Vinyl Asylum: REVIEW: Grand Prix Audio Brooklands Wall Shelf Accessory by FolkFreak

Model:	Brooklands Wall Shelf
Category:	Accessory
Suggested Retail Price:	$2250
Description:	Carbon fiber and acrylic isolated single wall shelf
Manufacturer URL:	Grand Prix Audio
Model Picture:	View

Review by FolkFreak ( A ) on August 07, 2005 at 10:41:21
IP Address: 71.106.10.163

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At a basic level the problem of reproducing music in the home can be reduced to two basic challenges. The first is the challenge of getting more of the signal captured in the underlying media out. This is the stuff of many if not most equipment reviews (â€œuntil I upgraded to component X I never knew what was in my records/CDs etcâ€). The second challenge is that of keeping extraneous influences away from the precious signal. As far as vinyl reproduction is concerned the Grand Prix Audio Brooklands wall shelf is strong testament to how profound an impact addressing this challenge can have.
Description and Installation
A wall shelf intended for supporting a turntable needs to do three things well. Firstly it needs to provide a solid and secure platform, able to bear the weight of the turntable laced upon it. Secondly it should isolate the turntable from wall borne and/or air borne vibrations. Thirdly it must provide a means of leveling the table. The Brooklands takes a rigorous approach to each of these three requirements. As a result it is a component that imposes certain demands upon anyone intending to purchase it. The first of these is cost, at $2,250 for a single shelf unit this is not cheap by any means. But secondly and more importantly it makes certain demands in terms of installation. The Brooklands is designed to fix directly into three sets of studs spaced 16 inches apart and on a wall that is flat to tight tolerances. Finally it is a large and quite visually imposing component â€“ or in the words of my wifeâ€™s best friend â€œa monstrosityâ€ â€“ personally I think it attractive in a form follows function way. In most real world installations you will need a three foot square wall area to install a single shelf Brooklands.
The Brooklands is quite simple in design â€“ a carbon fiber rear mount attached through two bolts and isolated by sorbothane from a standard style Grand Prix audio carbon fiber, sorbothane puck and acrylic shelf setup. The dimensions of the shelf are 23.5 inches wide by 18.5 inches deep which is adequate for most but the largest turntables. The system can also be ordered with an additional lower shelf for a further $1,995. The art of the Brooklands is in the horizontal and vertical support through rigid but adjustable links fixed to well designed mounts that fix at four points in the wall. The links are isolated from the mounts via a ball and cup arrangement. Additional photographs can be found in my picture gallery
Installation is actually quite simple, but not a job for one person. Each of the vertical and horizontal mounts is attached via a 3â€ bolt directly into the stud. A well designed mounting template ensuring that all the holes are placed as they should be. As the guinea pig installer of Brooklands serial #2 and the first to be put up by a member of the public (#1 is at Brooks Berdanâ€™s Monrovia store) I strongly recommend reading and following to the letter the instructions, and taking your time to pre-drill, pre-thread and carefully torque down the four mounting bolts. The links in the lower mounting bolts are secured by Spirolox retaining rings which can be a challenge to get in but yield to patience and young fingers. Once installed leveling the Brooklands is a pleasure. Each of the vertical and horizontal links has a screw thread and sleeve adjustment arrangement that make it very easy to get extremely fine leveling. Overall installation took about 2 and a half hours including a trip to the hardware store for longer bolts once we discovered that on one of the two sides of the shelf we did not have a stud, and instead needed to drill through the wall into a fitted shelf behind â€“ once again check that you have the pre-requisites for installation before you order one of these!
The Sound of a Shelf
How much has the experience of music reproduced in the home really improved over the last one hundred years? As part of an episode of NPRâ€™s â€œThis American Lifeâ€ last week they played some songs off an Edison cylinder (on a system that in todayâ€™s dollars would have cost the equivalent of a real high end rig). Despite the limited frequency range and distortion I was struck by the immediacy of the sound, by the directness of the connection to the singer projecting into the recording horn. Too many modern recordings are so processed, so sliced into pieces and reassembled that you too often find yourself listening to a collage of snippets, each impressive in its own right but never adhering into a musical whole.
Getting the Brooklands into my system helped me appreciate how true this phenomena is of vinyl reproduction. Freeing LP reproduction from the insults of vibration conducted through the environment creates a sense of â€˜continuousnessâ€™ to the sound that I had never heard before. What do I mean by continuousness? I mean the experience of listening to a singer recording the song in one take, of their anticipating the next breath, the next pause and readying themselves to sing again. Having relieved the stylus of the challenges of feedback from the bass line on Holly Coleâ€™s version of â€œJersey Girlâ€ we can hear her every inflection, the way she breathes and the line of the song extending throughout the whole piece. Similarly Jerry Donahueâ€™s guitar line in â€œThe Seaâ€ from Fotheringay cuts and eddies through the song in a smooth, uninterrupted flow.
Often I have found myself listening to records and zooming in on one instrument and then like the hummingbirds in my garden darting to another. While impressed by the razzle dazzle of the bass drum here, or the guitar solo there I never had the sense of how it all comes together as I now get with the LP really isolated from its environment. Itâ€™s not that I had not taken this seriously before â€“ the Orbe had been sitting on the top shelf of a Grand Prix Monaco stand, itself further isolated on Apex isolators. The reason for my being an early adopter of Brooklands had primarily been to deal with footfall problems I was still experiencing â€“ a transformation in sound turned out to be a bonus.
Getting the environment out of the way lets you appreciate how much intricate detail is captured in our records. The slow fade in to â€œTelegraph Roadâ€ seems to last another minute longer, and solo lines fade deeper then ever before into the mix. One strange side effect of adding the shelf is that I found myself sitting waiting until each track was completely finished rather than leaping up and switching to another LP â€“ testament to how much the cartridge was now free to focus only on getting signal out of the groove.
In conclusion the Brooklands shelf is a strongly recommended extension of Alvin Lloydâ€™s design philosophy that any high end turntable owner who has the means (fiscal and structural) to afford it should consider. More fundamentally however the Brooklands is testament to the importance of isolating the turntable from the external environment â€“ a message that all LP lovers no matter what their budget should take to heart, for if not how can you ever be sure how much of what you are hearing is the continuous soul of the music inscribed in the disc, and how much is simply the battle with coloration?

Product Weakness: Demanding of the walls it can be installed on
Installation takes care and time
Product Strengths: Ease of use once installed
It does what it should -- it isolates the turntable from its environment

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	Air Tight ATM-2 Dual Mono, EAR KT-88
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	Hovland HP-200
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Michelle Orbe, SME-IV, Lyra Titan
Speakers:	Martin Logan Summit/Descent
Cables/Interconnects:	Nordost Valhalla, Quattro-Fil
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Rock, folk -- high level dynamic vocal with strong bass
Room Size (LxWxH):	30' x 15' x 8-12'
Room Comments/Treatments:	Limited
Time Period/Length of Audition:	2 weeks
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Nordost Thor, Vishnus
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	Demanding of the walls it can be installed on Installation takes care and time
Product Strengths:	Ease of use once installed It does what it should -- it isolates the turntable from its environment