This has to be one of the best audio tweaks I’ve ever come across, and probably one of the cheapest as well. You could spend hundreds of dollars on isolation platforms, fancy feet or other devices for your equipment, or you could take a handful of quarters to the nearest gumball machine and buy…superballs?? Yes, you read correctly: those rubber balls we bounced around the house as kids are a great audio tweak!

About 25 years ago, I discovered that a turntable’s dust cover acts like an oversized microphone. As I had my system temporarily in my bedroom at the time, which was only about 10 ft. x 11 ft., I had my speakers on one wall of the room, with my equipment rack on the opposite wall. So in other words, when the turntable’s dust cover was open, the speakers were, essentially, blasting right into it, and causing feedback. I did not really notice it at first, but I did notice that the bass was all muddy and ill-defined. Until one day, I grabbed the dust cover while playing an LP, and the sound instantly cleared up. From then on, I played the turntable with the dust cover down, or taken completely off.

In my current setup, I have my turntable on top of an equipment rack in the corner of the living room. The problem: I have it only a few inches away from one of the speakers. It’s not my ideal setup, but it’s the only place I can put it to run the cables easily. The feedback is noticeable at higher volumes. Again, it’s like the bass turns all muddy and the overall sound loses a lot of clarity. During serious listening, I’ll take the dust cover off of my Denon turntable, but I really had no way to isolate the turntable from the rack.

For awhile, I used bubble-wrap packing material sandwiched beneath jewel cases, and the turntable rested on the jewel cases. It isolated my turntable somewhat, but after a few months, the air seeped out of the packing, and I was back to nothing. Still, it proved to me that isolation would help correct the feedback problem I was having.

I had heard about the superball trick on other audio hardware sites, so I decided to try it. There was no way to balance my turntable on top of four balls, so I went to Lowe’s and bought four rubber doorstop cups that you attach to a wall to prevent a door knob from hitting the wall. The balls fit perfectly!

Doing some preliminary testing, I found that the superballs passed my “hand test”. I could feel the speakers’ vibration on my system rack, but could barely feel it at all on the turntable. I also was able to turn the system up fairly loud and not get any feedback through it. The superballs work much better than I thought! The implementation is not the prettiest, but I’ll improve on it in the future.

As an improvement, I’m considering building a platform that will rest on the top of the superballs, and putting the turntable on that platform. That would be more sturdy than having the turntable perched precariously on top of the superballs. Some users have cut their superballs in half, which prevents them from rolling around, and reduces their height so they do not sit up so high.

Would I use superballs with my other components? Possibly! I’d consider it with my CD changer and Pioneer DV-45A universal player, as they are both mechanical devices that could benefit from isolation.

Speakers, too, can benefit from getting the superball treatment. Especially if you live in an upper-level apartment. With a stone patio block and superballs, you can create a very low cost isolation system that would prevent the transfer of the majority of the bass energy to your floor, which is also your downstairs neighbor’s ceiling.

Superballs have turned out to be a great low-cost tweak. For a total of about four dollars, I have improved my vinyl playback system substantially. Superballs have other isolation uses that make them one of the greatest bargains in audio. Just don’t tell your audiophile friends how much you’ve spent!