I’m the owner of a GyroDec which is a wonderful turntable but really does turn cartwheels when people walk past it. I’ve had rigid turntables in position there that don’t jump with footsteps so much and the SME Model 60 I reviewed a while back was utterly unpeturbable - it was like trying to make Stonehenge vibrate by stamping up and down next to it!!!
I’m very reluctant to move to a wall shelf for a raft of domestic reasons and the turntable sits atop an Ash Designs Cosmic 5 table spiked into the floorboards. I don’t get any feedback even from very loud music sessions, my only issue is footfall causing skipping.
So I’m curious if any of you have managed to solve or even reduce such problems and if so how?
I’m thinking of buying a couple of slate paving slabs and sandwiching a bicycle inner tube between them or maybe some cut up rubber balls but I don’t want to spend £120 on slate only to find it makes no difference!
I’m also curious about stuff like Isoacoustics or Townshend Seismic podiums so would value any views.
Planning another vinyl session tonight but having to remind people walking past to tiptoe is tiresome. If it was just me living here it wouldn’t be a problem, so I suppose divorcing the missus might work as she’s the one who seems to go back and forth like a house fly when I am listening!!! The teen is mostly in her bedroom so not really a problem…
If your floor is too compliant or “springy” a slab under the turntable will do no good the bounce will still be transferred to the turntable.
I have a Gyrodec and I do use a slate platform on isolation feet I have also modified the dec with the Levi feet from Michell to help with isolation. Neither which will help if the floor is jumping up and down they do not stop such large movement.
However, the biggest contribution to the turntable not being affected by the floor is making sure the top of the unit the turntable is on is braced to the wall.
If you live in an old house you may find the floor piers the wooden rafters rest upon have moved and there is a gap between the rafters and the piers. This can be corrected by pulling up boards near the piers and jacking up the rafters slightly above the piers placing spacers (say pieces of slate or similar) and lowering the rafters down onto them ensuring the piers are now in solid contact with the rafter. If the piers had shrunk away this will make a big difference to how bouncy the floor is.
Welcome to the Forum and sorry to hear about your woes.
The only way to stop this is unfortunately, is with a wall mounted shelf.
Do Ash Designs make a wall shelf to match the rack, if so, one compromise is to fit it just above the rack, so that it looks like it’s part of the original rack.
If not, it may be a case of finding a similar wall shelf to compliment the original rack. Another alternative is to get a furniture maker to make one that would work and compliment the original rack.
You might try a big weight of stone, or putting down very fluffy rugs, but i am not too optimistic.
The Townshend Seismic isolation platform may well be an option, though not cheap. You could buy one on a Buy-or-Return basis. Alternatively, I see one on eBay now for £250. At that price, if it doesn’t work for you, you can probably sell it on for not much loss.
Other products are worth considering too, though this is one of the better known options.
Having said all that, my rack is massive, with granite shelves, and it sits in an alcove. Despite that, my turntable is on a wall shelf, and needs to be. I too have bouncy wooden floors…
As a Michell Orbe owner I have replaced the original spring suspension with SolidAir pylons, which removes the ‘bounce’ of the frame.
I have also a ISObase, but rectangular to match the plinth of the Orbe.
Also the owner of an Orbe here as well. I have tried the SolidAir pylons as well, not because i was looking for better isolation, but i was just interested in if they would bring “more to the party”.
The reality was, even on my wall mounted Audio Suspension acrylic, they added nothing. What they did do though was take away the feeling of the music being “in the room” along with a lack of “liveness” and PRAT. The biggest change to anything on my Orbe has been to just buy a new set of Michell springs…that absolutely changed everything.
But then it would, if you think about it. Springs are a “consumable”, in the same way that a stylus is, they wear out and become less than they were.
I’d recommend the OP gets a new set of springs, unless the deck is very new. In which case, wall mounting is the answer.
I agree. I have never tried them on my Gyrodec but I have heard them used on others and I did not like it much. I also do not like the principle it is moving so far away from John Michell’s brilliant engineering design.
What I do like is the rubber coated springs now found on the latest versions and older ones can be updated.
The Levis (Maglev feet) feet also work well for me.
Actually, if i was buying a new set of springs now, the rubber coated ones would be my choice as well. As it is, my “new springs” are only 4 years old…so i might have to wait a while yet to try them
I certainly haven’t solved the problem, but I’m not trying tbh. I only use my LP12 when flying solo & rely on the NDX2 when we’re dancing. Like the OP I have no interest in a wall shelf in our living room. Mrs twofifty never plays LPs so there’s little or no inconvenience. I don’t feel the need to drive the last ounce of SQ out of our system which sounds great just as it is.
I’m on a 2nd floor with bouncy wood floors. I have my Clearaudio Innovation on my Fraim, but what I really needed was the HRS (Harmonic Resolution Systems) R3x isolation base for best results. It’s factory configured specifically for the load of my turntable. It is a complete game changer, improving everything about vinyl playback and isolating it from the effects of footfalls, etc on the floor.
Note the optional security detail to help keep people seated at all times.
I recall living in a 1st floor flat in London which had a really bouncy floor, and walking past my Sound Org rack, a Michell Focus one used to bounce all over the place, however cautiously I crept past. Moving to an LP12 helped a lot, although you still had to be a bit careful.
I really dislike the aesthetics of a wall shelf, however good a solution it can be in some situations.
If you have a conventional floor with floorboards on timber joists there’s a limit to what you can achieve, although it’s always a good idea to make sure the boards are firmly fixed. If in doubt, screw them down if there is any chance of movement, but don’t expect a miracle cure.
Is it possible to move the rack? The supporting wall into which the joists are fixed should have a much less bouncy floor than one beneath the adjacent wall. So putting the rack against the wall under which the floorboards run parallel can give it a far less bouncy foundation.
I had the exact same problem with my deck.
Due to the wooden floor, walking near to the cabinet (even 2 meters away )where the deck is on, the arm would go awol.
I bought a isoacoustics zazen 1 and away are all problems. With that isolation platform came silence and an amazing amount of detail and clarity as well.
Absolute 5 star out of 5 star product, my highest recommendation.
I had a isoAcoustic Delos and that worked really well too, but my HRS platform is a big step up. It really blew my mind how much it improved on the Delos (but for $2000 vs $500).
The next step up is a Minus K BM-8 Bench Top Vibration Isolation Platform for $3500+.
I had a similar issue with my LP12 a long time ago, and I well remember the feeling of unease just knowing how easily it would be set off by footfall. Switching to a wall shelf cured my problem entirely, and it’s unfortunate that that option is not open to you.
I greatly doubt an additional layer below your table will help. One thing you might consider is anchoring the upper part of your table to the wall. Assuming the uprights of your table aren’t in line with the studs, you may need to fix a batten or board to them first (as I did with my shelf). You could then rig up some kind of rigid but adjustable attachment between the uprights and the board, ideally something that would constrain front to back movement, but with a few mm of compliance in the horizontal plane to handle the transmitted vibrations.
My main reservation with this is that it might conflict with the isolation the spiked feet provide, but I think it would be a net improvement, and could be easily undone if it didn’t work.
If your floor is that bouncy then only a few options will work.
1, get the turntable off the problem, ie wall mount it. This will certainly be the easiest and cheapest way, and guarantee the result you need.
2, some sort off suspension base, air or sping, could also work, but obviously you need to be able to adjust it to get the turntable level, plus it needs to remain level. Will cost more and could still be bouncy, and possibly bring other problem’s into the mix as well.
3, anything soild will just let the movement transfer straight through it, and adding weight to the rack, then surely to stop it bouncing would mean it would have to be considerably healthier than what is causing the bounce, ie people walking near it. So well over 100kg probably just to start trying to make a difference.
Some really interesting replies here so many thanks folks. It’s interesting to read about the solid air pylons not helping much. My Gyro had a new set of the Michell plastic coated springs fitted in the last 12 months and is also running their latest LEVI magnetic levitation feet. As it’s a primary reviewing reference I feel obliged to incorporate Michell’s latest engineering enhancements.
I suspect you are all correct in that wall mounting is probably the best solution of all but the truth is that I have my racks pulled out quite far from the wall in order to make it easier to get behind them for the frequent equipment changes I have to make when reviewing. This means that with any commercial turntable wall mount I have seen the Gyro would be quite a bit closer to the wall than the rest of the equipment and would also be a pain because it would block me getting behind the rack to change cabling etc. The acrylic wall mount that Kitfit uses does look like it would be possible to order a deeper shelf though so that may be an option.
I’m also curious/interested in the various other solutions proposed from screwing down floorboards (which I might attempt if I can face lifting the carpet in a 33ft room) to the HRS isolation base Josquin uses - his experience of it isolating footfalls is of great interest (despite the cost!!) Love the dog but am certainly curious to what degree such sorbothane and other platforms can be tuned to reduce footfall upset. I’ve been looking at the Townshend Audio platforms and load cells which might help so I might drop them an email and see if they think their products could be of assistance.
I have a feeling the Gyro due to the resonant frequency of its suspension seems to be particularly upset by footfall. I’m due to review the Avid Acutus soon, so will be interested in how that copes because it has a much lower rate of bounce than any other turntable I have seen - it’s a fascinating design!
As noted previously the SME Model 60 was staggeringly immune, I could dance the fandango in front of it while it was playing and the darned thing didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow!! The Rega P10 despite its lack of any compliant suspension was also surprisingly resistant to footfall. A change of turntable is out of the question though as the Gyro was a teenage aspiration for me and ended up being an engagement present from my wife. That’s a major reason I have never moved up to an Orbe but have concentrated on maxing out the Gyro itself. It’s the Gyro she bought for me back in 1999 and it would break my heart to sell it - too many memories, too much sentiment and history…
I was also interested to read Dunc’s view that if I do decide to try the flagstones and inner tubes method, it will probably need to be over 100Kg to make much difference.
There’s a lot to ponder here - I think I will make some enquiries with HRS and Townshend as a first step - if I find a solution I will certainly report back! In the meantime others experience with similar platforms would be of great interest.
Screwing down floorboards may help a bit but if the floor is moving a lot by footfall I guarantee it is due to the floor beams/rafters and their support piers, Either because there are not enough around where your hifi is or that the piers are not properly supporting the rafters due to dropping or other issue. These things are what causes flex and governs how firm the floor is not the floor boards themselves.
