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Help! Tweaking My Lovan Rack for new Big A**ed Transrotor Turntable!

Folks, some input would be mighty appreciated.

I’ve been using a hand-me-down (though very nice!) Micro Seiki dd-40 turntable for a number of years and finally got the upgrade itch (it helps the upgrade itch when your cartridge is going on 30 years old, and sounding like it!).

I went down the rabbit hole and picked up a Transrotor Fat Bob S turntable, with an Acoustic Solid 12" arm and a Benz Micro Ebony cartridge. All with only about 30 hours of use at a great price. Yay!

Though I have considered getting rid of my old Lovan Classic rack for a new custom jobby, I’m pretty much spent out and I think I’ll have to make do for now, working with the Lovan.

The Fat Bob turntable is 55 lbs of solid aluminum and built like Thor’s hammer.

I figure this will finally get me to fill my Lovan stands for a bit more rigidity - probably with rice. The stand is the old 3 legged triangular shaped bass, which means the thin MDF shelves can feel like they sit sort of precariously on top. But the stand itself feels quite solid.

I want to incorporate a wood platform base, as many do, because I really love the look of a nice wood slab.

At first I thought maybe I’d have 3 spikes drilled in to the bottom corners of the wood base to directly couple it to the rest of the Lovan frame, vs resting it on the top mdf shelf. But I’m not sure that’s really necessary. And I’d like to incorporate some isolation as well, I think. So I’m thinking of just laying it on the top shelf, with something in between.

My first thought is to place a Symposium Segue shelf between the top of the Lovan shelf and the wood base.

Other than that...I’m flummoxed as to all the other choices...roller blocks? Symposium Fat Padz? Vibrapods? Herbie’s Tendersoft footers? Voo-Doo Isopods?  What should I put between the wood platform base and my Lovan shelf?

Any comments of suggestions on the direction I’m going?

Thanks!

(BTW, I’m an resolutely NOT a DIY/Handy-man type, so I’m not trying to go to heroic efforts, wishing this to be as painless as possible).
prof
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,081 posts
 

To isolate a turntable/arm/cartridge from higher frequencies (above about 10Hz) is easy; a suspended table does that very effectively by having mere springs acting as a mechanical filter. In contrast, very low frequencies "get through" the suspension---most table’s mechanic filters are effective down to only 10Hz or so. That is why seismic-frequency isolation is required by LP players for ultimate performance.

All kinds of material have been tried as very low-frequency mechanical filters---Sorbothane, Navcom, garden-variety rubber. Also cones and spikes of various sizes and shapes. Both of these do act as a mechanical low-pass filter, but their "corner" frequency is too high, rolling off rapidly also at about 10Hz.

The latest attempt to achieve isolation at low cost is with roller bearings---a ball bearing in a shallow cup. As very low frequency energy (vibrations) encounter the bearings upon which the table sits, they dissipate that energy by the ball bearing trying, in response to the wave of energy (vibrations travel through matter as a wave does in the ocean), to climb up the side of the bowl in which it sits. The energy, rather than being transmitted into the table/arm/cartridge, is turned into heat and dissipated by the bearing. Ingenious! Unfortunately, the roller bearing works that way in all planes but the lateral. In the lateral plane the roller bearing behaves just as do cones and spikes---not as an isolator, but as a coupler. If you add a lateral isolator---an air or metal "spring" of some sort---that is effective to as low a frequency as possible, then you can achieve good isolation.

Or, you can spend the $ necessary to get one of the electron microscope isolation table available, which start at around $2000. There is a third alternative, priced between the two, closer to the cheap side---the Townshend Audio Seismic Pods, which have been mentioned and discussed here lately. About $375 for a set of four when bought from England. Look on You Tube for videos of Max Townshend explaining their design and demonstrating their effectiveness.

prof OP
3,491 posts
 

bdp24,

Thanks!

I have the Townshend pods.  Thusfar, in my tests using an iphone app to measure for vibration transfer, the pods have the most dramatic impact on stopping external vibrations getting to the turntable/bass.   I'm planning at this point to put the pods holding up the maple butcher-block base I'm having made for the turntable.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
@bdp24 I’m pretty sure you meant roller bearings work in all directional except the *vertical* direction. That’s why they work well with springs, a la Barry Diament and yours truly, since springs are relatively poor in the lateral plane. Thus they don’t interfere with each other.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,081 posts
 
Oops, right you are Geoff. I gotta remember to proof my posts! The great thing about saying "in all planes but vertical" is that you then don’t need to list them all. Those planes (perhaps "directions" is more accurate?) include, as you have pointed out in the past, not just lateral (horizontal if one prefers), but all related. You used a term for those related planes, which I of course can’t recall. I could never be a lead singer---too many lyrics to remember. I have to make notes on my set list for live gigs, reminding me of what the beginning of each song is like. Lucinda Williams herself actually uses a 3-ring binder containing the chords and lyrics to her songs, placed on a music stand to her side on stage. As she finishes each song, she turns the page to the next song!
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Actually the word plane is correct since isolation occurs for ALL DIRECTIONS in the horizontal plane. Whereas the vertical direction is not a plane. Nor are twist, rock, roll. They are directions. Lets twist again like we did last summer!
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