mjp
Founding member
I like bass. Not Bass the fish, bass the low frequency sound. It's an essential ingredient in a lot of the music I listen to, so I have a set up that puts out a lot of low frequency sound. You feel those low frequencies as much as you hear them, and I like to really feel them. If you were ever at a live reggae show that I mixed, you may still be vibrating. You're welcome.
But a couple weeks ago I was playing a wonderful record by the late dub poet Michael Smith, and admittedly I was playing it quite loudly, and suddenly I started to get a low frequency feedback that sounded like a distressed whale. I lowered the volume and put my fingers on the turntable and it was vibrating like a motherfucker in time with the bass line.
My subwoofer sits on a wooden floor that has nothing but a crawlspace below it (typical Southern California construction), so the entire floor kind of resonates with the subwoofer. Which is usually quite wonderful, but apparently the turntable disagrees.
I looked to the audiophile gods to find something to dampen the vibration, but as audiophiles do, they recommended things like hardwood platforms floating in sand from an acoustically resonant beach in the South Pacific that I could pick up for a mere $1200 or $1500.
So I went to do some research on my own and much reading about expensive solutions or ugly DIY solutions eventually lead me to these stupid rubber feet (a.k.a. IsoNode Pro Anti-Vibration Feet)
The reviews for these things that were written by audiophiles are hilarious, going on and on about a lot of voodoo snake oil bullshit like increases in soundstage depth and dynamic attack. I just wanted something to soak up the vibrations and stop the feedback, and for that, these things are just the ticket. I put them on my turntable and they absorb a good 90% of the bass rumble.
I put them on my amp and CD player too (because I don't want to fuck those things up with unnecessary shaking, rattling or rolling), and I can't feel any vibration at all on those components now. So these are pretty cool. As an added bonus they also negate the effects of heavy footsteps, the dumping of lifeless bodies or other things that tend to make your records skip.
At about $5 each they are probably expensive, but since I found them after looking at things that cost 200 times that much, they seemed cheap. If you need to isolate something that is affected by vibrations or causes vibrations, or just enjoy a reasonable amount of bass in your music, I would recommend them.
Or you could just wad up some paper napkins...probably have the same effect.
But a couple weeks ago I was playing a wonderful record by the late dub poet Michael Smith, and admittedly I was playing it quite loudly, and suddenly I started to get a low frequency feedback that sounded like a distressed whale. I lowered the volume and put my fingers on the turntable and it was vibrating like a motherfucker in time with the bass line.
My subwoofer sits on a wooden floor that has nothing but a crawlspace below it (typical Southern California construction), so the entire floor kind of resonates with the subwoofer. Which is usually quite wonderful, but apparently the turntable disagrees.
I looked to the audiophile gods to find something to dampen the vibration, but as audiophiles do, they recommended things like hardwood platforms floating in sand from an acoustically resonant beach in the South Pacific that I could pick up for a mere $1200 or $1500.
So I went to do some research on my own and much reading about expensive solutions or ugly DIY solutions eventually lead me to these stupid rubber feet (a.k.a. IsoNode Pro Anti-Vibration Feet)
I put them on my amp and CD player too (because I don't want to fuck those things up with unnecessary shaking, rattling or rolling), and I can't feel any vibration at all on those components now. So these are pretty cool. As an added bonus they also negate the effects of heavy footsteps, the dumping of lifeless bodies or other things that tend to make your records skip.
At about $5 each they are probably expensive, but since I found them after looking at things that cost 200 times that much, they seemed cheap. If you need to isolate something that is affected by vibrations or causes vibrations, or just enjoy a reasonable amount of bass in your music, I would recommend them.
Or you could just wad up some paper napkins...probably have the same effect.