The Lack Table

Shrike,

As an all-metal spike clad ruthless killing machine would Mana not be a more appropriate choice?

Matthew

...by installing a spike under each leg. That way you can level the table out easily as well. I had such a setup for ~4 years.

Best regards,

Oliver

John. I also have my turntable, a LP12, on a Lack table, the rest of the equipment is on an old Target rack... Room for improvements I suppose but to my ears the tt sounds better on the Lack than on the Target.

Coredump, mine is spiked as well. I wonder if further improvements can be had by cutting out holes in the table ala QS reference?

Bjorne,

difficult to say IMHO as the 'Lack specifications' seem to change on a saisonal basis

My first Lack table was made of press board with some black coating; the legs were solid, made of chipboard (this was the one I used for the TT).

The next Lack I bought a year later or so had a hollow desktop made of plastik (with no wood-related stuff in it at all) and hollow legs.

I guess some customers didn't like their desktops bending under loads, because Ikea returned to solid desktops later on.

I don't know what the materials of choice are today.

I use two Lack tables. My rega 3 sits on one and a rega planet sits on the other. My 32.5 and NAP 90 sit underneath on concrete blocks on the floor. I really can't comment meaningfully on the sound - they are a big improvement over what I was using using before, but then anything would have been. However, they do seem to get out of the way of the music and my modest little system is sounding rather good to me.

We just bought a house with hardwood floors, which the previous owner had recently redone, and I have turned into a nervous nelly about scratching them. So I had the temerity to put those little clear stick-on bumpers - the ones you put on the inside corners of picture frames - on the bottom of my Lack legs. They made the table a little less solid due to the give of the bumpers. I expected the worse but it sounds better to me. More relaxed (in a good way) and open, snoother and warmer, and more "of a piece", with as good or better PRAT. I wonder if there is something working akin to the way quadraspire tables apparently work better when the nuts are done up quite loosely allowing more give in the rack?

Garth

Bjorne,

I was convinced by this guy at
http://members.shaw.ca/mikesae/supports.htm

He uses an expensive rack for all his equipment, but uses the Lack for his Rega turntable. (Go to bottom of page to see shots of them.)

He advises using spikes and also mentions mods for the table. I emailed him for info, and got the following replies:-

1) "I've never gutted a Lack myself, but have seen others who have. If you have a newer Lack (less than 5 years), you can expect a corrougated construction with paper fibre fill. What others have done is cut the bottom out with a jigsaw and hollowed the filling out. The innard is filled with aerosol foam insulation. The bottom cut-out can then reinstalled.

I haven't done it myself, so there may be some complication, I'm not sure.

The Lack should work with speakers- again, I haven't tried it. A lentil sized ball of blue-tack should be used to decouple the speaker to the Lack."

2) "I forgot to add that another mod is to simply cut a hole or square all the way through the top and leave it like that.
The aesthetics of this "bog seat" mod are nonexistant, but could be sonically worthwhile."

So there you have it. It seems a bit drastic to me, so I'm giving it a miss. But I hope you find it of interest.

John D. Rodger

Maybe the Lack tables are different in different countries. My table has hollow, plastic legs and the desktop also seems to be hollow. The table is quite light. I've had it for more than ten years. My turntable sounds better on it than on the Target rack. Might try one of the mods The Shrike mentions.

I've recently put all my kit on Lack tables to great effect. I really like the way they don't add any colour to the sound. Adding them had the effect of increasing the amount of time I spent listening, and the number of CD's I've re-discovered!
I tried spiking one table as levelling the kit was an issue on my wooden floor. Found the spiked table to be worse than the unspiked.this was particularly noticable on the CDS power supply. Now I only have a spiked one under my TT where the levelling is more critical.

While I have had to find space for 7 Lack tables I'm very pleased with the sonic results and it all only cost me £49. Can't imagine the sonic benefit of a Fraim is 20 times as great. WAF is another matter.

Good thread!
There is a three legged version of the lack table. If the rega planar table fits on top of that, leveling might be easier when its spiked?
Just a thought. This would mimic fraim and others who have a "3-legged" support.

Gunnar

Gunnar

I got hold of a three legged Lack in the hope of using this lighter and more stable structure. Problem was the top surface is too small for the feet of the Naim Kit (apart from my Nait 2 or Hicap which are currently in semi-retirement). The legs are also half the area of the square Lack and I'm worried the structure is more wobbly as a result. Might be worth trying a 10mm glass sheet on the top of three ball bearings on the top, but I suspect this might spoil whatever it is that makes the lack work.
Perhaps a bit like putting a glass sheet on top of a wobbly Quadraspire table.

I'm sure that shortening the legs would be good for stability though. Similarly glueing the legs in place with wood glue seems to help.

When I find something like the lack that makes things sound undeniably better I'm warry of changing things before I understand why it works in the first place. I spent two years with my speaker stands spikes sitting on screws in the floor before one day removing them and discovering how much better it was without.

John

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Luckins:
I've recently put all my kit on Lack tables to great effect. I really like the way they don't add any colour to the sound. Adding them had the effect of increasing the amount of time I spent listening, and the number of CD's I've re-discovered!

---

This is really interesting. John has CDS2, LP12,52/135's. Is anyone with expensive racks willing to get one of these cheap tables for a comparison?

Hi

Could someone provide me with the best (cheapest) place to get hold of spikes.
Thanks

John
This is not knowing but me guessing. Probably by putting a glass shelf on top won´t do any good. Most likely it will have a negative effect.
Shortening the legs is a good thought.That would likely have a postive effekt.
Gunnar

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scribemole:
Hi

Could someone provide me with the best (cheapest) place to get hold of spikes.
Thanks

---

Go to this site http://www.falcon-acoustics.co.uk/ and look under price list/cabinet accessories.

They have small spikes at £2.60 for 4, and large ones at £5.00 for 4.

I use the small ones under my Lack tables and the large ones under my speaker stands.

John D. Rodger

Garth,

My old apartment had prestine hardwood flooring and after trying a couple of various different sized 3M adhesive rubber feet under my old Lack TT table, I found the sound best without them.

Experimentation eventually got the better of me and I ended up using a product called Feltac - self-stick felt floor savers, available in 1" diameter pre-cut round pads of polyester felt material.

Sonically these offered the best performance over bare Lack leg ends and certainly far superior to stick on rubber pads.

Nowadays I run my old Lack table with spikes as I have carpeted floors, however, outside of the levelling advantage there isn't much in it over the adhesive hard felt on bare wood IME.

Craig

PS. Here is a link.

[This message was edited by Craig Best on TUESDAY 09 September 2003 at 01:38.]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the suggestion. I have used those on some other furniture - picked them up at the local dollar store which is where I get most of my system accesories now that I have a child and mortgage. I may even have some kicking around. I'll deinitely give them a try. Wonder how they work under MANA? insert wink graphic.

Cheers,
Garth