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Best building material for vibration free shelving

I am building some built into the wall shelves for my VPI Classic 2 SE turntable, amp, preamp, CD player, and old Burwen TNE 7000A transient noise eliminator (that’s one for you old-timers to remember), as well as my DISH Network receiver box. The shelves must match in appearance the typical looking built-in wood bookshelves already in the room. The shelves will be located directly under my 45" wide flat screen television. They will be wide enough to hold two components side by side, other than the VPI turntable which will have the top shelve to itself due to its extra width. I will be building the shelves high and deep to allow for plenty of air circulation around the components. They will be painted.

My question is, what materials might you suggest building the shelves with to minimize vibration? If they were for books I’d normally build the sides, and top out of 3/4" birch sided plywood, the back out of 1/4 inch luan plywood, and the shelves out of oak to deal with the weight of the books without bending. I will be adding vibration damping feet under each component and am not looking for suggestions along those lines, only material and perhaps design recommendations to reduce vibration.

I was researching this last night online and on site, and saw recommendations to use four thicknesses of 3/4 inch High Density (HD) MDF, also to use granite or marble under the turntable, among other recommendations. I was wondering how birch veneered plywood would work too, as it’s ply’s, I believe, have their grains running in opposite directions. Maybe there’s some way to isolate the uprights from the horizontal shelves to reduce vibration transmission.

What would you think would work best for these built-ins. I’d appreciate any recommendations you have or your experience on this subject. Thank you for any ideas.

Mike


skyscraper
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,418 posts
 
@williewonka; cool website, I bookmarked it.
The Terrastone is a proprietary composite as are many of these offerings from specialty companies. They get good online user reviews and VPI recommends them as feet for their TT's.
   I don't know about the construction of the TerraStone Roller Bearing, but it is a brass ball. In a review it's compared to Symposium rollerblocks.
I will definitely report my results.

Regarding your footer design, Sorbothane is a substance which dampens vibration, but in your case, restricts the vibration from being drained. It also imparts its own colourations.
And I just re-read your post..
Then a fellow DIYer pointed out that the feet were not allowing internal vibrations from the transformer or airborn vibrations that might vibrate the cabinet, from being "drained" from the amp - he suggested I try brass cones or wood cones without any "cushion" material between them and the amp.
So, you already know this.

I know you're a DIY'er, but I've used some Herbies to protect the surface of the plinth w/o any audible side effects...
https://herbiesaudiolab.com/collections/system-isolation/products/thin-grungebuster-dots



williewonka
3,083 posts
 
@lowrider57 - RE:

@williewonka; cool website, I bookmarked it.
Thanks - hope you find some useful ponters - However, some of the information on there is a little dated and my current thoughts on a few of the DIY postings may have changed a little - e.g. the ball bearing foot with sorbothane is one that will get updated

The Helix cables psotings are still current and I stand by the KLE Innovations reviews, but some of the older DIY cable postings will require some updating, which I will tackle this coming winter season

The Herbies Grungebuster Dots look very interesting and very reasonably priced - I might just give them a try - Thanks

Regards - Steve




n80
2,133 posts
 
Don't we have to be careful about over draining?
jnovak's avatar
jnovak
436 posts
 
Actually, granite can be some of the cheapest building material you can get. ALL fabricators have piles of leftover granite for a song. One day when time permits I'll take advantage of those "scrap" piles and try my hand at finishing the edges to make my own shelves. It would be a nice little business for someone to do. Shipping would be impossible though. Joe
skyscraper OP
831 posts
 
rcronk5, thanks for you relaying your sound engineers advice and your accompanying explanation. I will go ahead and fill the spaces in to suppress potential reverb effects. I enjoyed your Jerry Lee Lewis  "Whole lot of shakin' going on," reference too. 

kingrex,read your link and was impressed with the quality of your DIYset up underneath your turntable, and the diagrams provided. Nice work, you should be proud of. I'm thinking over your suggestions about using beads.

williewonka, I hope that shelf liner works as I'm headed that way for under my marble slab. And thanks for the link and explanation on draining internal vibrations. I hadn't quite understood that process, and how to drain them. Appreciate your explanations of your methods for doing this.

bdp24, hopefully Baltic Birch plywood is the way to go as you say. I've never heard of Torlyte before. 

geoffkait, I'd read years age there were concerns mahogany might be getting logged to extinction. So It's not surprising there's "fake" mahogany being imported. 

n80, VPI does draw attention to it's turntable isolation qualities and isolation feet. Also how could you over drain internal vibrations? You lost me there. I thought the idea was to get them down as much as possible. Is there such a thing as "good vibrations" (outside of the Beach Boys classic). OK, that's a bad joke, but I liked it.

lowrider57, I'll have to google those DH cones and the Herbies link too. I've checked them out before but don't remember much about them.

jnovak, good tip on accessing scraps of granite to use from yards that fabricate counter tops etc.. Been to several of them, but never connected the dots to ask for leftover scraps. I bet they sometimes toss them or their yards would be overflowing with leftovers and remains, Even the common double sink cutouts would be fairly substantial in size. 

Mike




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