I have not gone to the extreme that you asked about above but I think it's an interesting idea as long as you have the ability to cut, plane, sand, and finish the raw maple to the desired size you want. Honestly, I don't know if you will notice a difference within your music. I own 2" and 4" thick maple blocks from Butcher Block and Maple Shade (a rack and several individual blocks) and I do not notice a difference in sound.

You used th word "better".  Are you after better sound?  Are you trying to isolate your equipment from the floor and vibrations or couple them?  Just putting a butcher block under them will raise the natural frequency of the system so you might avoid low frequency resonances--but you probably don't have them anyway. 

If you want to isolate, then spring platforms are the way to go.

If you're after a look, then beautiful old (refinished) butcher blocks should be great.

Jerry

If you are going to be cutting on it then yes, you want end grain

Otherwise, no.

Also, end grain never really gets clean of the meat products. It has to be re planed.

I should also point out, very few of us have the space for an old-world butcher block.

As you point out they are super thick, so the make nice side tables, and conversation pieces but where do you put your gear??  A rack, like those from Butcher Block Acoustics, has at least 2 shelves. 

Well, there is the ’cool’ factor of a vintage butcher block counter. And enjoyment of recycling.

I had 2 fairly long hard maple counters maybe 8" thick I brought from Brooklyn in 1970. Carried them place to place, never used them, sold at a garage sale for next to nothing.

Do you know a local woodworker who can plane it both sides to a new flat and parallel surface? Edges: some have concealed dowels, some visible dowels, (exposed originally or exposed by cutting the width (take woodworker’s advice) also ’cool’ looking.

A really thick one, overkill, could be cut to two (or 3) less thick slabs by a shop, used/joined various ways.

I have a counter in my office, made from Hard Maple: Sandwich Boards, 2" thick, only 10" wide, so I had my woodworker join them edge to edge, thus 6’ x 20" x 1-3/4 thick (after the plane removed the knife cuts).  They were from the JP Stevens Cafeteria which I designed when I was a youngster, salvaged when they merged with West Point Pepperell, a bit of nostalgia involved.

Would a real butcher block be going to far?

@bgpoppab Its not going far enough. If its solid wood, it will resonate, although due to the density it will take a bit more energy. It would work better if bonded to a dissimilar material such as plate steel. The steel has a resonance too, but bonded together the two rob energy from each other. This will make for a quieter platform into which vibrational energy from your equipment can be sunk more effectively without the wood adding energy of its own.

The benefit of end grain is that it’s easier on the knives, so they hold an edge longer.   An end grain cutting board is harder to make so costs more.  As mentioned, there’s really not much sonic benefit that justifies the extra cost.

I think another benefit of the end gra8n was it absorbed flids, acting to dessecate the surface  and therefore reduce bacterial growth.

But none of that matters for audio, except if you hear the ghosts of all the animals previously butchered on it.

butcher block is not going too far. its been a big thing for a coupla years for TT isolation. use it with some kinda adjustible feet to decouple or to offer absorptoin/suspension of some type

I heard of a guy who poured a concrete pillar from the basement foundation of his house for his TT.  Maybe a bit overkill,  or not.

@atmasphere Well put. Different density layers of material laminated together would be even better.

Butcher blocks are very unstable dimensionally. If you live anywhere with seasons, you will a very large change in dimensions from winter to summer. Might not be an issue for this application, but you should be aware of it.

I have a 5" thick butcher block about 20" on a side made from white oak on legs so it is equal to my counter height. I changes about a quarter inch between seasons.

On a side note, butcher blocks are made from closed grain wood, white oak in particular is the best. White oak is naturally toxic to bacteria, and will not absorb moisture very easily. The wood is also extremely difficult to score deep enough to allow debris to get trapped forming a safe harbor for bacteria. There was a rash of e coli breakouts when many health departments banned them, and it took a while for folks to figure out that the plastic replacements where less safe than the wood. They can also be easily refinished by scrapping, and a bit of oil.

It will couple well to the floor because of its weight, so some cork isolation pads are probably a good idea. I doubt fancy isolation pads will do much since it will take a lot of energy to get it to resonate. 

Load a tuning app on your phone and hit it with a mallet. With luck, it will be over-damped and not ring at a single frequency. If it rings in the low mid-range (125-600Hz), probably best to not use it on gear that could be sensitive. Our hearing is extremely acute in this range, and these ranges of resonance will have a lot of energy and be about impossible to damp. If it is made from white oak, it will probably ring above 1200 Hz. Frequencies this high and above can be isolated out with some feet under the gear very easily.

When you say old world butcher block are you talking about old growth European hardwood butcher block tips or American old growth maple? 

Keep in mind, work-a-day butcher blocks were never made for their resonance response to low end frequency and mass. It was built to withstand butchering.

You can get mass from kiln dried hardwoods and laminate accordingly but I doubt very much you will hear little difference. I've got a 25yo console I made from birch plywood and also had a solid heart pine cabinet I made. The former a piece of movable furniture, the other a solidly anchored built-in. The latter proved to be no better in sound quality. Both were utilized in a raised frame house vs  slab on grade.

The old butcher block, imo, is worth it for the story you can tell, not for the sound quality.

1" thick x 13" stone slabs on 2x6 framing with 4x6 posts on a concrete floor.

’Bout 6’ long, and I’d like to move it about 12" ’length-wise’.

However, I’d have to take everything off of it.

Remove the shelves (2); move frame.

Reverse the prior procedures.

Not a happening.

no.

Going with really thick B. Block will put you into the same quandary

Locate Carefully.

Rear guard, J

(aka, CYA)

I ordered custom made  (2 shade ) maple blocks from a guy on Etsy. I finished them myself with stain and poly and brass spiked feet for my vintage McIntosh MC30s. They turned out really nice and the whole project was fun to do. I also saved a lot of money. 

My TT rests on a new Boos 2" hard maple block perched on springs. FWIW, low frequency resonances have been reduced versus sitting naked on the rack shelf.

A while ago I bought a bamboo cutting board with the gravy groove around the perimeter. I filled in the groove with soft rubber (?) fishing worms to isolate the board. Flipped it over and put my integrated on it.  Worked like a charm.

Marble Cutting Boards

(Photo Link Below)

One shelf of my rack with marble cutting "board." The marble can be underlain with rubber whatevers or engaged in a "coupling" with brass supports as shown - or both if you're feelin' lucky.

Sink or Swim

This is the rack I modified. Simply replaced the threaded steel rods and fittings with brass which makes for a heavier, absorbent/coupled rack that doesn't loosen up at all compared to the steel rods which were always loosening.

Salamander 5.0 Rack

My Buddy has one of these under his VPI 19. The Block weighs over 200 lbs and it is a Three Man job to re-position. It was out of an old General Store that also sold fresh meat a long time ago. 

Solid stand on a Concrete floor.

I recently moved my 2007 Focal 1027 Electra floorstanding speakers into a second bedroom which is carpeted.  The sound was noticeably dull.  I purchased two 2" square butcher blocks from Amazon (cheap) and mounted the spikes onto the speakers that came with them (never used them before) and the sound was dramatically improved.   Personally, I don't think you have to go as far as ticat above to accomplish your goal.

Maybe if the butcher comes to your house and sets it up and does tweaks.