This Morning's Update - The Garrard Project Pt XXX - Jim inspired, cosmic rant, sort of......

It's Saturday morning, I'm sipping coffee before the morning dog walk and thinking about Jim's comment, see below.

Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo View Post
I think vibration control is always worth pursing with turntables and anything is worth trying. I have had very good results with the set up I have and cannot determine anything getting back to the stylus via the turntable even when I submit it to the torture test of massive very loud pounding bass via a suspended wooden floor. I have gone down the MASS route as I believe the more you can employ either to the turntable and its surrounding environment the better.

I am not a big fan of equipment racks as they are always hollow structures by their nature and provide plenty of opportunity for vibration to screw with the structure and therefore the platform on which you sit the turntable. However I am sure with different materials vibration can be mitigated. Its all about experimentation and listening.
These comments got me thinking a little bit. MASS is all very well and good but everything vibrates no matter how much mass an object has. The biggest single thing I can think of is the known universe! It's a collection of particles (of varying sizes) which are all connected by various known/unknown forces which enable resonance to be transmitted and therefore vibration. We can safely say the universe vibrates and is prone is vibration, just like a turntable. I honestly don't think that a large solid sideboard (like yours Jim), or a skeletal rack (like mine) or indeed any other design is perfect in vibration control/mitigation. A solid cabinet just acts as a massive reflection point for anything coming out of your speakers and that's why your sound traps probably work quite well beacuse they are placed near your cabinet. My sound traps are placed just after my equipment tracks and probably work in a similar nature, so touche! It's probably the sound traps which stop our racks/cabinets acting like massive reflective surfaces.

Jim, I think you hit the nail on the head with mitigation, and usage of different materials. My 301 sits on a Townshend seismic platform which is a CLD design sitting on four springs that are tuned to mitigate certain vibrational frequencies getting into the TT. I think this is a good place to start. I switched from compressed wood (quadraspire) to Bamboo racks. I did this for two reasons. Firstly the improved damping quality of Bamboo and secondly the racks are made from opposing compressed layers of bamboo which I hope makes it more difficult for the transmission of vibration travelling up into the rack. I'll be taking these ideas further. My main thoughts are to concentrate on the pieces of equipment which generate the most vibration on the rack, these being the amp, pre-amp, and the turntables itself. This is where things getting interesting beacause I have several variations which could be tested, I could use Permali on it's own or try a CLD like design with Permali, an intermediate material and then Bamboo. I could even design a CLD like washer on the equipment racks to try and damp vibration passing between the nuts and main struts as they connect the individual platforms on the rack. It's all fun stuff and gets me thinking about just how far we can push old technology!

Stay tuned.....