Now that I’ve committed to owning a record player, I needed a place to put it. This project had to be prioritized behind the ongoing kitchen refresh, but I was able to sneak it in here and there. Record players are new to me, so I did end up doing research on what makes for a good quality record player stand and speaker stand. It turns out the heavier and less prone to vibration, the better.
I temporarily repurposed and old television stand to place the record player on, so I started with the speaker stands. I’ve used black steel pipe in projects before and it seemed like the right material as it is heavy, durable, and would be ideal to fill with sand to add extra weight. Windex and paper towels do a fine job cleaning all of the muck from the black pipes. I had to experiment with the speaker heigh given the room dynamics and my listening distance from the speaker. I finally settled on three foot tall two inch diameter black steel pipe. The first round, I built them with some scrap wood I had from the kitchen project. I had to double up the wood as it was not thick enough to drill through the screws to mount the end couplers for the pipe.
These first set of speaker stands did the job for about three months while I continued on some other projects. The entire setup was in the small media room in the basement where the kids would occasionally watch movies or play video games. I’d spin records mostly in the evening if my spouse headed to be early. When I started to consider the record player stand, I also reconsidered where it all should go. I finally decided the it would get much better use if it were in my office and I was conveniently reminded that I don’t need to take over two rooms. Thinking through the design of the record player stand, I wandered the isles of the hardware store to look for the right materials and hope for the craftsman muse to deliver. I didn’t really want to double up on wood just for the sake of screw length. Inspiration was delivered on an end cap (always check the end caps) when I came across four foot lengths of thick “live edge” maple wood that was not unreasonably priced. The pieces were smooth, perfectly dimensioned, and quite heavy. Perfect for my project.
With a plan for good quality maple, it was now time to consider the legs for my record player stand. I had thought through using black pipe like I did for the speakers, but felt it would be costly and not quite have the right look I was going for given the placement needed for the connecting flanges. The record stand surface would be 14" x 24", I looked at options on Amazon and ended up liking a pre-made 16" Black Metal Table Legs designed for a coffee or side table. I ordered the pair and they worked out quite well for the record player stand as they are heavy and sturdy. Instead of a second level, I just put together an under mount shelf to hold the pre-amp and amp as they are not very big. Should I ever get a larger size amp, I could always build another stand and remove the under mount.
I decided to replace the top and bottom wood platforms on the speaker stand with the same maple I found for the record stand. Adding some rubber feet to help the stand sit well on the floor completed the functional design. Having used the setup for a few month, I decided to move it into my office as it provides better opportunity to listen to music. With some further experimentation on the sound of the speakers given the new room dimmensions, I returned the three foot segments and instead purchased two foot segments of 2" pipe which were a better height for the smaller room. Finally, I coated all of the wood with Tung Oil. I’m quite happy with how it looked and the project overall.
Total cost of the project was roughly $295:
- 7" x 48" x 1.5" Maple = 2x $50 = $100
- 8 x 1 Maple board = 1x $10 = $10
- Black Metal Legs = 1 set $50 = $50
- Rubber Feet = 2 sets $10 = $20
- 2" x 48" Black Steel Pipe = 2x $25 = $50
- 2" Pipe Flange = 4x $12.50 = $50
- Minwax Tung Oil = $15