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View Full Version : Can I pick your brain about Turntable stands?



Invaderevan
28-03-2017, 07:13
Hey Guys, I have been lurking around here for the last few weeks, really getting interested in finally getting my Turntable setup into a listenable state. It has been in storage for a few years, but I have continued to purchase vinyl when I come across an album I really love. So as you can imagine, I am very motivated to get this up and running, so I can listen to these albums. So one of the trends that is going around right now is these mid-century modern pieces of furniture that have decent turntable setup built into them. I think that some of them are pretty cool looking, but I am curious about their integrity as far as Hi-Fi quality. Do you think they are capable of being good? or is a stand that holds both the speakers and the turntable just doomed to have a lot of vibration? and therefore having sub par audio quality because of it? I mean, maybe I am over thinking it and it wouldn't affect it that much, but I just keep reading thread after thread about reducing vibration in your setup at all costs. Dampening feet, external PSU upgrades ( SL-1200 style), tone arm dampening... So coming from a woodworking background, I am curious if there are things you could do to a nice looking console table if you were building it from the ground up to make them adequate for turntable vibration reduction. And possible even improve on some of the features of commercial HiFi stands(This might be an insane thought that actually could not happen without years of research and a precision machine shop at your disposal.) But that being said, I have been interested in learning to work with metal, so maybe there is hope.

These are a few couple I have liked recently that are of a similar style to what I want to build.

https://wrensilva.com/collections/products/products/loft

https://shop.symbolaudio.com/pages/modern-record-console

So my my main goal here is to build a nice looking piece of furniture that houses the turntable, preamp, amp, and 2 speakers. And I would like it to sound better than the average joe's turntable setup, which I feel like is an attainable goal. While These companies make beautiful pieces of furniture, I don't see myself spending $10k on a record table stand with only a decent system built into it, when I can totally see myself building something that looks just as nice, and sounds better, over the summer. I might go the way of the first example, and have the speakers separately, on stands, but I think I would prefer to design it with the speakers incorporated, so it it one all in one cabinet. I just like the look better. It is another goal of this project is to have as little audio equipment as possible. This is just how I like to design things, clean and simple, not too busy to look at. Like in both of the examples, I posted, you will lift the lid to see the table, controls, and possible the tubes, because you can't cover the tubes right?

Another question, is are there any minimum distances you need to have in between the different parts of a system? Or can having your amps to close to the speakers, or your table to close to the speakers cause issues, either electrical or vibration related. Or might there even be a benefit to their close proximity. Lower resistance, fewer connectors... again, this could be totally wrong, it's just something that sounds logical to someone who is relatively new to the hobby.

I have a lot more question about this project that I would love to get your opinions on, but I feel like a lot of it just needs to be me searching the forums and reading, so I'll try to stick to questions I cannot find any information on already. Starting to think about preamp kits now that my TT is starting to come together.

I appreciate any input you might have on this, if you think it's a good idea, if it's a dumb idea, tell me what you think.

Bigman80
28-03-2017, 15:32
In a nutshell, the better isolation is for each component resulted in better performance in my house.

Sent from my EVA-L09 using Tapatalk

farflungstar
28-03-2017, 15:46
Isolation of the turntable from any form of vibration is the highest priority.

Sherwood
28-03-2017, 16:06
In a nutshell: high rigidity and low mass!

Consider abandoning a shelf and mounting the turntable directly on the frame.

Geoff

magiccarpetride
28-03-2017, 16:24
Hey Guys, I have been lurking around here for the last few weeks, really getting interested in finally getting my Turntable setup into a listenable state. It has been in storage for a few years, but I have continued to purchase vinyl when I come across an album I really love. So as you can imagine, I am very motivated to get this up and running, so I can listen to these albums. So one of the trends that is going around right now is these mid-century modern pieces of furniture that have decent turntable setup built into them. I think that some of them are pretty cool looking, but I am curious about their integrity as far as Hi-Fi quality. Do you think they are capable of being good? or is a stand that holds both the speakers and the turntable just doomed to have a lot of vibration? and therefore having sub par audio quality because of it? I mean, maybe I am over thinking it and it wouldn't affect it that much, but I just keep reading thread after thread about reducing vibration in your setup at all costs. Dampening feet, external PSU upgrades ( SL-1200 style), tone arm dampening... So coming from a woodworking background, I am curious if there are things you could do to a nice looking console table if you were building it from the ground up to make them adequate for turntable vibration reduction. And possible even improve on some of the features of commercial HiFi stands(This might be an insane thought that actually could not happen without years of research and a precision machine shop at your disposal.) But that being said, I have been interested in learning to work with metal, so maybe there is hope.

These are a few couple I have liked recently that are of a similar style to what I want to build.

https://wrensilva.com/collections/products/products/loft

https://shop.symbolaudio.com/pages/modern-record-console

So my my main goal here is to build a nice looking piece of furniture that houses the turntable, preamp, amp, and 2 speakers. And I would like it to sound better than the average joe's turntable setup, which I feel like is an attainable goal. While These companies make beautiful pieces of furniture, I don't see myself spending $10k on a record table stand with only a decent system built into it, when I can totally see myself building something that looks just as nice, and sounds better, over the summer. I might go the way of the first example, and have the speakers separately, on stands, but I think I would prefer to design it with the speakers incorporated, so it it one all in one cabinet. I just like the look better. It is another goal of this project is to have as little audio equipment as possible. This is just how I like to design things, clean and simple, not too busy to look at. Like in both of the examples, I posted, you will lift the lid to see the table, controls, and possible the tubes, because you can't cover the tubes right?

Another question, is are there any minimum distances you need to have in between the different parts of a system? Or can having your amps to close to the speakers, or your table to close to the speakers cause issues, either electrical or vibration related. Or might there even be a benefit to their close proximity. Lower resistance, fewer connectors... again, this could be totally wrong, it's just something that sounds logical to someone who is relatively new to the hobby.

I have a lot more question about this project that I would love to get your opinions on, but I feel like a lot of it just needs to be me searching the forums and reading, so I'll try to stick to questions I cannot find any information on already. Starting to think about preamp kits now that my TT is starting to come together.

I appreciate any input you might have on this, if you think it's a good idea, if it's a dumb idea, tell me what you think.

Nice looking and nice sounding are often mutually exclusive propositions in the field of hi fi ;)

Expression 'man cave' comes to mind. Ugly, cumbersome, strictly utilitarian. My wife abhors entering my man cave, because it's an eyesore.

I am now slowly planning to finalize my turntable setup. The idea is to build a shallow box, fill it up with sand, then take 4 racquet balls, cut them in half, place four halves on the sand, then place the turntable feet inside the halved racquet balls. Should help with eliminating unwanted vibrations. And should also help in further uglifyingt my man cave :)

shane
28-03-2017, 18:52
The biggest compromise with these things is built in speakers. With speakers in the same cabinet as the TT, you're going to have big problems, but some of those units with separate speakers look really cool.

Are you looking for something in which to house existing equipment, or are you starting from scratch? If the former, then simply building a cabinet looking something like the Wrensilva but with the bottom half built from solid layers of ply would give you a substantial energy sink on which to put a turntable and amp, with lids to give you the appearance of the unit. If starting from scratch, why not build up an extended version of a PTP -type Lenco to make the bottom half of the cabinet? If ou didn't like the idea of conventional stand or floor mounted speakers you might like to have a look at this:

http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6696 and

http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6827.