High mass turntable owners -- What Stand?

Richard (Palasr), I haven't decided yet what material I like the most for a plinth in my setup. So far I have tried the following, each in a 18 x 24 footprint:

1. 3" granite surface plate----very nice bass and overall detail, but it develops a "shouting" coloration at loud volumes. I presume this is due to exciting resonances in the granite. Bob at Sound Anchors suggested that I try damping it with a rubber mat on top of a 3/4" MDF board, but so far I haven't done so. Lifting the 180 lb. granite on and off the stand is a challenge (understatement).

2. 3" maple butcherblock from Timbernation----very smooth with nice detail in the midrange, but too soft, slow and dead for my tastes.

3. 1 1/2" MDF----I found the MDF colorations too distracting to be able to listen to this for very long. I would describe the MDF as being "gray" and lacking in life and true tonal colors.

4. 3/4" maple----Lots of life and excitement and good deep bass, but too bright. Plus I don't think it can support the weight without some sagging.

None of the above is satisfactory for me long term. I will shortly be trying two other options: a sandbox with either a maple or MDF platform floating on the sand, and a composite platform consisting of 3 layers of Baltic Birch and MDF. Hopefully, one of these will emerge as a clear winner.

Dave

I use Solid Steel. They are made in Italy and available in USA. All shelves are decoupled with cones and they have no colorations.

Thanks for replies thus far.

I saw two mentions regarding Timbernation Timbernation. I'm using one of Chris' maple platforms, and am intrigued with his racks. The 3" thick shelf racks certainly look sturdy enough. And there's the rack that's formed by sitting one amp stand onto another. I'm not so sure how laterally stable the stacked amp stands would be, but I would think if one used spikes between them, they would lock in place quite nicely.

If anyone has had good results with Timbernation's racks, please speak up.

Sound Anchor and Solid Steel are on my short list.

Selectric: Thanks for you platform comparisons.

Bigbucks5: What Canadian made stand do you have under your Verdier? Is it a DIY model, or can one be purchased from a manufacturer/retailer?

Dave,

I recently built a sandbox type of rack for all my components. Picture this, if you can. 2 stands side by side. Each stand has 3 levels and is about 36" high. Each level is a 4" high sandbox containing about 50lbs of sand. These are made of MDF and painted gloss black. They are held together as a rack with 3" wide x 1" thick baltic birch posts (I actually bought a table top from Ikea and cut it into posts). Cones on the bottom of each post anchor them to the concrete basement floor. I use 3/4" baltic birch cutting boards from Ikea as the shelf placed on the sand. The wood is all finished using tung oil. Very striking and very heavy and inert.

However, my unsuspended turntable showed a marked thump when I knuckled the stand itself. I still needed some kind of isolation. I wound up using another 3/4" birsh shelf with some large diameter bubble wrap under it. This worked significantly better than many other types of isolation that I tried (rollerblocks, sorbothane, pucks and such). It's almost dead silent to the knuckle test now.

Please let me know if you come up with something that isolates better under the shelf.

Enjoy,
Bob

Bigbucks5: What Canadian made stand do you have under your Verdier? Is it a DIY model, or can one be purchased from a manufacturer/retailer?
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It is/was a commercially available stand.

Trying doing a search for audiostand