What is under your TT, cheap islolation?


I am looking for a way to isolate my turntable without using a shelf bolted to the wall. I am trying to save money while I re-configure the room. For now my turntable is on top of my stand but you have to tip toe around the room. I am wondering if a big rock iso platform (or DYI version) or some iso nodes under a butcher block would help with the bouncing turntable? I have two tables I am testing at the moment, one is a Thorens TD-160 & the other is a VPI HW19 MKII, both of them suspended. The floors are pretty sturdy, it is a dedicated room over my garage with serious supports built in to the floor.
fishwater
Relating to the VPI Table, I'm wondering if you have the spring suspension on it, as you might be better off with the Sorbothane Pucks instead. Audiopoints replacing the VPI Rubber feet will help a bit, but these aren't cheap for a set of four. I bought some a couple of months ago for mine, and they seemed to help a bit, made the table look a lot nicer too, but one will get of sticker shock for the four 10-32 Points, and four coupling discs.

Another downside of the VPI, is its odd size footprint, making it harder to find readily available stone slabs, or wood bases.

An option I've thought of for myself as an inexpensive project, would be a DIY Sandbase (ala Brightstar) but I haven't done mine yet. Small 2'x4' Sheets of 3/4" MDF are available from places like Home Depot Home Supply, the Borders-Sides could be also made with 3/4" Oak, giving a nice look, and the Top Plinth of the Base could be sprayed with a nice texture-spatter paint to compliment the rest of the Base.

Even if you don't have a good saw, Places like Home Depot can do all the cuts needed for a very small fee, and all you'd have to do, is button everything up, fill the base with sand so that the Plinth sits level to the top of base, leaving 1/2" gap all the way around the base Plinth, and fill this void area with 1/2" Strips of Black Foam Weatherstripping for the finishing touch.

With all MDF, the cost probably wouldn't exceed $20 in parts. With 4" high Oak Sides, naturally will cost more. A base large enough for the VPI would no doubt be still suitable for many other turntables as well. Mark
Dave, you are crazy! That's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time! I was LOL!
My turntable is on a built-in shelf that is OK but footfalls could be heard. Short of tying the kids up in the attic whenever I wanted to listen to music, I went to a local shop that installs granite kitchen countertops. After wading through their scrap yard, I picked up two slabs about 1.5" thick and had them trimmed to 18x22". They essentially gave away the scrap and only charged me for trimming and polishing (about $50 if I recall correctly). They look great and really do help to isolate the table.
I don't know why people continue to have problems with TT vibration. Mine went almost completely away about thirty years ago when I got an Empire TT which had two features of interest. (1) The platter and the arm moved together on soft springs. (2) The arm was mass-balanced around all axes, with VTF applied by a clock balance wheel spring.
I would expect that more modern and expensive TT would be better than the old Empire.

Now I have a Sony PS-X800 TT which has a linear tracking biotracer (servo'd) arm, and it also shrugs off vibration, and plays even badly warped LPs without any problem.