Support table or shelf for turntable

Wall shelves (interior brick wall first floor) never worked for my Linn LP12 and Rega decks. The sound always felt grounded.
I live on a main road and I suspect that the wall itself was transmitting a fair degree of vibration itself.

On the other hand a small light rigid wooden table made my cheap $50 flimsy plastic turntable (glued stylus) sound ridiculously close to the above mentioned decks! The sound was big with a good sense of ease about it. With young kids in the house I just gave up on vinyl entirely largely because of these issues.

I think the main point to bear in mind is that we want to decouple, not isolate via spikes etc. In fact some of the extreme high end decks feature advanced tech which totally decouples them via magnets or air suspension.

Hmm, does anyone have friends in NASA who could help up us solve these issues once and for all? Google? Apple? I heard that Steve Jobs was a vinyl man...

Hmmmmm?

Decouple?

Sounds familiar?

Actually, I have two family members that have worked for/do work for NASA. This is not an issue. The issue seems to be those that purport to be experienced, having some influence on others!

As someone mentioned earlier there's some great information on the Townshend Audio site. Well worth a watch and thanks to all concerned

https://youtu.be/OZxi1oZfvDA

Do not discount the effect, seemingly unnoticeable changes to your (wall-mount) TT mount/support and how they can dramatically affect your listening experience!

@cd318,

Thanks for posting the link to the video I mentioned above. You make it So easy.

I only hope, everyone watches this!

Yes its an intriguing subject, the isolation/ control of vibration, and how it applies to audio. The good vibration is the movement of the speaker cone, and the bad is everything else. Or is it?

Like the ongoing debates over cables, analogue/digital etc,  there is no consensus regarding loudspeaker isolation. Some believe in spikes, some go for isolating feet, or inner tubes, or sorbothane, and some don't believe its necessary at all.

My guess is that it all depends upon how big the problem is and how far did the manufacturer address the problem.

Some turntables such as the highly engineered (and highly priced) Continuum Caliburn featured a floating design decoupled from the main stand.

As far as loudspeakers go, Harbeth have their brilliant 'thin wall' design and unlike many others do not believe in remorselessly strengthening cabinet walls and tightening their drive units in order to suppress resonance. They would rather direct resonance to dissipate into the low frequencies where it is rendered inaudible. Thus preserving the all important midrange. I imagine Harbeths and the Caliburn would not require much more in the way of isolation.

Can we really say that of everything else? Given that sorbothane is well damped and can isolate down to 10HZ, and is relatively inexpensive, I think its worth a go in an attempt to maximise performance. Especially if your system sounds a bit thick or muddy.