what's wrong with my feet ?

[hughmc2]

Hi all,

I have a nearly standard 1210. It had upgraded rca cables when i bought it and a micro seiki mat. Other than that nothing else done.
It sits on a piece of 20mm granite, on a Next sideboard. I use an AT440mla with it and unlike the pic attached it now runs through a Graham Slee Reflex Era Gold.
I think it sounds bloody great...and since getting some B & W CM5's it's got even better.

My question is - why would changing the feet help ?

We have oak floors on a rubber membrane and I can jump up and down next to the sideboard...nothing. I can drum on the sideboard nothing...... No vibration, no mis-tracking.

As a mech eng' I have a very basic knowledge of physics. I understand that hearing is based around vibration and said vibration would be all around me when listening to music. It would effect the arm through the air if it were loud enough but that loudness would also register in my ear so any awareness of these minute changes would probably be dampened out by the increased information being processed by my ears. But then the feet have nothing to do with airbound vibration ? Do they ?

Or are we saying that the vibrations from the adjacent speakers ( standmounts ) are travelling through the sideboard, then through the granite, through the feet and eventually making their way to the arm.

What exactly are the sorbothane feet protecting the deck from ?

Is it just me :scratch: I do have a history of having trouble seeing what others find obvious.......the ginger one in Girls Aloud - why ?, Gary Neville - why ?

[DSJR]

Just my opinion mind (;)), but my main system is mostly placed in a heavy and quite solid cabinet on a carpetted concrete floor. Not ideal, some may say, but that's the way it has to be... I haven't done this with the techie you have (which should be better than my elderly one), but in my case, bypassing the feet altogether did drastically improve things, together with removing the lid completely when playing (a definite recommendation for most decks like this I've found and it's easy to try for yourself).

Maybe you could try unscrewing the existing feet and replace them with threaded cones, tendefeet or somesuch either spiking directly on the granite (or using spike-cups) or possibly by replacing said feet with cross-head screws either acting directly on the granite, or on the points of cones bonded lightly to the granite slab.

Hopefully, if you can understand what I'm trying to say, you might end up with a clearer reproduction in the bass and if you get the bass end better, everything above it "seems" to improve as well I find. If you hear no difference, then it has only cost you a modest amount - £20 or so seems nothing to many here :lolsign:

The whole field of turntable isolation seems tricky, as there are so many variables to take into account. My own view "at present" is that a stock techie sits between the light but rigid approach of, say, Rega and many Pro-ject decks, and the super-dreadnaughts of the extreme "top-end" which weigh a ton - literally in some cases I reckon.. For many, it appears that the isonoes do a fantastic job, but I'd have a go at cheaper options first before laying out a hundred quid or more. For my own SL1500, it's played daily up in the "office" and it sits on the big round Audioquest sorbothane feet placed on a rickety fold out "TV Table" that cost £7 from Dunhelm Mill. removing the lid and attention to the mat now means that if a record or the plinth is tapped when playing, only a muffled thud comes through, where there was a boooooooooiiiiiiinnnnnnngy boom before, mainly from the lid resonating..

Good luck with your experiments :)

[hughmc2]

thanks for the response Dave.

I have no problem spending the money on the sorbothane as long as someone can give me a factual explanation as to why and how they will help. I can't understand what they are isolating against when there is surely so much more resonance in the air of the listening area than through the solid surfaces. ( My ASW608 sub is on a 60mm granite slab, as are the speaker stands. )

Just really interested as to why ?

sounds a bit like wearing rubber sole shoes to keep the sun off my head ???

Discuss..........

[Wakefield Turntables]

thanks for the response Dave.

I have no problem spending the money on the sorbothane as long as someone can give me a factual explanation as to why and how they will help. I can't understand what they are isolating against when there is surely so much more resonance in the air of the listening area than through the solid surfaces. ( My ASW608 sub is on a 60mm granite slab, as are the speaker stands. )

Just really interested as to why ?

sounds a bit like wearing rubber sole shoes to keep the sun off my head ???

Discuss..........


You've hit the nail on the head, "as long as someone can give me a factual explanation as to why and how they will help." If this could be done with areas of hi-fi we'd all understand how our systems worked and would never need to upgrade. I'm afraid it's not as simple as that!! Sorbothane stops vibration getting into your 1210, it works as a barrier, but please be aware that Sorbothane can rob the impact and slam that the 1210 is famous for. There are many threads on aos with regards to sorbothane, why not try and do a string search through the various threads and some of your questions may garner some answers :eyebrows:

[hughmc2]

sounds like a plan !

there must be some partical physisist on here somewhere who can explain it.


( is that how you spell physisist..isist :lol: )

[RobbieGong]

I too can not explain, as with a lot of ever so seemingly little things associated with the turntable but for sure there is an effect. As REXTON has said I too found the sorbothanes robbed the sound of a lot of it's vibrancy and sparkle, in fact I thought Urrrggghhh!! couldn't get them off quick enough and immediately put them up for auction. The beautiful Isonoe feet I found to be excellent as the difference was really really suttle and revealed just that little bit more inner detail in the music - very suttle. It's the combination of all these well chosen 'upgrades' all givin that bit more that gets us to a certain place. Similarly some people just cant get there head around how or why mats change the sound the way they do :scratch:

[Stratmangler]

sounds like a plan !

there must be some partical physisist on here somewhere who can explain it.


( is that how you spell physisist..isist :lol: )

I can inform you that it's spelled Physicist :)
And I knew that before I Googled is and found this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicist ;)

[CableMaker1]

Hugh -

I dont know if this will answer your question without going into technical detail, but this is what I experienced with the stock feet. Flick your finger on any of the feet while the turntable is playing on a quiet passage. Did you hear the thump go up into the plinth, into the arm, and hear it come out of the speaker? If not, flick harder.

The standard stock feet does not do a good job at isolating the vibration that can come up into the feet and transfering it into the TT. If you play the TT at low volumes, then you can probably get away with vibration not making it back to the TT - (not to impede on the work you did to isolate the TT from external vibration).

If you have the funding - upgrade the feet to Isonone. When you perform the "flick test", what will you hear? Nothing. Nada. I was very impressed!!! While you are at it, to help isolate vibration even futher (especially for those, like myself, who did not go through the work that you did to isolate the TT from external vibrations from the floor through the TT) you can get the rubber Isonone boots that are sold seperately which attach to the bottom of the feet for even additional vibration damping.

I have not used sorbothane feet, but I imagine it should do a similar job if you perform the "finger flick test". However, the Isonone looks way cool!!!

Again, I am not sure if I answered your question, but if you can stop vibration from coming through the feet into the TT, then I feel it is a step in the right direction. Now as to elimiate external vibrations getting into the plinth and the tonearm... I deffinetly do not have an answer to that - unless you can make the plinth and tonearm entirely out of rubber.

Mike

[Alex_UK]

Now as to elimiate external vibrations getting into the plinth and the tonearm... I deffinetly do not have an answer to that - unless you can make the plinth and tonearm entirely out of rubber.

I don't want to take this too far in an off topic discussion, but have wondered before if a turntable was placed into a hermetically sealed glass or perspex cube, and then the air sucked out (i.e. a vacuum) how it would sound, or indeed if it would work at all... Wouldn't be that hard to make for someone - sadly not me, though!

[Clive]

TT isolation can be weird at times. Some time back I swapped the MDF top shelf on my TT rack for a nice piece of slate. The rack has upward pointing spikes. I simply placed the slate onto the spikes. The sound was totally robbed of life (dynamics). I then placed metal discs between the spikes and the slate and all the life came back to the music. The mdf shelf didn't have said metal discs so presumably the weight of the slate and it's softness may have stopped the spikes properly draining vibration.

I don't think these thing are easily predictable so you need to experiment a little to find what works.

[DSJR]

The old flat-earth way of describing it was to try to imagine the tiny vibrations/movements of a stylus attempting to extract the information contained in a record groove. Vibration coming through the turntable plinth and structure in general, as well as acoustic feedback from the speakers (which has an effect long before the howl-round when everything lets go) will all have an effect on the reproduced sound coming off them grooves ;)

If the deck is well founded, as yours appears to be, then attention to mats and a possibly better bearing may be more fruitful for you. I still suggest the cheap option of directly coupling the chassis of the turntable to the granite first, as the plinth of the deck is well damped compared to my oldie one and may respond to direct coupling...