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I have a solid maple Mapleshade turntable slab (24x18x4) atop one of their Samson equipment racks. For the last couple of months, one of my audio-buddies has been raving about the benefits of using bamboo. He has been getting bamboo cutting boards from IKEA and has been putting them under all of his components to -- what he says -- is great effect. He had been using Mapleshade Isoblocks.
So I'm wondering if any of you guys has tried putting bamboo under your turntable. Maple does have a bit of "ring" to it when subjected to the knuckle-rap test, but I cannot tell if its affecting the sound or not.
Thanks.
Follow Ups:
Hi Chuck, I use a bamboo cutting board under my slate-plinthed, PTP Lenco. I use my home-made (tiptoe cum cans of mandarin orange slices in water) feet between the slate slab and the bamboo surface. Then the bamboo sits on a slab of very heavy duty industrial grade packing material, kind of like super styrofoam. The packing material is very low density, and it sits on an old dining room buffet side board, which sits on a concrete floor in our basement. The Lenco sounds great, but who can say what the bamboo is doing? I do like it though because of its being light per unit of volume (so not to store energy) and very stiff and strong.
Thanks for the inputs, guys. I might try Duster's approach. I already have some BDR pucks -- carbon fiber disks? -- and maybe some grundgebuster dots. A composite bamboo board atop my maple platform might work well for another reason as well. My maple platform is not quite large enough to allow me to put on a dust cover. If I make the bamboo board a bit oversized, I could rest a the cover on it. Food for thought.
Duster, do you know who could make me a board at a reasonable price?
VPI turntables benefit from a solid support to the center of the earth. The stock footers are pliable...check out BearPaws from Vermont Audio. These are large cones that absolutely stabilize the turntable. They replace the stock footer...unscrew the old ones, screw in the new ones. The increase in sound performance is clearly heard.
BDR pucks with Thin grungebuster Dots (adhesive-backed option) might be an excellent thing. What width and length board would be ideal for your particular application?
half inch Foamed aluminum with 1/8 inch sorbathane or other soft synthetic layer glued to one side. Soft side down to damp the shelf With TT legs on the hard side. Remove TT legs and have soft side up to damp bottom of the plinth.
Edits: 04/28/15
Which is just a nice looking wooden box (probably MDF, but I don't know) with sand inside, for a platform shelf. My opinion is that once it is dead to, say, knuckle raps, that is pretty good. I am sure that if I put maple blocks under all my equipment, that it would sound pretty fabulous, but I'm not at the point of listening to needle drops just yet!
The turntable is probably the most important to isolate properly.
I've advocated implementing laminated bamboo boards for vibration control purposes for quite some time now. It can be a good tool for system tuning purposes.
Thick maple boards squash dynamics, IME. Perhaps the enormous Mapleshade brass cones and Isoblock rubber/cork pads would counteract this finding. However, I found that implementing a thick maple board as a base layer (spiked to the floor in my case), then positioning another type of board on top of it, with vibration control pads placed between the two boards acting as a vibration blocking layer can be a very good thing, rather than a constrained layer sheet which can produce too much damping for the purpose. It's important to allow the bamboo board to resonate to a degree rather than totally deaden it. Customized system tuning efforts can be accomplished by experimenting with various types of vibration control footers placed above *and* below the bamboo board positioned on top of the thick maple board.
For your application, I suggest placing a 3/4" laminated bamboo board on top of the thick maple board, with a set of four Herbie's Audio Lab Big Fat Dots (dBNeutralizer pads) placed between the two boards acting as a vibration blocking layer material. However, recent experiments using a set of four carbon fiber composite discs, with a Herbie's audio Lab Thin grungebuster Dot affixed both above *and* below each carbon fiber composite disc performs even better, IME. Additional vibration control footers placed under the component positioned on top of the bamboo board is advisable, since the sonic characteristics of the bamboo material tends to interact well with vibration control footers, IME. YMMV
Hi,
I don't know for turntables but on other experiments I found Bamboo plywood sounded like birch plywood. I betters highs and to be balanced need to be glued on spruce plywood
What do you suppose the maple slab is intended to accomplish?
What do you have between the component's bottom and the maple slabs? Stock footers?
Why do you think a 4" think slab of maple would ring? Especially if it has a 50 or 100 lbs. component placed on top?
Seriously, what do you really hope to accomplish here?
How is your buddy's execution with the bamboo any different than your execution? Does he use stock footers for contacting the bamboo?
Bamboo is a harder material than Maple, but without proper execution it really doesn't matter.
A harder material or wood will transfer unwanted mechanical energy at a faster rate than say balsa wood. But then, you probably aren;t interested in transferring unwanted energy. I'm guessing you're more interested in isolating unwanted mechanical energy. If this is the case, how do you suppose the harder bamboo is going to isolate vibrations better than the softer maple?
On the other hand, when it comes to expedient transfer rates, even brass is slow. And if that is true, how much slower would wenge, bamboo or hard maple be in comparison?
But again, you should really ask yourself what it is that you're hoping to accomplish.
I recall speaking to Harry Weisfeld about base material. He recommended a combination of metal and MDF with a glue between for constrained layer damping. I bet this concept would also make a fine table support also.
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