They say a picture paints a thousand words.
- Thread starter theophile
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RickeyM
Addicted Member
Hmm, might be worth buying a single just to check it out :scratch2:
jblnut
Don't Overthink It
Although you and I share a love for the amazing Yamaha GT-2000' I am not quite onboard yet with this direction. Assuming you already have the table on a massive piece of stone (as we both do) and considering not only the huge mass of the plinth but the well designed feet, I have to wonder exactly how much sound/vibration is coming up this path.
Compared to...
The sound waves traveling through the air affecting the cover, arm and basically every part of the table directly. Now if you were advocating putting the table in the next room or locating it inside one of those printer silencers from the 80s (before laser printers - anyone remember big and loud dot matrix line printers?), I wouldn't question you. But I'm at a loss to explain why everyone is so hell bent to isolate the table's feet when the sound waves in the room can so easily and directly affect every part of the table anyway.
Why do we ignore the 'elephant' in the room ( the very music we are listening to) in our discussions around turntable isolation?
Jblnut
Compared to...
The sound waves traveling through the air affecting the cover, arm and basically every part of the table directly. Now if you were advocating putting the table in the next room or locating it inside one of those printer silencers from the 80s (before laser printers - anyone remember big and loud dot matrix line printers?), I wouldn't question you. But I'm at a loss to explain why everyone is so hell bent to isolate the table's feet when the sound waves in the room can so easily and directly affect every part of the table anyway.
Why do we ignore the 'elephant' in the room ( the very music we are listening to) in our discussions around turntable isolation?
Jblnut
Mister Pig
Pigamus Maximus
So what did you do to determine the COG of the table?
Regards
Mister Pig
Regards
Mister Pig
The only explanation I have is that the vibrations coming through solid Earth feeding into the turntable are the most detrimental.
Read that again. Consider it.
I feel that it takes a very,very good turntable(in a very,very good system) to require this type of intervention. Most turntables' inherent self-generated noise would probably swamp the noise I postulate that this type of isolation is preventing.
jblnut we both have GT 2000s. I've been living with mine for over 6 years now. I know its sound. What I can achieve with this support is a huge improvement when I properly fine tune it.. Huge is the only proper word to describe the magnitude.
I've been loathe to install my multikilobuck Soundsmith Strain Gauge cartridge simply because 'The Voice' keeps sounding better and better as I get more and more of a handle on how to get the best out of this support. It is the best recordings which more evidently display these qualities. As one would expect.
It's hard to understand the improvement to an already great turntable, one that you are more than satisfied with, until you hear the improvement. It is especially the great turntables that benefit the most from this type of intervention. They are the ones that have the ability to step up to another level. This support is not adding anything to their ability, just removing some of what holds them back.
Read that again. Consider it.
I feel that it takes a very,very good turntable(in a very,very good system) to require this type of intervention. Most turntables' inherent self-generated noise would probably swamp the noise I postulate that this type of isolation is preventing.
jblnut we both have GT 2000s. I've been living with mine for over 6 years now. I know its sound. What I can achieve with this support is a huge improvement when I properly fine tune it.. Huge is the only proper word to describe the magnitude.
I've been loathe to install my multikilobuck Soundsmith Strain Gauge cartridge simply because 'The Voice' keeps sounding better and better as I get more and more of a handle on how to get the best out of this support. It is the best recordings which more evidently display these qualities. As one would expect.
It's hard to understand the improvement to an already great turntable, one that you are more than satisfied with, until you hear the improvement. It is especially the great turntables that benefit the most from this type of intervention. They are the ones that have the ability to step up to another level. This support is not adding anything to their ability, just removing some of what holds them back.
Teeter totter the turntable. Put it on a thin hard edge and find the tipping point along two axes. Front to back and side to side.
Perhaps we need to barricade our tables!
I'd like to barricade comments like this.
For the same reason that users of Scanning Electron Microscopes and other precision scientific instruments isolate their instruments from ground borne structural vibration.
I don't understand what mechanisms are really taking place with structure borne/ground borne vibration. I didn't start this thread to postulate about what I don't understand. I started this thread so that the people who have asked me over the years what I am doing with my turntable support can see what I am doing as opposed to endlessly describing it.
Anyone who wants to start a thread about "Ground Borne Vibration. Is it a myth?" should start that thread and continue the banter about it there.
I have no desire to be seen as an isolation guru. I just wanted to share my techiques. That is what I am happy to discuss in this thread.
Greyson
Super Member
So what specifically does 2,500$ worth of magnets do to the sound? Do you have measurements or comparisons?
No measurements.
To the sound? Increases the loud to soft dynamic envelope. Increases the ability to hear tiny shifts in dynamics at the small end of the scale. Uncovers a wealth of low-level detail that was previously masked. Increases front to back depth of the soundstage. Renders low level ambient information more accessible. Renders the tone of acoustic instruments more naturally. Imparts a greater sense of body to the virtual images. Gives a clearer sense of placement on the virtual soundstage of individual instruments/singers/sounds. Gives greater insight into complex rhythmic patterns. Renders rapid musical transients with less blurring. Sounds appear to be more harmonically fleshed out/ harmonically complete. Focuses imagery to a greater degree. Bass is more defined, dynamic and subtle simultaneously. The entire effect sounds both more vivid/alive and more relaxed/effortless.
I don't think that there would be the same effect with all turntables. I think that the turntable would have to be of a certain level of capability to reveal all of this to the same level that I'm getting. In other words, you are not going to be able to transform a Fisher-Price turntable into a VPI Classic Direct just by putting it on my support and tuning it in. It is not enhancing anything. It is allowing the turntable to perform to its optimum or closer to it. No frogs turning into princes here I'm afraid.
Also please remember it is not just mag-lev and please remember that I said that the whole effect I'm getting depends upon tuning the support. Without the fine tuning the effect doesn't happen. It is not about the components of the stand. It is what they enable with further effort.
guiller
Toscaninichus Australis
This is true indeed. I work at a large scientific laboratory and people worry permanently about this type of vibrations. They even consider those arising in a highway distant 200 m from the lab.
jblnut
Don't Overthink It
Theo - I want to thank you for sharing both in pictures and in words what you have been trying to tell us about for some time. I did not mean to put you on the defensive in this thread. It's in my nature to "question everything" and unfortunately that rubs some folks the wrong way. We all want to learn not only the basics, but what tweaks, mods and in some cases cutting edge tricks we can do to get our systems to sound their best.
You have clearly invested a lot of time, money and mental energy in the pursuit of de-coupling your turntable from the surface on which it rests. You have posted a lot of very positive things that resulted from that effort. But my fundamental question remains and I don't think it can or should be dismissed out of hand. We can clearly hear and in many cases feel - with our own bodies - the sonic energy the sound waves in the air impart on the room. Should we pretend these don't exist ?
I have known more than one audiophile who has located the turntable in either a separate sonic enclosure (insulated closet) or an adjacent room. I would think that after all you've done and noted in this thread, that you would at least have something positive to say about this next step which you must consider at some point. If this (and I think it is) a thread that says "isolation matters - the more the better", then why not have a discussion here in that direction ?
jblnut
You have clearly invested a lot of time, money and mental energy in the pursuit of de-coupling your turntable from the surface on which it rests. You have posted a lot of very positive things that resulted from that effort. But my fundamental question remains and I don't think it can or should be dismissed out of hand. We can clearly hear and in many cases feel - with our own bodies - the sonic energy the sound waves in the air impart on the room. Should we pretend these don't exist ?
I have known more than one audiophile who has located the turntable in either a separate sonic enclosure (insulated closet) or an adjacent room. I would think that after all you've done and noted in this thread, that you would at least have something positive to say about this next step which you must consider at some point. If this (and I think it is) a thread that says "isolation matters - the more the better", then why not have a discussion here in that direction ?
jblnut
Clearly the troublesome vibrations, the most harmful ones for the GT 2000 are the ones which lie below our ability to hear. Every halving of the trequnency is an octave ie 10 to 20 hz is and octave, 5 to 10Hz is an octave, 2.5 to 5, 1.25 to 2.5. It may well be that it is the octaves far below what we can hear that ruin the vinyl reproduction experience more than the ones we can hear. That's why I said to you that when you hear this type of isolation you are in no doubt that it is a fundamental leap forward, even if the turntable is still being bombarded with audible sonics, you know which one is more damaging to the playback experience.
I'm no expert. I listened with headphones, the Audeze LCD-2 for many years with no speaker output and it was clearly audible the improvements that were there to be heard via the headphones when the support was doing its job.
Please start another thread about this subject I want this thread to be here for questions and discussions about this support only. Not to have a discussion about another subject which is what this is. We are now discussion ground borne vibration as guiller concedes.
I can't really contribute much to a discussion about ground borne vibration because I know nothing about it. Hence there is really no point in questioning me about what it is that my support is alleviating. I only know about what I am doing so I am posting about that. I don't want this thread becoming a thread about the problem, just about my solution and reasoning about my solution. Please discuss the problem on another thread.
theo... I for one know you don't start any topic willy-nilly so I am paying attention. You also seem to be very excited about what you just put together and what your hearing.
I never really think about or even get involved in turntable isolation threads. The reason being is I have SOTA Stare Sapphire decks and what I feel is the best isolation built into a table, I tend to scoff at all the home brews people need to do with their tables.
But now you have me wondering...
I have bouncy wood floors and the SOTA's never skips or misses a step when I pound on the plinth, jump up and down, you name it the arm and platter just float in their own world.
The Cosmos platters and arm boards are made of multiple layers of mediums, things like bonded lead, aluminum and acrylic to kill all resonance. I'm using SME Series V arms and Blackbird cartridges, sub chassies are all weight transfered balanced and leveled.
So do you think this would do anything for me to try and invest the time into. I have three of these tables set up in my main system and they're not tables you just move around do to set up a time. Have I already been isolated from "Ground" being on wood floors, racks and the table isolation?
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Read this by the Minus K people.
http://www.minusk.com/content/in-the-news/CEPro_0712.html
Now I don't want to discuss this here again. I'll be happy to share all that I have researched on the subject on another thread. I want this thread to be about my support. Not about the problems it solves okay?
Guys start another thread about this subject of ground borne vibrations and I'll link to as many of the discussions about it that I have bookmarked. Leave a link in this thread so that I don't miss it. I will discuss the subject. Just not here.
