Does anyone use wood for vibration control?


What kind of wood have you found to be best?
bksherm

Michael Fremer’s video made at AXPONA 2019 includes this exchange between he and an attendee at the Mag Lev Audio (makers of a magnetically-isolated turntable) booth: Attendee: "It (the table) avoids the vibrations. But ya know some people say records sound warmer because it gets the sound from the speakers to the stylus." Fremer: "No. Those people are idiots."

The size of the LP groove is extremely small, it’s modulations even smaller. The stylus measures the modulations in the groove, transducing those measurements into an electronic signal. The measurement is microscopic, the signal very low in voltage. Both are very susceptible to corruption from outside forces, mechanical and electronic. Any unrelated vibration affecting either can result in a change in the signal---either a loss of information, or an addition of artificial information; that’s called distortion. One may find the distorted sound "pleasing", or "musical", but it’s short of the highest level of music reproduction quality.

And what’s with this obsession with soundstaging?! Recordings made in studios (the majority in most peoples music libraries) contain phony, artificial, fabricated, illusionary imaging. I’m much more concerned with 1- the sound of the instruments and voices themselves---their timbre, tonality, color, texture, weight, body, and 3-dimensional palpability; and 2- the effect of the playback system on the timing of the players and singers, and the subtle interplay between them all---the inherent, essential temporal nature of music. Both of those effect the emotional content of the music and lyrics, and even it’s quality as music. Soundstaging is a parlor trick, devoid of musical meaning.

I probably mentioned this before somewhere - the type of wood matters much less when we’re talking about the top plate of an isolation stand. That’s because the top plate is isolated from vibration coming up fro the floor along with the component. Now, there remains residual vibration on the top plate - the percentage of seismic type vibration from the floor, acoustic vibration and vibration induced by the component (motor noise, transformer noise, etc.). Residual vibration can be dealt with effectively and easily using inexpensive damping techniques. No, not rubber, Michael!

Also, all wood or granite or other boards or slabs should always be supported by cones. Carpets are an issue when placing iso stands on them because carpets behave like springs and can interfere with the performance of an iso stand. Cones that pierce the carpet are suggested.

One issue with hardwood boards and plates that hasn’t been addressed so far is warping. Maple, aside from its sonic attributes, is very resistant to warpage over time. Other woods, like the cherry I used for the Nimbus isolation stand I built for Mapleshade Recording for CES, might not be so resistant. Cherry wasn’t. I also have used Baltic birch for load bearing sections of iso stands and Baltic birch ply for the top plate.

I also like the high mass (inertia) and extreme stiffness (resistance to seismic type bending forces) of materials like granite and bluestone. At the Show in Vegas with Golden Sound I employed Italian marble slabs (beautiful stuff) made right there in Vegas, enough slabs for about five isolation stands, two slabs per stand, a spring sandwich as it were. 🥪 I have a customer in Aruba with a monster five foot long marble isolation stand for his Raven Turntable. I’ve also used laboratory grade granite slabs for some projects. 3” thick 18x18 Bluestone slabs from Home Despot are probably my fave, all things considered. One big advantage of my small independent springs is there is virtually no limit to the load they can handle. I have customers with seriously heavy things up on my iso stands. Upwards of 200 lb. My first iso stand, Nimbus was limited to a load of around 35 lb.
My last concept for a isolation stand was a combination of viscoelastic material, bamboo and glass micro beads. Together these materials simulate the operational characteristics of the woodpecker’s head (bone, special absorptive tissue and flexible cartilage) which able to withstand tremendous negative g’s whilst pecking wood. Much greater negative g’s than a F-22 fighter pilot pulling a Immelmann maneuver.
A quick shout out for Mpingo wood. The audiophile’s secret weapon.