el cheapo granite plinth - £13 at Asda

Was wandering around asda this evening picking up some food (the first and *last* time I'll ever go on a saturday evening) and stumbled accross something I've been looking for for quite a while

decent size, bigger than others i've stumbled accross at 35x40cm, 2cm thick solid granite chopping board - no handles, no markings, just a plain slab of polished granite, black/grey, perfect! - and only £13


Just a heads up if anyone else is looking out for something of the sort

 

Thanks - might pick on up to place under my TT for a bit of isolation. The price is pretty good too!

 

I picked up 2 40cm x 40cm x 30mm granite slabs from Focus DIY (in their gardening section) last weekend for £11.86 for the 2 - they make very solid speaker plinths, and I guess you could use them for TT supports if you needed to.

 

£9.00 ish in tesco ..... size is the foot print of my A5 so about 50cmx 40cm

Black fine grained dolerite .....

I've picked up three ....sat under the A5 I'm modding does tighten up the sound.

I'm going to remove the a5's feet and bolt the "granite" to the base of the cdp If I can work out a easy method of drilling it ...if not I'll epoxy some threaded rod and use an outer sleeve to tension the cdp.

If you can attach the slab to the player etc you do more than provide a sold base...you add mass and rigidity to the structure...

 

Ah well, it appears it wasn't as good a find as I thought

I've been passively looking for something for my cdp for quite a while and not seen anything that is of a sufficient size, granite and unmarked/no handles etc

 

I've got one of the Asda ones standing on 4 70s Microsorber feet under my amp. Dunno if it sounds any good but it's somewhere to keep the amp so I can't hit it with the hoover!

Tony.

 

I bought 4 of these when I first got my NAS last year (although I paid a tenner each ). They're sitting under the speaker stands now - I think they make a difference

 

..interesting. might try this with my Teach VRDS player. In fact I am looking to completely re-design the audio racking I currently use as it's all on a glass shelf system at the moment, looks great but would prefer better isolation.

It's all stored in a corner recess in the room so am thinking of building a steel frame in the recess which will be bolted to the solid walls and then fabricating a wood and granite isolation floating shelf system that is ultimately supported by the steel frame but dresses it too so you can not see the ugly steel.

Got it all planned out in the mind, but making it a reality is another matter lol.

 

Be warned granite by its self rings it must damped.I've found either dynamat or the resting in a sand filled plinth works real well.I use a 4" thick slab in a sand filled plinth for my power supplies [preamp&cdp] with great effect.Bottom line much more information and a lower noise floor.Mass is agood thing if the coupling to the component is considered.Small wood blocks such as maple,poplar,etc.works quite effectively. Happy experimenting rollo

 

Goomer

are these smooth/flat ? Also, looked on their website and I can't find them. Are they paving slabs?

 

Flat/smooth one side, and flat/slightly rough on the other side and on the edges - definitely not polished anywhere. They were in the outdoor/gardening section so I'd assume they are intended as paving slabs, although I couldn't find them on the Focus site when I just looked but they had them in store earlier this afternoon.

 

You should be able to drill it with a decent masonry bit run at high speed but it will get very hot so you have to do it under running water. Get an accomplice armed with a kettle or large jug - you'll need both hands on the drill to apply enough pressure. It will take a while to get through. I suggest you put something underneath to drill into. A piece of spare flat paving slab or a brick. A piece of wood would probably do at a pinch.

 

...or better still, rent the proper granite drill bits from a hire store

 

yeah, nothing worse than having a few holes in the floor...

 

Drilling granite should be done at slow speed.

 

I have played around a little more with shelves plinths and feet.

I have a metal rack / thick plate glass shelved rack. Ages ago I drilled and sand filled the metal tubes of the rack.
This was worth doing.

The plate glass shelves are pretty heavy but they have always sat on little rubber bungs to stop them sliding about on the metal rack.
Having re-fitted the wooden cone feet on the Copland CDP (I am using different tubes to the ones I had when I last tried this) and liking the result, I decided to tighten up the rack.
I removed the rubber feet for each shelf and hard expoxied the glass straight on.

The result was as big as the cone feet. More bass control, bass detail and snapp.

I then put a Tesco £9 granite board under the CDP and one on top of it. Extra mass was my thinking / damping.

Too early to say what difference the granite has a had but it is def. not worse.