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Springs under turntable

I picked up a set of springs for $35 on Amazon. I intended to use them under a preamp but one thing led to another and I tried them under the turntable. Now, this is no mean feat. It’s a Garrard 401 in a 60pound 50mm slate plinth. The spring device is interesting. It’s sold under the Nobsound brand and is made up of two 45mm wide solid billets of aluminum endcaps with recesses to fit up to seven small springs. It’s very well made. You can add or remove springs depending on the weight distribution. I had to do this with a level and it only took a few minutes. They look good. I did not fit them for floor isolation as I have concrete. I played a few tracks before fitting, and played the same tracks after fitting. Improvement in bass definition, speed, air, inner detail, more space around instruments, nicer timbre and color. Pleasant surprise for little money.
128x128noromance
lewm
13,113 posts
 
"Its not just the drivers going back and forth either."  But that was the only subject of my post.  You've gone off in a related but different direction.  Otherwise, why don't we just hang woofers and/or subwoofer cabinets in free air, from strings or springs? 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
That's exactly what we're talking about, putting them on springs.

The subject of your post, drivers going back and forth, that motion is included in all the other vibrations. If this goes off in a different but related direction maybe that's because its in the nature of vibration to not be confined to any one single motion. Nothing really ever just vibrates only back and forth. Its just not that simple.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Good noromance. Just don't sneeze:) Lewm is absolutely correct. For a driver to do its job correctly it has to be held rigidly in space. Any spurious vibration of the driver is distortion. The problem really does not become critical until you get down in the bass frequencies. There are several ways of dealing with this. First would be making the cabinet very heavy and stiff. Second would be spiking the cabinet to a very solid floor and third would be using counterforce design with the woofers. Best would be all three together. Putting springs or foam under loudspeakers is 180 degrees the wrong way to go. There is a huge difference in requirement for a device that is designed to pick up vibrations and a devise designed to produce them.
stringreen's avatar
stringreen
6,471 posts
 
I'm guessing you're hearing more air around the instruments?  Those likely are resonances we seek to eliminate.
lewm
13,113 posts
 
Miller, Stop trying to teach me physics. You can do whatever you like for whatever reason makes sense to you. I will persist in believing that putting speakers on springs or sorbothane pucks is NOT a good idea. "Vibrations" and their control is a subject for cabinet designers and the like. If you put the best cabinet in the world on springs, you will still magnify problems that are specifically due to the fact that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, in Newtonian mechanics. Moreso manifest in the bass region than in the treble, as Mijo says.
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