[Garbz]

Ok finally it is done. I have always been a disbeliever of isolation in general, however for a turntable it did make perfect sense. I built the platform based on an article on TNT-Audio with some slight modifications for astetic reasons.

Sides are pine with about 9 coats of black spraypaint and loads of sanding inbetween (the pine was horrible I should have bought new stuff not used old stuff). Base is MDF, the isolation is riversand, there is a second mdf pannel on top of that and my Rega P3 sits on that. I have made no modifications to the turntable itself.

How does it sound? Fantastic. I should mention this makes no difference for headphones or late night listening, but especially when the family is out and the volume rises there is an audible improvement.

/EDIT: Just realised this should be in the DIY Forum! Sorry.

 

[tyrion]

I think it's okay to leave here since it's in the context of a source. The tweaks forum would be another choice so if another mod wants to move, that's cool.

That is a cool platform, especially since you made it yourself. Have you found that the bass is improved?

 

[Garbz]

I started on in the DIY section too, I was hoping no one would reply here

Sound improvement. Not so much as a bass improvement as everything below midrange were mainly effected. It didn't get louder like most other mods claim to do

, but a lot of clarity was returned when the volume really starts getting up. It was more of a case of getting speakers to sound as clear as headphones. Things just sound a tad more in sync.

 

[nelamvr6]

Looks like you did a pretty good job!

 

[Garbz]

Thanks, You have no idea how long it takes to sand coat, wait 24hours to dry and repeat the entire process 9 times. Needless to say I was happy with results.

 

[studeb]

Hi Garbz,

nice job, here i was thinking you were a digital kinda guy. Guess you are okay after all

Do you (or the TNT article) have any thoughts on the base being used with a suspended TT design?

 

[Garbz]

Lol I am neither a Digital guy nor an analogue guy. Both have massive flaws. My goal in all my DAC work is to get a DAC that sounds as much as my turntable except without the noise and the pops and the clicks, and other things that result from using turntables. But I guess this is everyone's goal right

I have no idea how this would work for a suspended design. The only suspended TT we have was about 20 years old and not of audiophile grade by any means. One of the reasons I decided to go ahead with this one is the poor plinth of the Rega P3. If I tap lightly on the edge of it with my hand there's audible thumps in the headphones and speakers, compared to my Friends Technics SL1200 which I think you'd need to hit with a hammer to get any result at all.

It is easy enough to test though. Put on some headphones play a record and hit the rack (not the turntable). If you get noise like bass thumps then you have vibrations coupling to the surface. If you listen to loud music then it may be worth the job. Plus considering how whimpy the P3 looked before, now it just looks serious

 

[ashpool]

Garbz:

Do you normally keep your turntable on a glass table? I got great results when I moved my P5 from a glass shelf to a wall bracket. The glass was vibrating quite a bit when listening with speakers.

Also, have you looked into any other tweaks for your Rega? I've had interesting (mostly good) results with replacing the stock counterweight, platter, and subplatter on mine.

 

[Garbz]

Yes it's normally on there, and the vibrating table is what brought me to the isolation platform in the first place. Although it's a very big glass sheet and does not vibrate that much. I have no where else to put it unfortunately. I will not stay in such a position when I finally move house.

I am not really interested in any other tweaks simply because I can not justify it for the vinyl collection I have. If my vinyl collection were the size of my CD collection then maybe but so far this unit with that cartridge wiped the floor with several mid-range cdplayers, and I am a firm believer that if your system costs more than your music collection you've missed the point. Unfortunately it still does.