Vibration and Isolation

[Thoburn]

Hi Granger,

I like the glass bead idea to. IIRC you live in Colorado. I'm in Washington state. If we were closer I would happily split the purchase price with you.

I'm in Knoxville, TN.  I expect the cheapest shipping would cost the price of a whole bag of beads.  But thanks for the thought.

Won't the sand settle after a little while?  I suspect the glass beads do too.

I forgot to mention that as I added layers of sand I tapped around the frame with a rubber mallet to get the settling started. It has been a couple days now and I don't see any uneven settling. The bubble level show the same on the platter as it did in the beginning.

[bainjs]

What feet did you end up using? 

[Thoburn]

What feet did you end up using? 

I picked up 2 canisters of racket balls at Target for about $8. I cut them along the seem with a one sided razor. It was surprising how tough they are. There are 12 half-balls under the sand table. You can see their turquoise bottoms between the shelf and the sand box. The bottom of the sand box is 1/2 inch up from the bottom of the sides. I think I mentioned that I used 3/8 poly instead of the 1/4 mentioned in the design. I went with the 3/8 because my Scout II table is about 40 pounds and I wanted to spread the weight around as much as I could.

[bainjs]

Thanks, that's a pretty good idea.

Some people also use small super balls sitting in rubber washers or o rings to keep them from rolling and just sit the base on them.

Sounds like some experimenting coming up!

[Thoburn]

It has been about a month now and I have been checking the level of the turn table. No change so far. I think the tapping with must have helped a lot. Very pleased with the results.

[bainjs]

I'm thinking of building some for my speakers.  Would you still use the Raquet Balls as feet? I don't have carpet.

Thanks

[Grainger49]

Bainjs and I are considering build a couple of these for our turntables. 

Thanks for the update.

It has been about a month now and I have been checking the level of the turn table. No change so far. I think the tapping with must have helped a lot. Very pleased with the results.

[Thoburn]

I'm thinking of building some for my speakers.  Would you still use the Raquet Balls as feet? I don't have carpet.

Thanks

Hi,
I think for the price it is worth a try. I kind of like the superball in washer idea as well. I wonder if 'floating' speakers is the right thing to do. It seems to me that most speakers use spikes to 'anchor' them solidly to the floor. I think that keeping the driver frame from moving lets the cone transfer as much sound energy as possible. Just a guess on my part.

[Grainger49]

Joel sent the box, beautiful work!  I bought a bag of glass beads from Harbor Freight.  I have ordered a piece of glass and I have veneer to finish the box front and sides.  Then it all gets loaded into my shelf below my VPI table.  

Thanks to Joel (bainjs), and all the posters.  Here is hoping!

Edit: I thought this link was in here but I didn't find it this morning.  This is another vintage Bottlehead pRC:

http://www.cognitivevent.com/sandbox.html

[Thoburn]

I used 3/8 inch poly carbonate instead of glass as that is what the design called for. I have no idea if it makes much difference. Still no sign of uneven settling. I'd like to hear about other folks results. How is it sounding?

[Grainger49]

I think you were looking at the pRC site and I was looking at the Wardsweb site.  They call for slightly different setups.

[bainjs]

I went with the real cheap and made mine from 1/2" MDF.  No settling here either. 

[magnafuzz]

After reading this thread I built up a sandbox for my Rega Planar 3. I built it to match the dimensions of my TT to hide things away and tried to make it look like it was part of the TT. Now the base will match my Crack and soon to ship Seduction. I used 3/8" poly as well. For feet i used soft foam hockey pucks, works well. I also use them under my weighted speaker stands (my springy floor creaks and shakes when my speakers are directly on the floor).

[Grainger49]

Andrew,

That didn't look like a sandbox till I read the text.  I clicked on the thumbnail first.  It looks like a turntable with a "normal" base.  Nice job!

[4krow]

For those of you interested in using washers for super balls to sit in, I have been using Sorbothane rings for some of my projects. I found them on ebay for a really cheap price. They are 30D, which means they are soft. Each one is rated for 5#, so, a series of them would be very effective. I think I paid $9 postage paid, and shipped really fast.