The Joy of Maple

[tmazz]

I recently went over to the home of an audio buddy to help him set up a new turntable. The tble turned out to be too big for the top shelf of his rack so he purchased a piece of 18x24x1.75 inch maple butcher block to put on top of the shelf and expand its size a bit. I was very impressed with the quality of the butcher block and the price he got it for online and since the cutting board in my kitchen was starting to warp I decided to order one as a surprise for my wife.

The butcher block arrived last week and just as I was opening it my son Bobby walked into the room. He took one look at the butcher block and said "Dad, you are going to put that uder the turntable for a test drive before it goies into the kitchen, aren't you?" (Bless his heart, I must have done something right raising him.  :nodding)

When we moved and combined our two households we ended up with a set of end tables that weren't going to really fit anywhere in the new house that had 1/2 slate inlays onthe tops. So I took out the slate before we junked the tables and put i under my TT because the cabinet top it was sitting on was not a firm as I would have liked it. So we listened to some music (The RCA Living Stereo Riener/Chicago Symphony recording of Pictures at an exhibition reissued on 180g vinyl by Classic Records) and with a little help from my son we swapped out the maple for the slate and listened again. Within about 4 bars both of our jaws hit the floor. The SQ was better along every one of the audiophile metrics we look for  width, height, depth,  detail, bass extention, you name it. My son'r girlfriend was also there and although she knows nothing about stereos, she is a music mahjor at Queens College. Her comment was it was like the difference between siging in the school cafeteria and siging in the concert hall a queens that was designed from the ground up for auoustic music performances. She was particularly impressed by how much more of a sence of the hall she had with the mapleunder the TT.

The bottom line here is that if you don't have a block of maple under your TT you owe it to yourselves to give it a try. In audiophile terms it is a cheap tweek (I paid less than $70 for the butcher block including all taxes and shipping ) And it is relatively wife friendly (although I do have to admit that my wife wants me to stain the butcher block a dark walnut coler to mather the cabinet it is stiing on, but that is no big deal)

Here is a link to the ebay page that I bought the maple from:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/111744613307?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[rpf]

Yes, maple rocks. Okay, it is a pun.

But it is true. I have my speakers on maple platforms and they sound a lot better than just on metal spikes to the floor.

Saving up for a pair of the 4" Mapleshade maple speaker platforms for hopefully even better sound.

Tom, did your wife get her own maple cutting board yet?  

[jimbones]

I think it makes the sound too syrupy 

[BobM]

I bought a couple of cans of squash balls, about 8-10 balls, and put them between my maple board and the shelf, creating a poor man's Ginko Cloud, of sorts. Makes for a very nice isolation platform for the turntable. Easily passes the thump test

(put the needle down on a record when the platter is not spinning and tap the rack and the shelf - if you hear a thump through the speakers you need more isolation - now try it with those squash balls in place - little to no thump through the speakers)

[rollo]

   To date in my experience the most affective use of a maple plinth for TT isolation is a 2" thick slab sitting in sand.
   An MDF box sitting on a Target speaker stand approx 14"x18"x 4" filled with play sand.
   This application has given a dead quite background to every TT used.
    Same result for CDP with Pon-Tune footers sitting on maple plinth in sand.


charles

[tmazz]

  To date in my experience the most affective use of a maple plinth for TT isolation is a 2" thick slab sitting in sand.
  An MDF box sitting on a Target speaker stand approx 14"x18"x 4" filled with play sand.
  This application has given a dead quite background to every TT used.
   Same result for CDP with Pon-Tune footers sitting on maple plinth in sand.


charles

Maybe if I still had a dedicated Man Cave, but a box of sand in the middle of the living room would never pass muster with the spousal unit.  

[rollo]

  To bad for you. It can be made pretty if need be with paint or veneer on box. The sand if the box is designed properly has zero exposed sand. the interior dimension is 1/4" less than the interior dimension of the box. Then that gap gets a filler of foam , felt, etc.
   OK then a Kanso audio stand is the next best or maybe better. The Kanso wall hung TT stand is a killer. Made our Kuzma TT sound really good. It is only money tom.


charles

[BobM]

You've seen my racks guys, right? Sand box shelves with maple on top. Not quite a pile of sand in the middle of the floor.

[richidoo]

You've seen my racks guys, right?

That's what she said!   

[Werd]

Put some dried maple project wood from Lee Valley under the rear of my speakers. Using solid tech footers on the front.

[tmazz]

Put some dried maple project wood from Lee Valley under the rear of my speakers. Using solid tech footers on the front.

And did it improve things?

[jimbones]

Tom, i think you should write a book 

[Werd]

Put some dried maple project wood from Lee Valley under the rear of my speakers. Using solid tech footers on the front.


And did it improve things?

Yes, i was satisfied with the footings until i took the insulation out and  ran them with no insulation. Didn't like the footings with no internal dampening. Used that maple all around but the tweeter and mids were still a little off. Started putting the dampening back in and settled with maple on the back and footings on the front with about half the original anount of insulation reinserted. That maple sounds good and it came from their scrap bin. Its dried maple project wood.

[tmazz]

OK, here is an update on the Maple experiment.....

I spoke to the tech support guy at Michigan Maple  and he told me that the put a coating of oil on each piece right before it is wrapped and if I wanted to stain the butcher block I would need to take it out of the plastic wrapper and let it dry out for 48 - 72 hours first. After that it would take stain with no problem. He also told me that if I wanted to use it under at turntable I should seal it with a coat of polyurethane first. In normal kitchen use, a butcher block should be oiled every few weeks to clean and maintain the wood. If you do not oil it regularly or seal it the butcher block is likely to crack and split as it dries out over time.

So I stained mine with two coats of Minwax Red Oak and one of Red Mahogany and it came out to be a very close match to the color of the wood base on my VPI. One thing that I did not realize is that although maple is considered a hardwood, it is very porous, so Minwax recommends using a wood conditioner prior to staining, just like you would do with a softer wood like pine. (Thank God for the internet, because I would not have realized that on my own.)  Because the TT gets a good amount of direct sun where it sits I used exterior rated satin finish polyurethane to seal it so the poly does not yellow and crack. The exterior stuff is a bit tougher to work with and lay as flat as the regular Minwax poly, bit since 95% of the block will be under the turntable and out of sight I was not that concerned about this. As soon as I get a chance I will snap a picture and post it.

Now for the strange part. After letting the poly harden for 48 hours it was time to put it in place and have a listen. Before removing the unstained maple block (which made my wife happy as it returned to the kitchen – little does she know, but it will be making a few road trips in the near future as several of my audio pals want to hear it under their tables.  ), I put on two test LPs (The Classic Records 180g pressing of Reiner/ Pictures at an Exhibition and the new  200g pressing of Cantate Domino)  and had a baseline listen.  I then swapped out the two butcher blocks and I'll be damned if they didn't sound different. 

Not different in a huge way, and perhaps a person not listening to a very familiar recording on their own system might have had a hard time discerning the difference, but I noticed them right away.  The poly coated block seemed a little faster. During the big tympani hits on Pictures you got a clearer sense of the rise, bloom and decay each time the drum was struck. It really didn't alter the amount of base but you could hear the three parts more distinctly. It also sounded a bit more detail orients as opposed to the uncoated block which was a bit warmer and softer by comparison. Again these are really fine changes and both pieces of maple sounded much better than no maple at all. I could definitely live happily with either one, but is still confounds me that a simple thing like two thin coats of polyurethane can change the sound at all. I have been in this hobby long enough that things like this shouldn't surprise me, but the still leave me scratching my head.   

So I do what any self-respecting audiophile would do.....  I stop thinking about the whys and just sit back and throw on a record to enjoy.   

[jimbones]

Does it sound "darker"