Turntable isolation project

[magiccarpetride]

A good friend of mine, an avid vinylphile, visited me a few months ago to listen to my turntable upgrades. After the listening session, he told me: "You could have at least 20% more music from your table if you put it on a good isolation platform." I was intrigued, and because he is very good at making things, I asked him to make me a turntable isolation platform.

Which he did. It's a beautiful, quite heavy wooden platform that fits nicely underneath my turntable. It sits on isolation spikes, which can be adjusted for perfect leveling.

Listening impressions: true, at least 20% (often much more) of never before heard details emerged. In addition to that, the sound noticeably softened, and became more liquid. Really amazing what an isolation platform can do to the sound quality. But it shouldn't be surprising -- a stylus riding the groove is busy bouncing up and down, left and right, so any mechanical interference will easily affect the signal.

And now for the weird part: as I mentioned, the platform on which the turntable sits is placed on 3 adjustable isolation spikes. And because the improvements from that configuration were so amazing, we decided to push it one notch higher and also placed the turntable itself on the same adjustable spikes. So the final configuration was that the configuration had 2 levels of isolation spikes.

We sat down for a listen, with a baited breath, expecting another spectacular improvement. But much to our shock and dismay, the new fancy configuration produced horrible, heart-breaking bad sound! All of a sudden, the turntable lost all guts and started sounding lean, tinny, metallic, and gutless. We tried adjusting VTF, VTA, nothing was helping.

In a hurry, removed the isolation spikes form under the turntable and then breathed a sigh of relief -- everything was restored back to the gorgeous, seductive and addictive sound!

So it looks like while mechanical isolation is definitely needed for turntables, one has to be careful in how one approaches it. Too much may not necessarily be a good thing. Overall, I remain baffled as to why would adding another layer of isolation to the configuration butcher the sound quality to such an amazing degree.

Maybe someone has an explanation?

[walpurgis]

Spikes do not isolate. They do the opposite, they couple.

[Mikeandvan]

I moved mine from ikea kalllax to TT wall shelf, made f*** all difference, sometimes I pick it and just hold it in mid air, sounds the same.

[magiccarpetride]

I moved mine from ikea kalllax to TT wall shelf, made f*** all difference, sometimes I pick it and just hold it in mid air, sounds the same.

Yeah, but if you try and shake it vigorously while the record is playing, the sound suddenly becomes sublime.

It has to be heard to be fully grasped...

[tlscapital]

My tweaked turntable is heavy enough to have it's own inertia. It's sorbothane thick feet do absorb the resonance from the wood cabinet. The cabinet is wall mount and so don't need mass to give it the inertia it needs.

Your friend made that thick and heavy support for your turntable. This for it to have it's own inertia. Now spikes are indeed originally used on audio gear to "couple".

So in your second misfortune case, my guess is that the turntable's spikes transmitted the picked-up support vibrations back into your turntable plinth.

My amp has from origin 3 spike feet. Some replace them by sorbothane feet or such. I tried once to place such sorb pads and it "muffled" the sound...

I am yet to fully understand how there that worked, but my amp do benefit from such "transient" vibrations to work as it should apparently.

So it's only recently that I got to look at the 'pikes' (whom I find ugly) on some audio gear differently under another light and appreciation.

[AJSki2fly]

....

In a hurry, removed the isolation spikes form under the turntable and then breathed a sigh of relief -- everything was restored back to the gorgeous, seductive and addictive sound!

So it looks like while mechanical isolation is definitely needed for turntables, one has to be careful in how one approaches it. Too much may not necessarily be a good thing. Overall, I remain baffled as to why would adding another layer of isolation to the configuration butcher the sound quality to such an amazing degree.

Maybe someone has an explanation?

Leave the TT on the spiked platform and instead of spikes under the TT 3 or 4 semi-sphere sorbothane blocks under the turntable. You need to know the weight of the TT and purchase the right size ones to work best for that weight. They are available on eBay, quite a few give weight guides. Any vibration getting through the platform and into the deck will be then minimised by the sorbothane.

It can be quite surprising initially how it sounds when you successfully stop feedback and better isolate a TT. the biggest impact in my experience is on the bass and low mids, it may even sound hollow. But if you listen for a few hours IMO you will notice the bass is better defined and that actually you get more detail.

A similar effect can be done by using software filter room re-enforced bass nodes that are exagerated by wall reflections, you can calculate these by room dimensions. You then filter them for a very narrow bandwidth and drop dB by about 15-20dbB. The nodes are generally around 70-80hz, 140-160hz and sometimes 280-320hz. When you do this the immediate experience is of flat and lifeless music, and it can sound quite odd. But a few hours of listening and the music then sounds more detailed and better controlled.

What I have noticed when making changes to setup, is sometimes it is not what you expect and your brain can trick you based on previous listening experience. I have found that several hours of listening after a change, and to different music, is often the best way before deciding it’s better or worse.

Try the sorbothane it’s cheap and I think you may be surprised.

[Primalsea]

What you experienced makes sense. Generally a TT needs to sit on a solid support and the heavier the better but require some form of springy isolation between the TT itself and the support.

[Beobloke]

I’m surprised at the ‘20% more music’ figure. Generally speaking, I have never managed to eke out more than an additional 8.4% using different supports.

A change of platter mat can bring this up to 9.7% but I generally find the only thing to get it into double figures is a decent bottle of Carmenere.

[tlscapital]

I’m surprised at the ‘20% more music’ figure. Generally speaking, I have never managed to eke out more than an additional 8.4% using different supports.

A change of platter mat can bring this up to 9.7% but I generally find the only thing to get it into double figures is a decent bottle of Carmenere.

Good point. I believe it's hard to talk about % when it's something that can only be subjectively "estimated". Not even measured in comparison when it comes to the sum of what comes out from the speakers. How much it counts as an improvement is only relative to him. So if "20%" counts as his "ball park" of worth while "improvement", it is to be understood as such.

Where I wanted to react as well but omit to, was the 20% of more musicality explanation. When one talks about detail and fluidity, to me it's not to do with musicality but more with sound definition. And in the case of more details retrievals, this will actually diminish the musicality of it all in my book.

Musicality in playback comes with "focus" more than with "details" that tends to distract and "spread out" the sound. Musicality as I understood is used in the "audio world" to define a quality in playback that is "coherent" but not optimistically "analytic". So for the "audio geek" less of a "quality" factor where it is for the "mello-maniac" as I am

If fluidity does not diminish musicality, it is more of a playback characteristic to has do with the sound "texture" coherence that is likely due to the good cartridge build performing optimistically and solely with less external "interference" (more inertia) from it's support. Hmmm ! I know the feeling and love it. Sweet

[magiccarpetride]

Good point. I believe it's hard to talk about % when it's something that can only be subjectively "estimated". Not even measured in comparison when it comes to the sum of what comes out from the speakers. How much it counts as an improvement is only relative to him. So if "20%" counts as his "ball park" of worth while "improvement", it is to be understood as such.

Where I wanted to react as well but omit to, was the 20% of more musicality explanation. When one talks about detail and fluidity, to me it's not to do with musicality but more with sound definition. And in the case of more details retrievals, this will actually diminish the musicality of it all in my book.

Musicality in playback comes with "focus" more than with "details" that tends to distract and "spread out" the sound. Musicality as I understood is used in the "audio world" to define a quality in playback that is "coherent" but not optimistically "analytic". So for the "audio geek" less of a "quality" factor where it is for the "mello-maniac" as I am

If fluidity does not diminish musicality, it is more of a playback characteristic to has do with the sound "texture" coherence that is likely due to the good cartridge build performing optimistically and solely with less external "interference" (more inertia) from it's support. Hmmm ! I know the feeling and love it. Sweet

Excellent observation. Matches my impressions. The real improvement in sound is in the way it becomes more 'liquid' (for the lack of a better word). This 'fluidity' or 'liquid sound' is very hard to describe, but when you hear it, everything becomes clear.

I also agree with you that it is something that goes beyond the analytical details. Details do help deliver that liquid sound, but it can also happen that those details, if presented in a different fashion, could become distracting. That's when the sound becomes 'analytical' and 'cold'. Hard to explain why that happens with some configurations, but I have definitely experienced it.

I also know people who prefer that 'cold' and 'analytical' sound over 'warm', 'liquid' and 'fluid' sound. So there isn't a universal criteria for quality in sound reproduction.

It's the same with food -- some people prefer more greasy, oily food, while others are more into lean tasting food.