was sitting on spikes, on the floor - excellent result (at least as good as a Billy Bags amp stand, which is, in a way, a similar combination of an inert shelf supported on steel coupled to the floor.) |
