What's under your TT affects sound..........any debate?
Last week I was in Overture Audio in Ann Arbor only to find they don't carry Gallo anymore (sorry to who ever was looking at Gallo). However I had a chance to look at their Quadraspire wall mounted TT shelves. The salesperson said of the three shelf options; the acrylic shelf sounds best, followed by the wood, and then the glass.
From my own home experiments of playing with marbles set in hard rubber furniture floor pads, different feet, and different shelves I felt he was not BS-ing me. However I could not argue either way because I've never had access to large thick sheets of affordable acrylic. They make TT's out of it, can't be bad, right?
Old set-up;
Seven years ago I had tuned by ear what I thought was best; TT on tempered glass sample (free-I'm an architect), the glass sitting on Audioquest sorbothane feet, sitting on thick maple butcher block with copper pipe legs and hard plastic end caps on fireplace floor/brick hearth.
My new set up cost about $40 for a 17" x 13" x 1/2" acrylic sheet, sourced from Plastic-Tech M&R in Ann Arbor.
New set-up;
TT on sorbothane feet on acrylic sheet on large $4 rubber stoppers from Stadium Hardware. Sitting on thick maple butcher block with copper pipe legs and hard plastic end caps on fireplace floor/brick hearth.
Results:
1. Mic saturation on early stereo recordings is gone, no more glare or shrill on loud passages.
2. Bass is cleaned up and orderly (Thiel speaker-like).
3. New lower level of background quietness.
4. Things were now a bit over-orderly, polite and I wanted a little more dazzle in the top end, so I..............tilted the angle of the speakers (Aerius) up to near vertical using composite grinding disks and pine samples (maple would be better) under the rear cone. Pace and rhythm seemed to pick back up, but at a small cost to height scale. My cat's head turned when the change was tossed in the drawer in Pink Floyd's "Money", the sparkle came back better than ever.
Rear Cone:
Speaker sand box foundation and steel top layer:
Turntable - Overall:
Turntable - Detail:
Last week I was in Overture Audio in Ann Arbor only to find they don't carry Gallo anymore (sorry to who ever was looking at Gallo). However I had a chance to look at their Quadraspire wall mounted TT shelves. The salesperson said of the three shelf options; the acrylic shelf sounds best, followed by the wood, and then the glass.
From my own home experiments of playing with marbles set in hard rubber furniture floor pads, different feet, and different shelves I felt he was not BS-ing me. However I could not argue either way because I've never had access to large thick sheets of affordable acrylic. They make TT's out of it, can't be bad, right?
Old set-up;
Seven years ago I had tuned by ear what I thought was best; TT on tempered glass sample (free-I'm an architect), the glass sitting on Audioquest sorbothane feet, sitting on thick maple butcher block with copper pipe legs and hard plastic end caps on fireplace floor/brick hearth.
My new set up cost about $40 for a 17" x 13" x 1/2" acrylic sheet, sourced from Plastic-Tech M&R in Ann Arbor.
New set-up;
TT on sorbothane feet on acrylic sheet on large $4 rubber stoppers from Stadium Hardware. Sitting on thick maple butcher block with copper pipe legs and hard plastic end caps on fireplace floor/brick hearth.
Results:
1. Mic saturation on early stereo recordings is gone, no more glare or shrill on loud passages.
2. Bass is cleaned up and orderly (Thiel speaker-like).
3. New lower level of background quietness.
4. Things were now a bit over-orderly, polite and I wanted a little more dazzle in the top end, so I..............tilted the angle of the speakers (Aerius) up to near vertical using composite grinding disks and pine samples (maple would be better) under the rear cone. Pace and rhythm seemed to pick back up, but at a small cost to height scale. My cat's head turned when the change was tossed in the drawer in Pink Floyd's "Money", the sparkle came back better than ever.
Rear Cone:
Speaker sand box foundation and steel top layer:
Turntable - Overall:
Turntable - Detail: