Tweakers' Asylum

Posted by David Aiken (A) on January 16, 2011 at 00:15:51

In Reply to: RE: TT Isolation Platform posted by myvinyl333 on January 15, 2011 at 23:39:01

First, go to Stereophile's website and search in their archives for the article "Bad Vibes" and read it.

Note the following 2 points which are explained in the article:

1- cones and spikes couple and that springy layers isolate. The platform in your link has spikes therefore it couples to the surface below it. It does not have a springy layer to absorb and isolate whatever is placed on it from vibration.

2- note that coupling isn't necessarily bad and in some cases can work quite well.


My advice: take a look at your turntable. If it has a sprung suspension I would avoid placing it on a sprung platform and would tend to lean towards a spiked platform like the one in your link. When I was experimenting with vibration control, I found that multiple sprung/soft layers tended to be problematic and that things were better when I only had one such layer between a component and the floor.

If your turntable doesn't have a sprung suspension, I would tend to lean towards a platform which had a sprung suspension and pass on platforms like the one in your link which couple the turntable to the surface below it.

That's my experience and my preferences. Yours may be different. In my experience different people respond differently to isolation vs coupling of various components. You need to experiment a bit with both to find out which you prefer, then go for something of that sort.

Final comment: I prefer to talk about vibration control rather than isolation because a lot of what people call "isolation" is actually coupling, as in the platform in your link which uses cones. Isolation and coupling are both methods of dealing with problem vibration in a system and, in different circumstances, each can work. A lot depends on the component and a lot depends on how springy your floor is. There's no cheap solution that works well in every situation so it's a matter of finding out which approach works in yours and running with that, rather than getting caught up on terms like "isolation" which are often misused as in the description of the platform in your link.


David Aiken