5 Easy Turntable Vibration Solutions. Reduce noise, Bass loop and Rumble. And other HIFI tweaks.

Been wall mounting my TTs for 30 years. (exterior wall only). I see so many "audiophiles" who place their TTs way too close to their speakers. Look at this guy w/those big ass horns right next to his turntable. No wonder he has a vibration problem! Mount your TT to the studs of an exterior wall, & get those speakers and TT at LEAST 3 feet away from each other before doing anything else!

Hang it from the ceiling

Nice channel, thanks for sharing your precious knowledge 👏🏻🙏🏼

How do you know the level is highly accurate? Did you have it calibrated?

Went the monolithic approach. 42”ish tall welded 1”x2” sand-filled 1/4” wall thickness rectangular steel tubing w stainless steel feet. The top shelf where turntable is located is made up of an approx 200lb granite slab on wenge feet interfacing to the steel rack. On top of the granite slab is an approx. 50lb hard maple block on brass feet. Turntable sits on top of the maple block. Bottom shelf (preamp & Nitty Gritty storage) is likewise a similar granite slab sans the maple block. Idea being mass + differing materials w different resonances. Turntable rack is placed at a room node. Mono blocked tube amps are on similar but shorter individual racks placed at room nodes, w hard maple blocks but no granite slabs. Has worked pretty darned well for 20 years. Great depth & detail of sound. The rack, locating equipment at “nodes” (see Audio Master’s Handbook) and sound panels for echo tuning are some of my best bang for buck “tuning” efforts.

As always, YMMV. Just sharing, nothing more, nothing less.

Have a good’un!

I've developed a rumble filter that beats anything. It is a four pole, two zero elliptic filter using two FDNRs (frequency dependent negative resistance) networks. It operates at line level (tape monitor or other 1Volt I/O. It is flat down to 20 Hz. Down 17dB @16Hz, down 30dB @7Hz. Believe me; there is no other like it. I've been using mine for 2 years with my Dual 1229 and it's remarkable. There is no audible difference between in and out except that the subsonic rumble is gone. My woofers love it. If you are interested in this 'final solution' to rumble, let me know.

Hi 👋 Gabster , great idea, I had a big problem with my building, it is a very old moulin/mill in the Correze in France, the floors are on beams across the width of the building, 7m . So when you walk across the floor it bounces, so I have made 2 wooden arms that are fitted to the wall with steel brackets, then on them I have a slab of oak 50m thick, so there is no vibration at all,
Phil from the moulin France.

I used the foam packing from my turntable box and cut some circles to fit under the feet, they are about 3/4 inch thick, and they work perfectly with no need for a block.

Best solution is to buy a CD Player or stream, no thanks required.

Good idea. I had a similar problem with several turntables, not so much with rumble, but hearing noticeable distortion when playing loud. Tried all kinds of flexible rubbery footers (diy and commercially available), but they all degraded the sound in some manner. What finally solved the problem is 3 diy rollerblock footers made out of bamboo wood, spoons and 10mm steel or ceramic balls. No feedback, no distortion at any sound level, very natural sound.

I've been having this problem for awhile now. Definitely need to find a fix. Very annoyed.

I vote for a wall mount as well. I like the HiFi Racks Podium Platform Wall Mount. Rock solid, the platform is claimed to support up to 198 lbs. While further isolating the table from the wall mount's platform with a zaZen platform. Not inexpensive but much less than the cost of a cartridge in keeping with the rest of the equipment on show. Then try replacing the cones with Herbie Audio Lab's Tenderfeet. Elevating the turntable will also allow for placing a dedicated phono amp where the turntable now stands.

I like your locking weight. Can you tell us where I can get one?

That is a excellent idea. I had a similar problem that has been going on for a while. Thanks to your sponge trick now I can enjoy my turntable at high volume so BIG THANK YOU

If it is ambient bass causing the feedback with the cartridge maybe a lid would help.

Also these are kind of nice and inexpensive DiversiTech E.V.A. anti-vibration pads, 2” x 2” x 7/8”

hello Gaby, great idea with the sponges...what a coincidence it is that I am building my own turntable, the tonearm is already finished :) I will upload a video of the tonearm in a few days and will report back to you...too bad we live so far apart, best regards

Or just buy an old AR XA Turntable and never worry again ;)

The foam would eventually compress from the weight. Ideally it would be useful to add springs to offload the foam so it can retain the flex to absorb the vibration.

Thanks for the tips so simple and so effective and not expensive

Just ordered the Ikea cutting board for my turntable and i am going to try the sponges underneath it,thanks a lot for the video.

Gabster if you want to talk about an amazing recording with an incredible amount of spacial Information and tonality you have to get Cheskey binaural series Macy Gray "Stripped" it will blow your mind.

I have no problems with bass loop despite having two subs and big floorstanders but had big problems with skipping when I walked nearby. A pro-ject (or Rega ? Can't remember) support and Amazon spring loaded feet solved it but I use the IKEA board with sorbothane for my other table and it does the job.
Love your idea though.
I now have an image of 8 IKEA cutting boards stacked on top of each other with different vibration damping solutions in between and the turntable out of reach perched on top...

A wall shelf is probably the best available mounting for a turntable; preferably securely anchored to a load-bearing wall. For a suspended sub-chassis turntable like your Thorens the shelf itself should be as lightweight and rigid as possible (your bamboo cutting board is perfect) and decoupled (not fastened tightly) to the brackets. This reflects the Rega philosophy of low mass structures not retaining vibration whereas dense, heavy structures tend to retain energy and dissipate it slowly. Linn used to insist their Sondek should always be placed on a lightweight coffee table rather than a heavy (dense) piece of furniture for exactly the same reason. Seems counter - intuitive but very easy and free to try - what's to lose?

Love your channel and in awe at your electronic skills! Always mount a turntable on a wall shelf not a floor. Make a box as the shelf, about 10 cms deep, fill with dry sand and top with a glass panel floating on the sand. Level carefully and then place foam pads/another glass panel/turntable, level again as shown in the video.

I use the Ikea cutting boards under all of my turntables. However my boards are sitting on spring loaded isolation feet from Amazon, one under each corner, and I have no feedback problems at all, and I can literally jump up in down in front of the turntable with no skipping.

I prefer the $100 Audiophile sponges from France :)

Stop wasting your time, mount it to the wall, problem solved. Some amazing products on the market to make it simple. My table has been there for 40 years.
Never had a problem since. 😎

You seem like a very nice man!

What if the turntable is between the speakers, how to avoid the bass affecting the tone arm and the the cartridge ??

wow, man that's life-changing, like the difference between going vinyl and not while living next to a railway station

I recall, many years ago, before the days the internet was a thing, reading that the turntable should be placed as far as possible from the power transformer...

Hello Gabster, could you let me know the name of the record weight on this video? Many thanks

I love tweaking as I feel it is a better way to tune your system than endlessly looking for a magical, perfect sound by changing core components. I've owned Stillpoints, Finite Elemente and Black Ravioli system supports but recently found that those excellent solutions could be bettered by a little D.I.Y. ingenuity.

First, I brought the exact same IKEA chopping boards but put them atop marble chopping boards. This flat, hard, marble surface I sat upon 6mm ball bearings ( I use ceramic, steel or Tungsten Carbide ) which sit within glass golf ball holders, which are basically a glass cube with a smooth concavity machined into the top. ( I buy them from AliExpress ) I use a total of three of these holders, each with a ball bearing inside, which touches the underside of the marble and wooden chopping board sandwich. Because the ball bearings can shift slightly in the holders, the entire shelf will wobble slightly when pushed, allowing vibrations to dissipate laterally while maintaining a minimum contact surface interface between the ball bearings and glass holders and marble. Very little exterior vibration gets through to the component from below, isolating whatever sits on the board very well.

If you want, you can go further and then fill aluminium, screw-top tins ( eBay ) with common salt or sand, screw on the top and then put three tins between the newly created wooden shelves and the flat bottom of a mounted component, ensuring you avoid contact with the original feet. Now you have the tins absorbing, via particle dampening processes, the vibrations created within the component while the boards and the ball bearings beneath provide exterior isolation.

The effect is, to my mind, superior to the already excellent yet expensive gear mentioned above and each component in your system could be supported for around £50-60 expenditure and around ten minutes effort, outside of shopping or ordering.

You can call this tinkering plain nuts or you can try it once, on a single component. No thanks required, if you try it and are very pleased.

Nice, I used two of the IKEA cutting boards and had 10mm bearing balls between the two, sorbothan feet towards my record player and Stillpoints in the bottom. The deck is an old Empire 298 overhaulled with SME V arm and VPI motor controll. Fantastic for reasonable money! So silent and still grabbing the music!

Thanks for the cool tweak!!

When you turned the volume knob way up, were you playing anything, or was the system just one? I have a very similar situation. With nothing playing, and I turn the volume up I am getting all kinds of noise.

What controls vibration is mass and rubber. So what I use is a concrete patio block 15" x 15" x 1.5" painted black ($5). And put a recycled rubber stair tread ($7)cut to the block size Which I glued on the bottom of the block . And then mounted my Rega p6 on it using three sorbathane large half spheres so I could easily level the turntable. This is very effective in controlling vibration. Mass and Rubber is the key. I use a Mitchell camp for Rega turntables which you can lock down. And use large rubber damping Rings around the glass platter rim

OMG what a joke again. But I like the speakers. Do you have a wooden floor ??

Great idea with the sponges 😅. I use two marble slab’s which I was fortunate to find at ikea one day snooping around the store. These slabs were chipped slightly and were sold super cheap in the “as is” department. I bought them about 15 yrs ago and have used the in my two systems ever since. The marble is 1 inch thick and 2 inches wider all around than my SystemDek TT so it fits and looks awesome. I place 4 small rubber nubs under each corner and stack two with nubs on top of each other, so stand…rubber nub…marble slab…then more nubs…another slab then isolation cones and TT. I bought 6 pieces or slabs that day so I have one under my Disc player and use last three for smaller system in my office. I think marble would work better for vibrations than wood as wood transfers vibrations and not deadens it. Perhaps I’m wrong though so let me know if I am. That’s it , sorry for the long rant. Thx

A slab of marble works incredibly well.

Hey Gabster, awesome hack! Do you think a lighter cutting board is better? I don't have the Ikea board but just wondering if the compression of the sponge is better if it's less? Thx!

Sponges are a good idea, new sponges have something in them that keeps them sodt and pliable while sitting on a shelf but after to wet them a few times they get hard when they dry out. Have you noticed any difference in the sponge firmness over time?

Years ago I was using a Thorens TD316 turntable that was good but this old house does not have solid floors so it was susceptible to foot falls near the turntable. To solve it i used a 10" inner tube under the turntable to "float it out of vibration range. I had to offset the inner tube because of the uneven distribution of that turntables weight,

I'm now using a Rega RP-3 and was having dome issues withit, it sits on a very surdy record rack that is next to a load bearing wall so the floor is pretty rigid there. I put a 3" thick cutting board under the turntable and also uses 3 ea 2" sorbothane half sheres under each of the 3 turntable feet and that seemed to work well. A year later I moved the turntable off that record cabinet onto a cheap welded steel wood record rack with the same 3" cutting board and sorbothane feet and it sounded even better and that proved how inportant having a very rigid stand under a turntable is for good sound.

IsoAccoustics!

I've been experimenting with drum dampening gel pads with some audible result . For lower frequencies control I use kick drum pads ( they are larger and thicker but also pricier ) . I also use them between my speakers and their stands

Not too bad but there are proven and professional solutions available (usually based on pneumatic suspension). Search for vibration isolation table in your local online auction provider (in the optics, medical & lab sections) . You can of course buy them new as wel if you have the 10...15k lying around.

Is using dog balls is alternative

If you have problems with dancing, or even walking near your TT while it's playing, you just have a shit floor.

Brilliant! Anti rumble mats for washing machines are also worth playing around with - maybe as an inter-plinth to deaden the resonance of the plinths.

G. I put spaghetti loop floor mat, that I cut to fit under speakers. Best, D.