Turntable Isolation Journey
“Nearing the end of my journey to solve footfall & feedback issues in my small-room “home office” system with very bouncy floor and flexible walls. Turntable is the only source here — and it’s a Clearaudio Innovation Compact with no suspension or special isolation feet. This system always sounded good, but was rendered nearly unusable at higher volumes due to turntable isolation that was inadequate relative to this room’s challenges. The worst artifact was when structure-borne feedback from the speakers would cause amp clipping on bass-heavy tracks. This clipping would manifest as an extremely loud singular POP sound, especially hitting the tweeters. It only occurred during the loudest parts of track with bass-heavy elements, and was so loud it was still significantly above the level of the music — much louder than a POP you would hear from vinyl surface defects. The POP sound was startling, and clearly very bad for tweeters (fortunately my Tannoys seem to have survived several of these incidents). For a time I thought these POPs were from static electricity discharge, but they were NOT. In my quest I tried many solutions and tweaks over a few months, and I’d like to share a rundown of what worked versus what didn’t.
What Helped (MVP products & tweaks):
Townshend Seismic Isolation platform — Single biggest difference maker, for combating both footfalls and structure-borne feedback from speakers. Amazingly-well designed and built. Leveling was a snap. Well worth the price! If you spend money on isolation, spend it here. Highly Recommended. I’m now considering more Townshend products for under my speakers and in the big loft rig.
