What should stand my Naim CD player on, if I don't own a FRAIM? (a support on a shoestring budget)

Wife love’s it though

AlanJ posted:

I wouldnt wish IKEA on my worst enemy.   I feel nothing but abject despair the second I enter the place .... ????

???? ALANJ,....Just so I don't misunderstand you, is it my detailed recommendations on Ikea Lack (named so in Sweden),with background description that you are opposing you against....or is it other Ikea products,which have been mentioned here in the thread by others.??

Your post was to say the least,in my opinion a bit unclear.

/Peder ????

Peder.... neither of those things.... just expressing my overall aversion to shopping..... well, for anything other than hifi ????

Be assured, no offence was intended.

???? ALANJ,....Top ????????, then I'm with ????.

/Peder ????

SamClaus posted:

Vintageaxeman

Have you tried isolation platforms made by Audiophile Base, Avid or Hifi racks - they are between £150 and £200  and they seem to do the job. I'm sure there are other brands.

Hi Sam

Haven't tried them, I am really looking for advice on which are the best materials to use for a DIY solution under my CD555. It has solid aluminium feet, with NO rubber o-rings. So should I use a timber panel, reconstituted bamboo, a composite, a Corian panel, glass, metal?  Should it be a lightweight rigid material or a heavy dense material? And should it have pointy conical feet, metal feet with a ball bearing in it, or soft materials? You see my problem? I have a very limited budget to complete the job, and I can't waste it on trying endless combinations. So I'm searching for advice from you guys who are more experienced in using Naim kit than I am. Cheers!

Best thing about Ikea are the meatballs, gravy and chips with the lingoberry jam.

Appreciate this is not of much use to the OP, although could 3 meatballs be used under the CD player.

They won't be coming off my plate. They're too good. I wonder what a bike inner tube filled with Lingonberry sauce as a damping material would do for the sound.....? :-)

My CDX2 has similar feet - I think someone on the forum (Simon-in-Suffolk?) said that it should sit on wood or glass, not on a metal stand.

SamClaus posted:

My CDX2 has similar feet - I think someone on the forum (Simon-in-Suffolk?) said that it should sit on wood or glass, not on a metal stand.

Yeah I read that too. I think I'm going to try a wooden base, supported by absorbent sorbogel feet to assist in keeping the vibrations in the furniture underneath from transferring upwards into the CD player.

I had great success with Sorbothane,  I used 19mm hemispheres; these snugged nicely into the CDX2 hollow feet & when compressed by the weight of the unit it had about 1mm of fully compresssed sorbothane to ‘wobble’ on.    But be warned;  it worked (sounded) very well with the CDX2 on my all wood rack,  not so on my mates glass topped Fraim. 

I used a glass franke chopping board under my CDS2, it saw excellent, definatley brought the sound into focus. It was flat on one side, that went straight onto wooden rack (Corras), the CDS2 was possitioned between the upturned feet. No balls and nuts required.

I wouldn't put sorbothane under the CD555 or any player with solid feet. The feet are solid (not wobblesum) for a reason. All wobbling takes place inside the player.

fatcat posted:

I used a glass franke chopping board under my CDS2, it saw excellent, definatley brought the sound into focus. It was flat on one side, that went straight onto wooden rack (Corras), the CDS2 was possitioned between the upturned feet. No balls and nuts required.

I wouldn't put sorbothane under the CD555 or any player with solid feet. The feet are solid (not wobblesum) for a reason. All wobbling takes place inside the player.

Your last point is one I had considered.....I think that having any support which has ANY flexibility is going to 'confuse' the spring suspension system INSIDE my CD555, and complicate its job.

A bit like the following video, showing a circus performer who has to actively move his body parts to maintain balance on a complicated, flexible structure. He is responding actively, using his senses, to maintain his position and balance. A CD player just can't do that. SO I think you are right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPXMr-mHiHA

vintageaxeman posted:

SamClaus posted:

Vintageaxeman

Have you tried isolation platforms made by Audiophile Base, Avid or Hifi racks - they are between £150 and £200  and they seem to do the job. I'm sure there are other brands.

Hi Sam

Haven't tried them, I am really looking for advice on which are the best materials to use for a DIY solution under my CD555. It has solid aluminium feet, with NO rubber o-rings. So should I use a timber panel, reconstituted bamboo, a composite, a Corian panel, glass, metal?  Should it be a lightweight rigid material or a heavy dense material? And should it have pointy conical feet, metal feet with a ball bearing in it, or soft materials? You see my problem? I have a very limited budget to complete the job, and I can't waste it on trying endless combinations. So I'm searching for advice from you guys who are more experienced in using Naim kit than I am. Cheers!

Your cupboard seems sturdy enough by your description, so that extra isolation might make no difference.   The thing with a diy solution for support is that there is no way of predicting what works better.  When I had a system in a cupboard I used black granite shelves made up from a stone mason, that fitted on top of the existing shelf with three Nordost Pulsar Points between them. Seemed to workout not too bad.

Unfortunately with a diy solution you run the risk when listening, on hearing into what the support is contributing or not, and thinking on ways to change, and what those changes make to the music - rather than relaxing into the music itself.

I remember once talking about Fraim to Norman Solomon, who used to run the Naim dealer UHES. He had a lot of posh customers, some of whom didn’t wish to see Fraim on view in their posh houses. The solution was to place a bottomless cupboard around the system. Something like the CD555 really deserves a good support to operate as it should. The problem with heavy supports such as solid hardwood or granite is that it stores rather than transmits energy. I wonder if it’s possible to cut a hole in the base of the cupboard, which would enable a proper hifi stand to be installed within.

hungryhalibut posted:

The problem with heavy supports such as solid hardwood or granite is that it stores rather than transmits energy. 

Agree with,...and that is precisely what,among other things,is the secret of "Ikea Lack",and that makes the modified table so good.
There are more modifications you can make to the modern Ikea Lack,but that I tell you about,.. if it becomes relevant for you to try out Ikea Lack.

But I understand that you do not have room for such a solution,but the table is so cheap so you should buy one and modify it according to my image.

Just to see where you end up in Soundquality, then you have a reference to work towards, when you try to find a solution that works for you.

/Peder ????

I would be more concerned with cables in the cupboard. Presuming that the back has been taken out.  Still, wrangling that big burndy must be a pig at the back.  Perhaps negating any effort to improve on isolating.

TOBYJUG posted:

I would be more concerned with cables in the cupboard. Presuming that the back has been taken out.  Still, wrangling that big burndy must be a pig at the back.  Perhaps negating any effort to improve on isolating.

That Burndy? What Burndy? :-) There's TWO of the buggers!  And yes, you're absolutely right. Cabling everything is a sod.

put it anywhere you want, at the end of the day, specially in the middle of the night, it makes no difference.     

There are various solutions to put under a component to reduce vibrations.  I generally prefer a properly designed shelf but if there's no room various footers can help.  I've recently tried a product from isoacoustics called orea that was remarkably effective under my dac (which was and still is stacked on another component).   Relatively affordable too. 

You could try a nice rattan/wicker placemat. Have read that they were very popular with valve owners in the 60s and 70s used on the tops of sideboards.

I would imagine giving the best out of rigid and compliance.  Would also soak up and transmit energy in a totally organic way.

My cupboard is a huge old Indian rosewood style TV cabinet, which is big enough for an old CRT style TV and video recorder, so it is  deep. It is around 6ft tall. I have fitted shelves in it. We also have 2 large coffee tables and a second store cabinet in the same style. It just fits in with our decor and style, even though in lots of ways I would like to have exposed hifi components, it's just not going to happen. But I know that the cabinet, like ANYTHING in the room, WILL resonate, so I want to isolate my CD player by standing it on a somewhat isolated support, within the cabinet. Get it now? :-)

 

VAM, I had a similar situation several years ago. For domestic reasons, the system had to reside in large, heavy cabinet with doors on the front. What I did was to decouple the shelves from the rest of the cabinet by ungluing and unscrewing them from the batons that held them in the unit and replacing them again, just sitting on domed nuts inserted in the batons. This (I think) gave some degree of decoupling for those shelves from the much greater mass of the whole unit. I then put all the boxes on Audiophile Base platforms, which have Sorbothane feet and a basic suspension. If you can do something similar it may be worth investigating. Good luck!

TOBYJUG posted:

You could try a nice rattan/wicker placemat. Have read that they were very popular with valve owners in the 60s and 70s used on the tops of sideboards.

I would imagine giving the best out of rigid and compliance.  Would also soak up and transmit energy in a totally organic way.

or also put at the front of a door, for shoes....

I have an Alphason AV stand that has the TV supported on a bracket connected directly to the back of the stand, this transmits vibrations into all components on the glass shelves, The only solution I have found that works, was to place Brightstar Isonodes under the Naim gear, they completely decouple the equipment from the stand and had a positive impact on the sound. Not sure if they will help in a wooden cabinet, but worth looking into. Atb, Simon.

kevin J Carden posted:

My cupboard is a huge old Indian rosewood style TV cabinet, which is big enough for an old CRT style TV and video recorder, so it is  deep. It is around 6ft tall. I have fitted shelves in it. We also have 2 large coffee tables and a second store cabinet in the same style. It just fits in with our decor and style, even though in lots of ways I would like to have exposed hifi components, it's just not going to happen. But I know that the cabinet, like ANYTHING in the room, WILL resonate, so I want to isolate my CD player by standing it on a somewhat isolated support, within the cabinet. Get it now? :-)

 

VAM, I had a similar situation several years ago. For domestic reasons, the system had to reside in large, heavy cabinet with doors on the front. What I did was to decouple the shelves from the rest of the cabinet by ungluing and unscrewing them from the batons that held them in the unit and replacing them again, just sitting on domed nuts inserted in the batons. This (I think) gave some degree of decoupling for those shelves from the much greater mass of the whole unit. I then put all the boxes on Audiophile Base platforms, which have Sorbothane feet and a basic suspension. If you can do something similar it may be worth investigating. Good luck!

Hi Kevin.

That's exactly my kind of cupboard and my kind of problem, exacerbated by the fact that my Naim power supply hums a lot, so this is going in the 'underneath' section of the cabinet.

I had already unglued the shelves from the battens and put foam damping strips between the shelves and the battens.. Hadn't considered domed nuts. Thank you for that. I have also found a product called Dibond which is very rigid & light, and I might find a use for.

Cheers mate.

TOBYJUG posted:

You could try a nice rattan/wicker placemat. Have read that they were very popular with valve owners in the 60s and 70s used on the tops of sideboards.

I would imagine giving the best out of rigid and compliance.  Would also soak up and transmit energy in a totally organic way.

Quite like the idea of those! Cheers!