Turntable isolation platform Recommendations?

Of course I will continue to buy and use beautiful things and I will post on this forum to help people to find alternative solution such as a proper turntable design insolated by its feet/plinth and a proper turntable rack to place any turntable on top of it without any special springs from a third party manufacturer under turntable feet to build a pyramid of different materials under their gear to make it looks ugly, pretending the sound will be better (this is ridiculous).

I told you before that industry professionals do not use anything like that and you can watch this. I have a tendency to trust industry professionals than audiophile snobs. And I don’t want to prove anything to you, at your age it’s too late to learn something.

We have enough oldies who recommend springs under everything in every post on audiogon. So this "school" very well represented on audiogon by one person.

If your furniture is not stable then RACK LIKE THIS is required under any turntable, this is perfect solution for everyone!

However, maybe I missed something, but I asked the OP why he asked for isolation platform? Is there any problems with his turntable, did he detect a problem? People on audiogon are happy to help someone to spend money, but sometimes it’s useless. Do not try to fix non existent problem. If someone is using "isolation platform" it’s not necessary that you must use the same under your turntable.

I agree with @everest


Townshend has been in business for 50+ years with reasonably priced, great products and science to back it up. If you have the means to spend $6,000-$17,000 for something to rest your electron microscope on, I say go for it....


I have not read one single bad review of any of Townshend products ever. Just the opposite. So there’s that.

In the meantime, I’ll be "podded out". Under my 2 turntables, speakers, 400 pound Sound Anchors rack, amps and sub and components.

Pods isolate down to 3Hz. Huzzah!

Hey @chakster , loathe not the haters. I run a 301 oil, Ortofon TA 210, VAS modified 103r, but am still a huge direct drive fan. I refuse to sell my 1200 mkll, and my dream DD table is still a completely restored PD 444. I guess I would also settle for a Bardot. - Cheers

mijostyn

Critical Mass and Townsend make inexpensive, 1/2 baked stuff that no respectable lab would ever put an electron microscope on. A turntable's requirements are just as stringent.

Perhaps that's true for a cheap turntable, but what many audiophiles would call a "proper turntable" certainly don't require an installation suitable for an electron microscope. I realize that you have significant LF issues with your system, with vibrations that you say oddly reach below fundamental frequencies requiring use of a rumble filter, but such heroic remedies aren't usually needed.

If a lab won't put an electron microscope on a certain platform you do not want to put your turntable on it.

That's just silly. In fact, my turntable doesn't sit on an "isolation platform" at all. It's essentially flat in-room to below 20hZ. No rumble filter needed. You'd have to feel it to believe it.

Just for the record, I was never an electron microscopist myself, but as a lab chief, I did have such a person and her microscope under my supervision for about 10-15 years out of my 40+ years as a virologist, and before and after that, there was always an EM in the vicinity of my lab.  In all of my scientific life, I never saw an EM that was sitting on an isolating shelf that is in any way related to a Minus K or Herzan vibration isolation device.  (So far as I know, Herzan make the Minus K.) This is at least partly because EMs are enormous, floor-standing devices, typically about 8 feet high from top to the bottom of the console.  (Maybe the latest most modern ones are smaller, but I have not seen such.) They are almost always located in the basement of a lab building, imbedded in several feet of solid concrete.  So, the major method used to immunize an EM from environmental resonant energy is mass-loading, at least in the good old days. 


That said, I do agree that the Minus K/Herzan might be the Holy Grail for a turntable, and I know for sure that similar tables are used in science and industry, but I am not sure for what.  (Huge used ones can be purchased on eBay.) Many less expensive methods also work adequately if not as perfectly for a turntable.  Also, I don't know why a platform HANGING from springs cannot also sway from side to side, as can a platform SUPPORTED by springs; I've heard that song from Mijo too many times.