Turntable isolation platform Recommendations?

I agree with @everest


Townshend has been in business for 50+ years with reasonably priced, great products and science to back it up. If you have the means to spend $6,000-$17,000 for something to rest your electron microscope on, I say go for it....


I have not read one single bad review of any of Townshend products ever. Just the opposite. So there’s that.

In the meantime, I’ll be "podded out". Under my 2 turntables, speakers, 400 pound Sound Anchors rack, amps and sub and components.

Pods isolate down to 3Hz. Huzzah!

Hey @chakster , loathe not the haters. I run a 301 oil, Ortofon TA 210, VAS modified 103r, but am still a huge direct drive fan. I refuse to sell my 1200 mkll, and my dream DD table is still a completely restored PD 444. I guess I would also settle for a Bardot. - Cheers

mijostyn

Critical Mass and Townsend make inexpensive, 1/2 baked stuff that no respectable lab would ever put an electron microscope on. A turntable's requirements are just as stringent.

Perhaps that's true for a cheap turntable, but what many audiophiles would call a "proper turntable" certainly don't require an installation suitable for an electron microscope. I realize that you have significant LF issues with your system, with vibrations that you say oddly reach below fundamental frequencies requiring use of a rumble filter, but such heroic remedies aren't usually needed.

If a lab won't put an electron microscope on a certain platform you do not want to put your turntable on it.

That's just silly. In fact, my turntable doesn't sit on an "isolation platform" at all. It's essentially flat in-room to below 20hZ. No rumble filter needed. You'd have to feel it to believe it.

Just for the record, I was never an electron microscopist myself, but as a lab chief, I did have such a person and her microscope under my supervision for about 10-15 years out of my 40+ years as a virologist, and before and after that, there was always an EM in the vicinity of my lab.  In all of my scientific life, I never saw an EM that was sitting on an isolating shelf that is in any way related to a Minus K or Herzan vibration isolation device.  (So far as I know, Herzan make the Minus K.) This is at least partly because EMs are enormous, floor-standing devices, typically about 8 feet high from top to the bottom of the console.  (Maybe the latest most modern ones are smaller, but I have not seen such.) They are almost always located in the basement of a lab building, imbedded in several feet of solid concrete.  So, the major method used to immunize an EM from environmental resonant energy is mass-loading, at least in the good old days. 


That said, I do agree that the Minus K/Herzan might be the Holy Grail for a turntable, and I know for sure that similar tables are used in science and industry, but I am not sure for what.  (Huge used ones can be purchased on eBay.) Many less expensive methods also work adequately if not as perfectly for a turntable.  Also, I don't know why a platform HANGING from springs cannot also sway from side to side, as can a platform SUPPORTED by springs; I've heard that song from Mijo too many times.

@chakster - isolation is a feature of a turntable. Some environments may not require isolation as the sound coming out of the speakers will not resonate. Many turntables can benefit from isolation treatment from Townshend, Symposium, and many others, and you should not ridicule someone who likes a turntable that is not designed for bad environments.

For example, Rega offers a wall shelf (there are plenty of other excellent ones as well) that is recommended to be used for these types of scenarios. It is a modest cost and even if added to the cost of one of their tables, the sound and value are deemed preferable by probably millions (maybe hundreds of thousands) of casual or more serious audiophiles. Not everyone wants to spend thousands on a turntable or wants to buy something mass produced.

I wonder if you ever tried additional isolation for your turntable(s). It might improve the sound, you never know until you listen.