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.
noromance
Lewm, not at all but, people do funny things. Reducing the spring rate would be tough. You would have to replace all four springs with springs exactly the same size and length under tension. Some people may have added damping to the springs by stuffing them with foam. If you look at the link in my last post in the middle of that article is a plexiglass model of a Sota. The springs are hung from the top plate. Shims would just lower the sub chassis dropping the plater and tonearm relative to the motor.

Anyway, my resonance frequency is low enough that I can count it. With a record on it will take 7 bounces before it stops and I would have to say that it takes about 2 seconds but I have not tried to time it accurately. The idea is to get it below record warp frequency so they do not interact. Tonearm above, turntable below. I can play a severely warped record without difficulty.

The Sota's are not easy turntables to take apart and I would not want to risk damaging the wooden plinth.  IMHE the suspensions are tuned just fine as nothing in a normal environment bothers them. I have never felt the need to take one apart which is unusual for a guy who took his Divas apart to install new ribbons. 

Delmonte? During WW2 my deceased uncle made a fortune packing fruit which he sold to the military. That company was called the East Indies Fruit Packing Company. You know that company now as Delmonte. In the late 60's my uncle retired from his position as CEO and handed the Baton to his nephew, the nastiest SOB I have ever met. I banned Delmonte products until he passed. They do have the best Pineapples. In the mean while my uncle took his fortune and opened up Flagler Dog Track in Miami, FL and made another fortune. He gave at least 75% of it away mostly to educational institutions and Israel. In 1974 he started getting chest pains. His cardiologist begged him to go to the hospital. Instead,  he flew to LA for a meeting. At the end of the meeting he stood up and died on the spot. Age 60. I would think the spring rate of a Delmonte mandarin orange can would be just a little high:)
indranil, you are using the isolation in a room with a peer and beam substrate or joists? If so, please also consider the amplitude of which such a floor can itself move. Just like a car can only do so much to smooth out the hills of a road, it can smooth out the undulations of the road, but not the higher amplitudes.

Do you have an approximate weight of the TT and the preferred shelf you are using? Obviously I am guessing, it might be the amplitude of the floor movement that might need to be addressed also?


mitch22,
Sorry I did not respond to you earlier.
This is just in regards to bass. Low frequencies in air are more powerful than most people think. Get a set of test tones, a test record, CD or download. Play a 30 Hz test tone and turn it up. You will hear everything in your house rattle. Go to the room farthest from your system and that room will also be rattling! My point is that putting you sub woofers on spring is not isolating anything from the bass. Springs or no springs the house rattles just the same.
It would be difficult to AB a spring situation correctly. So it is difficult to prove or disprove to yourself or anyone that springs improve the sound of a system. Just changing the height of the main speakers is enough to change the sound. Putting springs under your amplifiers will do absolutely nothing. You may be able to prove this to yourself by listening to your system with and without springs under just the amps. You should be able to set and reset them quickly enough. When you do this you have to be very honest with yourself. 
Never believe just what someone hears. Human hearing is way to variable to be trustworthy. You even have to be careful with groups of people. You can't even trust yourself so you have to be very careful when you do these experiments. Not to mention that all those springs look butte
ugly.
Cheers, Mike