Peter_F

Yepp 100% agree with this. Failing that, a Technics SL1000 MKII with a SME V or Triplanar tonearm would be my personal choice over any of the other suggestions here. IME there is no TT that can compete with a SL1000 MKII for the money. Having said that I prefer a Japanese DD over anything belt or idler driven, with the only exception being a Thorens TD124 MKII if I had to settle for something else.

Some pics would be helpful, but at a pinch I'd suggest veneered chipboard.

Is the suspension on the deck correctly set, ie not too low? The armboard already looks lower/thinner than the standard Thorens armboard so not sure if the arm is compatible with the deck to be fully optimised?

Install a thinner armboard?

Wow, I thought I was the only one that still listened to that album! 👊

All good mate. 😎

I guess pictures do lie then!

I can only go by the pictures but the speakers don't look particularly sturdy with rubber squares placed on the carpet underneath the wooden board. I would've taken a different approach but if you think you've improved the situation then that's all that matters.

I don't understand why anybody would put 25mm anything under a LP12. I'm led to believe that LP12's perform better on a light structure/platform. 25mm slate would have turned the squash balls into plain old rubber feet I would have thought? Feel free to disagree, but the tension on the walls of the balls are doing the work - not air. If you inhibit the walls you impede the decoupling. Racquet balls are different to the Spalding general purpose balls that I use on my TT. Racquet balls are about 3/4 the size of the Spalding.

What are you trying to achieve? Are the speakers and stands coupled or is there movement? If there is any movement then the speaker setup may not be optimised. I think you only have to look at the intent of Mike Lenehan's over engineered high mass speaker stands to understand what is required to get the best out of speakers. Anything soft, mushy or flimsy I believe is working against the speaker.

Easy! I actually did my own extensive research into this. I identified the limits of numerous items, including squash balls and other balls. I've determined the appropriate weight of several types of balls to suit the application or weight. Because they inhibit the decoupling effect by restricting the walls of the balls to effectively work as a spring. If you need bottle tops to stop your TT rolling off the edge of a cliff then clearly the weight is too light for the balls to have any real effect. The bottle tops work against the balls. Like cleaning a record then sprinkling some dust on it. Andy, the blue balls are not squash balls, and they're 2 or 3 times the size of squash balls. Note the compression of the Spalding balls, they're clearly unable to roll away, and sitting perfectly to allow uninhibited decoupling. The 38kg monolith virtually floats on the balls yet is unable to move from its position. Haha no Andy I never considered hitting the granite platform with a hammer, it could break. But, with every test I've tried nothing has been able to interrupt the TT during playback, so yes complete decoupling.

Unfortunately most hifi people completely misunderstand the concept of decoupling, it appears lost to them. Even those who use milk bottle tops to stop the squash balls rolling their TT off the shelf is sadly hilarious. The milk bottle tops actually inhibit the decoupling effect created by the compressed walls of the balls. IME never use more than 4 balls. If they are insufficient then need to use balls of a higher compliance. I use these $2.00 Spalding balls under my 38kg TT with complete decoupling effect. I replace them every 6 months at a significant cost of $8.00 each time.

The max weight for effective decoupling using 4 x squash balls is 12 - 14kg otherwise they're completely useless

Price drop folks - local pickup only thanks.

Hi Vichy At this stage hoping for local pickup, but if I decide to ship I'll let you know. Cheers Pete