[robertsong9]

...for a Technics SL-1200.  Roughly 18" x 15". Up to $300 I guess.

Also considering DIY - gluing a sorbothane mat to solid hardwood type thing.

[BobM]

Get a butcher block cutting board big enough for your need. Then pick up about 6-10 squash balls (depending on the weight of the TT) and place them under the cutting board, placing the TT on top. You now have a poor mans Ginko Cloud.

[Dieterle Tool]

I use Michigan Maple Block's from Dawn's Depot... https://dawnsdepot.com

[dpatters]

I've used Timbernation Platforms with good results.

http://timbernation.com/mapleplatform_popup.cfm

Good Luck!  Don P.

[nocrapman]

A neuroscience lab I used to study in, had a mad scientist type professor. He used to hook up amps and speakers to a nerve cell in a petridish. When stimulated with Calcium you would hear the impulse with electrodes placed in the tissue, amplified through the amp and played on a cheap Dayton driver!

Anyway back to the point. He had a ton of very expensive instruments that were very sensitive to electrical and mechanical noise.
He used to isolate these million dollar gadgets with 4 tennis balls each. And it worked for him.

I am sure this should work fine. I am about to try it this weekend and find out myself!

[Dieterle Tool]

A neuroscience lab I used to study in, had a mad scientist type professor. He used to hook up amps and speakers to a nerve cell in a petridish. When stimulated with Calcium you would hear the impulse with electrodes placed in the tissue, amplified through the amp and played on a cheap Dayton driver!

Anyway back to the point. He had a ton of very expensive instruments that were very sensitive to electrical and mechanical noise.
He used to isolate these million dollar gadgets with 4 tennis balls each. And it worked for him.

I am sure this should work fine. I am about to try it this weekend and find out myself!

Let us know man. I tried raquetballs (sliced in half) between my preamp and shelf, thought I may have lost a bit of detail or focus. I ended up with a slab of granite and Vibrapods for components with no moving parts (maple blocks for TT and CDP's).

And, how do you get away with a zero tolerance for crap here on the netz (nocrapman)? 

[nocrapman]

I plan to joint/edge glue some 8/4 maple I have on hand - use the racketballs under the maple slab and install the TT on top. The final plan is to get a granite slab. will report back here.

[Photon46]

Your question invites a host of opinions that may or may not have any bearing on your desired result. Years of experimentation and reading about this topic hasn't gotten me any closer to thinking there's EVER going to be any consensus about what's best. Also, one needs to distinguish between vibration and mass tuning vs. isolation. I don't think a wooden platform under a turntable "isolates" in the least. It does couple a large mass with different vibration and resonance characteristics to the turntable and these platforms have positively improved the sound, sometime dramatically, of the the Empire, VPI, and Acoustic Signature turntables I've used with them. Other turntables with different designs, especially those with hydraulic, or elastomeric compound decoupling incorporated into their design, might behave completely differently from the sort of turntables I've used. As to "isolation" attempts and associated sonic improvements, there's a number of products from cheap to expensive out there. As to Gingko, they've has been around for many years, which means enough people like their product ( or buy into their advertising ) to have survived as a business. However, when you read about user experiences on audio forums, a lot of naysayers abound. You'll read claims their products and others of that sort using sorbothane balls, etc. suck the life out of the music. So, one might infer that a lot of us actually prefer certain kinds of resonances and vibrations and making our turntables more inert might not please our ears.

As to thinking that tennis balls are considered "good enough" for isolation of scientific equipment in today's world, I don't think you'd get much consensus on that point in most of the research world. If that were the case, Electron Microscopy Sciences, Spiers Robertson, Newport, etc. wouldn't have survived unless labs all over the world felt the need for such products.

[orientalexpress]

i try alot of different isolation ,my favorite so far ,using Herbie Tenderfeet under my musical life and under Teres turntable. it simple and cheap.

[WireNut]

Go to a machine shop or steel yard and get a big chunk of scrap steel or aluminum. That outa do it.

I'm just thinking out loud here but,
Build a plywood box (example 12x15x4) and fill it with sand and lead fishing weights. Crude but effective.
There's all kind of materials you could fill it with.

Hell, Id do it, but I don't need it cause I'm on a steel and wood equipment stand on top of a concrete slab.
I run a machine that sits on a 6 foot slab. It ain't movin.

[tlarwa]

Check out my turntable stand in the attached pic (the one that the Marantz table is sitting on).  It's a sandbox made from MDF.  The box is filled with sand and then a separate board is placed on the sand and that's what the tables sits on.  The sandbox is mounted on three 4" diameter PVC tubes, which are also filled with stand.  Those tubes are mounted to a base, which sits on metal tiptoes.  The entire thing weighs north of 100#.  It was relatively easy to build and inexpensive, and does a great job of isolating the table. 

If you're interested I can get you more details on the build as well as more photos.



Tom

[Dieterle Tool]

+1 ^^^^^ This is outstanding. 

And I'm not at all bias bc you rock an SR-838 on the side.

[twitch54]

Check out my turntable stand in the attached pic (the one that the Marantz table is sitting on).



Tom

Nice job Tom and attractive to boot !! .........

[Folsom]

I use the same sand box technique with a free floating board. I think it works for low level vibrations, just small ones. Those are often the worst in many ways. It does nothing for really big ones, where the sand just acts like it's solid. Putting this box on top of tennis balls might work because they're more compliant for big waves.

However sandfilled tubes and such don't do anything really unless there's sand between them and the top (floating on the sand). Once you bridge it with pvc/wood the benefits of the sand go away. At that point you want higher, heavier, mass, that will lower the resonate frequency of legs and dampen it. Sand doesn't really affect it much and the legs transmit pretty willingly as they're light weight. Tennis balls would help to decouple, for example.

[ACHiPo]

Check out my turntable stand in the attached pic (the one that the Marantz table is sitting on).  It's a sandbox made from MDF.  The box is filled with sand and then a separate board is placed on the sand and that's what the tables sits on.  The sandbox is mounted on three 4" diameter PVC tubes, which are also filled with stand.  Those tubes are mounted to a base, which sits on metal tiptoes.  The entire thing weighs north of 100#.  It was relatively easy to build and inexpensive, and does a great job of isolating the table. 

If you're interested I can get you more details on the build as well as more photos.



Tom

I like it.  I'm also intrigued with air isolation--a 20" child's bicycle tube partially inflated makes a pretty good isolator, particularly in conjunction with a sand box like above.

I've also used ball-bearing based isolators, either Daedalus DIDs of I picked some up off Audio Karma that are MDF with 5 BBs and work pretty darned well (a lot cheaper than DIDs or Stillpoints).

[tlarwa]

+1 ^^^^^ This is outstanding. 

And I'm not at all bias bc you rock an SR-838 on the side.

My newest toy