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Dealing with an unstable, vibrating wood floor...

Hi everyone, as some of you know, I've been substantially upgrading my hi-fi lately. Currently a CJ amp, just got a Michell Gyro SE, and a JJ 243 pre on the way. I'm admittedly a newbie to audiophilia. Now I need to worry about stablizing the equipment rack. Here's the deal.

I have my rig on a four-shelf rack, a welded steel Sanus on spikes with 3/4" MDF shelves. I live in a 130 year old bulding on the third floor. The hardwood floors have seen better days--some loose slats, and the floor is VERY loose and prone to vibration. I can't even walk across the floor without making the turntable bobble on its suspension a little--the floor flexes slightly under my feet and takes the rack with it. I really, really need to work on stabilizing the rack! I've found that vibration is a significant cause of poor sound from my vinyl rig--pops and ticks, lack of clarity and detail, etc. and forget using a subwoofer, the low frequency waves render my vinyl rig far, far worse than my ho-hum Marantz CD5000!

Some problems--I know I'd be better off with a wall shelf for the Gyro, but you'd be right to guess that my walls about as good as my floor. They can't hold a spice rack much less a shelf with a turntable sitting on it. So I'm stuck with the 'table on top of the rack. I also can't afford to get a Neuance shelf or some such.

I'm wondering if sheer mass would do the trick. Could I put the whole rack on top of, say, a couple inches thick cement flat, then level the rack on it? Or could I have a cement or sand-filled shelf in place of the standard 3/4" MDF shelf my Gyro currently sits on? My main problem is the whole rack is unstable, so that's another reason why I hesitate on a massive shelf for my 'table. Would it pay to put the whole rack on something solid, of great mass?

I don't have a ton of money to work with, but my current situation is unacceptable! If anyone could steer me in the right direction or give me some DIY tips, this newb would be very greatful!

P.S. I have scoured archives, and found some interesting points, but I haven't found a discussion of isolating the rack from a loose floor.
dirtyragamuffin
sol322
426 posts
 
Dirtyragamuffin:
Your situation is difficult indeed. Don't think you might be able to fix completely but you can "improve".
1-Do you have any place where the floor doesnt bobble that much? If you can find the betterplace you can decrease the ammount of problem to begin with. Move your rack there
2-You need to provide degrees of freedom i.e. movement to your rack as a whole shooting for horizontal movement (easy to implement via ballbearing etc) and in the vertical plane (more difficult via innertubes ) the idea is to have the larger mass the rack supported by means of a damping mechanism that will "lessen" the vibration effect.

3- If possible try to "link" loose slats by means of adhesive between adjacent moving seams.

Some thoughts to share. Your comments
Regards
dirtyragamuffin OP
213 posts
 
Thanks for all the very informative advice! I will try to move the rack towards the outside wall where there is indeed less movement; my main problem is, the wall is lined with huge windows with radiators between them :(

It's really a bizzarre apartment building--I'm impressed the place is still standing. It's heavy brick on the outside, but my neighbor and I have done some exploring. The interior is very shoddy...electrical, shoddy...plumbing, which must have been added after the place was built, is, shall we say, an absolute wonder... ;)

Probably my best bet would be to try the 2x6 idea if I could find a large enough section of open wall and hope I can get them anchored, however, my landord might well frown upon big holes in the wall--I picture large chunks of drywall coming out ;( I'd need much longer ICs as well...

I really just need to buy a house! Maybe then I'd have an excuse to get some AvantGarde Duos, hee hee ;)

Thanks again for the tips. I'm going to play around and see if the rack and the floor can reach some kind of compromise...
sol322
426 posts
 
Dirtyragamuffin:

You'll be the best to judge your compromises considering improvements doing the play around.... but I'd say that the windows and the radiators can be dealt with on a for listening time basis kind of treatments (carpets, curtains,etc) that if cosmetic is a restraint you can take off for not listening time.
You can even make metal or wooden "L" brackets to be screwed to the wall (proper size) and even put your rack spikes there instead of thinking just for a shelf you could fix the whole thing to the external wall. it's not easy but i believe doable. Your motivation to improve your sound will tell if you would go this radical or if simpler tricks could be an improvement "good enough" for a time.
Keep us posted
dirtyragamuffin OP
213 posts
 
Actually I got to thinking, ideally what I'd like to do is put the rack up against the wall with the rear spikes removed, and put up at the top rear of the rack--this way the rack would be coupled to the wall by two spikes and to the floor by the other two. The problem again is I have no wall space to do this, though I might be able to free something by literally moving everything in the room around. My main problem with the windows and radiators was that they take up literally almost the entire length of the wall--about 25'! This is why I'd been asking about massive additions to the rack. My apartment really is a dumpy college kid pad (and I, a dumpy college kid (with a nice hi-fi, hee hee)), pseudo-studio style--basically, one room ~25' long by about 12' wide with 10' ceilings, then the bedroom/closets/john in other rooms. The "kitchen" is at one end of the room; the rest is the living room, with a tapestry hanging to divide the area.

Since it sounds like a massive block under the rack won't help much, I'm starting to think that I might just have to live with this situation until I move, however, I will try a couple things when I have time and post the results :)

Thanks again everyone for helping me out. I'd gladly take more advice, if there is any!
caterham1700
271 posts
 
Sounds like it's time for a trip to IKEA.
Tell them Ingmar sent you.

http://members.shaw.ca/mikesae/images/p3i.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/mikesae/images/ikea.jpg
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