This is a statement I posted on AV Guide.
It shows that if you can't do everything you can to mount the TT from a wall.....you are pushing shit uphill!
Mount the TT on a shelf firmly cantilevered from the wall.
Sound is transmitted it 2 basic ways:
AIR-BOURNE
STRUCTURE-BOURNE
90% of audiophiles mount their TTs on racks sitting on the floor.
This is a disaster for both types of transmission.
Even a concrete floor (which is not generally bouncing around like a timber-framed one) is a great transmitter of sound, so that any rack sitting on the floor is receiving BOTH types of transmission.
This is why Continuum Audio Labs create a rack for their Caliburn that costs $25,000. That's how much technology is required to overcome this basic problem of physics.
When you cantilever off a wall, you are disconnected from the floor (USA stud frame tradition can often short-circuit this advantage).
The materials to fix to the wall, project from the wall and form the shelf for support, generally act to physically 'de-couple' the shelf from the wall.
Thus all or most STRUCTURE-BORNE and AIR-BORNE sound transmission within the floors and walls are eliminated.
The only transmission to now worry about, is the AIR-BORNE transmission directly into the supporting shelf (and here is where Jon's granite shelf is NOT a good idea.
Granite rings like a bell and transmits sound deliciously throughout many audible frequencies without much absorption or dampening. Timber is a better insulator and dampener.
However it may be academic because all one has to do is DE-COUPLE the turntable from the supporting shelf to eliminate the transmission of this air-bourne absorbed sound.
Stillpoint cones with ceramic balls is a good way and there are many others.
Then the only sound transmission to worry about is the AIRBOURNE sound which the TT base and platter are able to absorb THEMSELVES.
This is where the turntable designer earns his crust with the elimination, absorption and dissipation of this air-bourne feedback setting his TT apart from the rest.
Of course the ability of the tonearm and cartridge to absorb and dissipate this same air-bourne transmission (feedback) is equally important but the frequencies are much higher and smaller.
So the moral is......do everything possible to wall-mount your turntable.