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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
slaw's avatar
slaw
21,321 posts
 
Thanks @prof !
skyscraper OP
829 posts
 
Prof, thanks for you suggestions. It is confusing when you try figuring out what to do when you’re researching online. So much contradictory advice, all well meaning, but difficult to sort out. I got a estimate on some wall damping material just the other day. It turned out to be prohibitively expensive $400+ for just a small quantity of one inch squares.

I do like your idea of using a layer of sheet steel, Do you have the sheets steel connected to one the other materials with anything but the stickiness of the wall damp material?

I’m trying making a sandwich of two pieces of solid Baltic Birch 3/4" plywood with some better quality shelf liner in between as damping. These shelves will be for the CD player, amp, and power conditioner. The bottom piece of Baltic Birch will be screwed into dadoed (slotted) uprights, next the shelf liner, then the upper piece of Baltic Birch will float on the on top of the liner, not in contact with anything else. Next Isopods and cones. Well see if that works. This evening I’ll look up the Townsend Isolation Pods, as you’ve gotten good , measurable results with them.

Thanks for passing on your ideas and how they’ve worked out. I was wondering if I screwed some sheet steel like yours to the underside of the floating piece of Baltic Birch, rather than letting the sheet steel also float, whether that would dampen that shelf it in any way.

Mike


prof
3,471 posts
 

Mike,

It turned out I found no need to actually bond the steel sheet to the base.  It seemed simply placing it between the maple block and the MDF  - no glue or damping to bond - worked fine.  Whatever type of wood I sat on to the steel sheet, the combination immediately became more solid - the wood having a slight ringing "knock, knock" tone when rapped without the steel, and a very dead, dense "thunk, thunk" sound when placed on the steel.

That was the isolation base though.  When I added the other steel sheet to the very thin MDF top shelf on my lovan rack, in that case bonding it (with all damp) made more sense, because the MDF shelf was so thin it could slide a bit over the steel if the turntable above it happened to be pushed.  But with the steel sheet in the turntable isolation base, just the natural weight of the wood placed above it (and the turntable) provided tons of friction and it's really solid.

skyscraper OP
829 posts
 
Thanks prof, I'll have to give it a try. I've had a few sheets of steel cut for some of my vintage woodworking machine restorations, missing door panels fabricated etc, I've two more pieces for the steel fabricators to cut out on their laser machine, so I'll have them crank out a shelf at the same to to experiment with. Appreciate the follow-up,

Mike
prof
3,471 posts
 

Mike,

One more detail in case it makes any difference:

I just remembered upon looking at my turntable base:  As I said, I have the Maple Block (on which the turntable sits), sitting atop the stainless steel sheet, and then beneath that, the two layer sandwich of MDF held up by the pods.

I actually undercut the size of the steel/MDF beneath the maple block so the maple block overhangs the rest by around an inch or so.  The reason is, the Maple block is the pretty part of the whole thing and I wanted it just floating with the turntable above it.  MDF isn't exactly beautiful.  So in cutting it inset about an inch under the maple block, and painting the MDF and stainless steel with matte black paint,  they completely disappear from view under the shadow of the maple block.  So all you see above the rack, sort of floating, is the maple block and turntable.

So actually, not too long after painting the steel on both sides with the paint (it was dry), the paint also provided something of a bond-like friction to both the maple block above it, and the MDF below it.


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