Show us your Sondek

What’s it standing on Paul?

Hi
I just changed mine when I got Karousel fitted as they had flattened a bit there is no creeping or leaking.
I just rolled them off and gave a gentle wipe on the surface with white spirit then a wipe with clean water and applied new ones.
I’ve only changed them once in 20 years.
No mess or fuss my deck is from 1987. :heart_eyes:

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Aptitlig bamboo chopping board from IKEA sitting on a Hifi Racks Podium.

Interesting! How did the chopping board help?

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Yeah, what Nick said? :thinking:

It was an interweb cheap hifi upgrade thing a couple of years ago. Think booplinth but isolation platform. There was a guy who did a great article on the isolating properties of bamboo I’ll see if I can dig it out. If you Google “Aptitlig hifi” you find some stuff on it. I of course do not subscribe to such nonsense but I was in IKEA one day and for a tenner thought I’d give it a try. Looks better than the black mdf it was on before so it just stayed. Can’t honestly say whether it works but it doesn’t do any harm. Maybe @NickofWimbledon is brave enough to start a thread on it. Might be more exciting in the green place though :grinning:

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Gone.

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If you’re considering changing your plinth, do have a look at Solid Sounds in Yorkshire. They have a wide range of woods (and can even use wood that you supply) and two styles of plinth. Lots of very helpful photos on their website to help you choose.

They (or he, really) have made me a lovely Wenge (tropical hardwood) ‘Prism’ plinth (some kind soul put up photos on this site for me). All beautifully hand finished, which I lovingly oiled before Audio T in Brighton built it all back up for me. (Am yet to hear it all, as I’ve been rather indisposed since the plinth was delivered.)

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I did!

See ‘Suggestions please - do I need isolation platforms’ and ‘LP12 baseboards - necessary upgrade or pure Woo?’

My first conclusion from the whole exercise is that all those smart people saying ‘just keep it light and rigid’ are wise when it comes to LP12s. I tried glass (2 types), Naim cups-and-balls, various MDF sheets, wood (beech I think), granite and rubbery feet from HRS -in various combinations.

On my Target wall shelf, the simple MDF board it came with spent 25 years under my LP12. That combo was almost the best I tried, and most alternatives were clearly worse.

The only version that matched the standard shelf was actually a tiny bit better in a couple of ways, and involved an inch of granite, HRS rubbery feet and toughened glass under the LP12.

This was not an elegant solution. It also didn’t fall off my wall, but the weight scared me every time I left the room.

Further experimentation (assisted by chums and the excellent Carl at Infidelity) led to a better answer for SQ - just.

Off came the 30-year old baseboard and on went the SRM baseboard and matching platform, back on the Target shelf’s old black MDF board. The platform has 2 sheets of acrylic held just apart by thin Sorbothane (I think) spacers.

They give you spacers to play with, but IMHO the absolute best sound means ditching the spacers. With that, there is so little compliance anywhere that (for the first time in decades) a front door slamming can be an issue. So I am swithering between hardest spacers or none - both are better than I had and much better than everything I tried.

With that SRM platform and base, the granite sheet was literally identical to the MDF for what goes under the platform, so the granite went back to the kitchen, the HRS feet went where they actually belong (under my Superline) and things looks a bit less silly.

Interestingly, I had a brief but helpful chat on other matters with the famous Peter Swain recently. As well as being as friendly, helpful and knowledgeable as I was led to expect by others here, he volunteered that the SRM platform was ‘not bad at all’ as long as Iong as I removed that rubber. My ears felt vindicated.

All this would probably be different if I had the LP12 on a heavy Fraim, laden with hefty boxes.

Even without footfall issues, I suspect strongly (from my hearing other systems and from the helpful comments of others) that the ‘right’ answer then would usually be a Tramp 2 and nothing else, and/ or a lightweight isolation platform with the minimum compliance that you can have without footsteps endangering cartridges.

In addition, in my room the speakers fire toward the turntable and the floor is very bouncy, and the volume knob gets used liberally (and my rack is made of granite and weighs a lot more than me). In most other rooms and systems, I would expect at least slightly different answers, but hopefully some of the principles are helpful.

The key point in all this for me was that, unless you get it badly wrong (like a no-Tramp LP12 directly on a big piece of granite or a sideboard or thinking I don’t need a Fraim to get the benefit from cups-and-balls), the differences here are small.

Thus, unless you are happy that you have everything else as good as it can be, there are better ways to spend your time than (for example) trying bamboo against 10 other woods as isolation platforms. However, if anyone opts to do that experiment (or comparing 4 or 5 isolation platforms or baseboard choices), I won’t be the only one interested in how it goes.

I hope all that makes sense and isn’t too much of a diversion. If there is anything that anyone wants to pursue on it, we should probably reuse one of the above threads or start a new one.

And, given that we are meant to be showing Sondeks, here it is again:

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Thanks for the input - I’ll have a look. I hope whatever made you indisposed has passed.

I’m mending well, thanks, and hoping t get home soon to all my stuff, including my Linn, Naim and Quad system. Plus lots of LPs that I’ve been ordering,

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That’s what meant by back to basics

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Very basic. :grin:

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Hope you get “un -indisposed” asap and you get to hear it.

Sounds as if it will be very good

best wishes

Ian

Sounds good - and always nice to have lots of good music waiting to be played.

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Thank you, Ian and PSAN, I’m working on the escape plan.

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Yes posted before but the LP12/ARO/Kandid is sounding wonderful this morning playing Peter Green “In The Skies”

Lovely blues album, well sort of blues

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Got you - yes really like Fat Freddie’s Drop

Especially after all blacks win over wallabies ha

Great kiwi band

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What a lovely plinth that is, if I may be so bold. Can you tell us more, please?

Hi graham

It’s a Simon Price birds eye maple plinth. Beautifully made, he does quite a range, I also have one of his fluted American Walnut plinth, just waiting in storage if I feel like a change at some stage.

Peter Swain ( who is mentioned here quite a bit) selected them for me and sent them over to Sydney, I’m really happy with them I must say

Simon Price is a master craftsman for sure

Cheers

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