How to Build a Vibroacoustic Table

Right, so what I'm going to do now is walk you through how I built this table, so that you can build one too. This information isn't stolen or taken from anyone — it's stuff I figured out myself. It isn't rocket science; you can research it yourself. I spent a lot of time researching it and putting these pieces together from various sources, and it works really, really well. It also doesn't need to cost anywhere near as much as some of the tables being sold online.

On the website, you'll see a lot of other places that sell these. We don't personally sell them, and I think it's a good thing that people can buy one if they don't want to put the time into building it. But it's very expensive compared to what it can be. So let's just walk through it.

The first thing you'll notice is this step here. We always keep it in place because we think it's important for people to be able to step up onto the table — the table sits pretty high even when it's lowered all the way down. So what I'm going to do is strip it apart and walk through the different pieces, and how you create what is basically a sound therapy table, or vibroacoustic table.

The first thing we always do is put a pillow down. We swap the pillowcases and change the sheets between patients — there are lots of ways to do it. One thing I want to show you: we always keep a little heating blanket on there, plugged in. It definitely adds something. We also use red lights above our table. If you're not using a lighting system that hits the full body, you could use weighted blankets or something people would be comfortable under — just rotate them through and make sure you can clean them easily. We looked into that but decided we wanted the red lights instead.

So this is our little plugged-in heating blanket. And this next piece is just a table cover we got on Amazon. I'll grab the links to everything I purchased. Some may not even be available anymore, but you can find them. This cover stretches over the table and makes it look a little more professional. Underneath it we have a piece of foam.

All of this sits on top of what is literally just a massage table. Underneath, you'll see these little vibration cups. I don't know if they really make a big difference or whether you truly need them, but we used them because we knew the table would be vibrating into the ground a little, and we thought it would be nice. These are the kind of pads people typically put under a washing machine to dampen its vibration.

So I'll pop this off — you can see there's a little pocket on it. This is our cover for the table. I think it may be called a lash bed cover, or a massage table cover. It's very easy to use. I'll pop it off completely, and now on top of the table you can see the foam. This is actually a lash bed foam. Do you have to have it? No. It's really just there because it's a little more comfortable, and it takes a bit away from the strength of the vibration. You definitely don't have to have it — honestly, I think it's a little uncomfortable in some ways, but that's just me.

So basically, this is the actual massage table. A lot of massage tables come with the face cradle. We never really use that. You could technically have people lie on their stomach however they like and put the transducers underneath — we'll go through that. So this is the table. Now I'm going to pull everything out and show you all of the components that go together.

Okay, come on over here. This looks like a big mess and probably needs to be vacuumed up a little. The first thing I want to point out is this Dayton Audio amplifier — it's called the BSA-200. I actually like this one best because it's pretty small, and I don't think you need a huge amplifier to do this. The 200 has plenty of power, so it works great. This is what we use to connect the half-speakers, or transducers, underneath the table. I'll give you the names and links below the video so you know where everything is. I got them all on Amazon.

The back of the amplifier is very simple: you have a line in, a line out, the two speaker connections, and the power cord. That's it — there's not much to it. It also comes with this little remote so you can power it on and off. We don't use that much ourselves, but we offer it to patients who want to turn down the strength of the vibration if they need to. So the crux of it is that this unit is what everything connects to. It amplifies the vibration and sends the audio through the headphones.

Now, this part is really important. I went through a lot of different headphones to figure out which ones can handle the level of vibration being pushed through at these particular frequencies. You don't necessarily want to vibrate the head — the goal is to listen. These tracks often have binaural beats and other benefits, along with ambient sounds, and they're very relaxing. The headphones have noise-cancelling capability, which we turn on for patients so they can put them on and get absorbed into the journey without hearing anything else.

The reason I like these headphones so much is that they hold up really well and they're not massively expensive — a couple hundred dollars. Your biggest costs are probably going to be the headphones and an iPad or whatever device you use to connect everything. You don't necessarily need an iPad. If you're setting it up for home use and just want to use your phone, you can literally use your phone with the apps on it and play the music through that. Everything just has to connect.

So that's the core. This isn't run through Bluetooth — it's connected by an audio cable that comes down and plugs in here. It's all wrapped up right now, and it's been a bit of a mess because we haven't pulled it out in a long time and we've moved things around. You'll need some sort of connector that splits. This particular split feeds a little stroboscopic light, which is pretty cool — it flashes in time with the sound and vibration. That's not something you absolutely have to have, and you don't need the split if you don't want the light. But we use it.

This is an important part: the line out. This runs out to your headphones. You just use the little red-and-white connectors. I'll show you what they look like, and I'll have the specific ones I purchased in the list, so I won't rattle off a bunch of names here — it's just to give you an idea of how it all connects. So the signal goes out from your amplifier to your headphones, and that's how you listen.

Of course, you need something coming in as well. If you're going to listen to something, you need the music coming in — the tracks that contain the different frequencies — and that's where the iPad comes in. We used an iPad, so let me show you. It should turn on.

These are the apps I think are really, really great. We've created one of our own, which I'll share as well. In Harmony is awesome — they have a ton of vibroacoustic content. I think they charge about ten dollars a month for access, and they're constantly adding new things. Sage Space is great too — they make the stroboscopic light and the vibroacoustic table, and they produce vibroacoustic music. Good people. You go in and pick whatever experience you want — here's a sensory and aural lounge. They've built some really cool things with all of this in mind.

Opus is another one, and it's free. You just have to sign in and you'll have access to their music. They sell the table itself, which has been on backorder for a long time — that's actually part of what inspired me to build this. In Harmony has lots of different music to choose from as well. And this is the app we created — we call it Hummed. I've done a lot of music production and education, and I've built a lot of tracks. I didn't design it purely with vibroacoustics in mind, so it isn't only that — but if you go to the categories, you'll see vibroacoustic is on there. Every month when we update, we add new material, and there are lots of good vibroacoustic therapy options. Ours is really inexpensive — I only charge about $1.99 a month, or roughly thirty dollars for the year. I did that on purpose, and I keep adding to it over time, usually one or two new tracks a month, often with a vibroacoustic component. So that's what we use for the music that goes in.

Now, back to the iPad. There are two cords for it. One is the charging cord, which just charges it when it gets low. The other is the connector. Depending on your iPad, they use different connectors — not all of them have this type anymore; many use USB-C. That connector converts the signal to the audio that comes through here. It's just an audio cable with a little plug that has the two red-and-white connectors. Line in, line out, red and white — you can see the plug is colored white, so you put the white one in there. Very easy. It splits down here, then comes back up and connects to the iPad.

That's just one option. This is an older iPad. If you want to keep it cheap, you can do it this way, or with older iPhones. It really doesn't matter how you do this, as long as the audio comes down into the amplifier. We've also done it with iPads that have an actual audio connector and brought the audio down that way. It doesn't matter, as long as it's connected and carrying the audio. This particular iPad doesn't have a headphone jack, so we just used the little adapter. The point is, you can buy adapters that work — just think of it as picking up the audio and sending it to the amplifier. Whatever device you have, whatever you plug into it sends that audio signal through.

People listen on their headphones through a physical connection. You cannot do it over Bluetooth. There are Bluetooth setups out there, but I avoid them for a number of reasons — one of the main ones is connectivity issues. The signal can cut in and out, which is very frustrating when you're trying to settle into the journey and enjoy the vibroacoustic benefits.

Now we get to the main event. You can see all the power cords are plugged in down there. We also bought this little Honeywell portable doorbell and keep it next to the table, so if someone's having a rough time or something goes wrong, they can easily reach up and press it. Then it chimes and tells us to come in and help.

Let's flip the table over. This is where the speakers, or transducers, come in — these are also Dayton Audio. I'll list the specific ones I use. They're pretty strong, and I purposely picked the stronger ones because I only run a left and a right connection. Here's why I did it this way: I tested it. I built one version with a smaller left and right transducer on each half of the table, and another with the larger transducers split this way. I think this version worked better all around — fewer issues, and the Dayton ones have lasted longer.

To mount them, I took a nice little square piece of wood and screwed it into the table. This is a very thin piece of wood — these tables don't have thick wood, so you have to account for that with the length of your screws. Remember there's foam and padding on top, so you can go a little way into it and no one will notice. Just be careful not to use too large a screw. You screw the block in on all four edges, and the transducers themselves come with mounting holes, so you screw through the block into the table.

The reason I added the larger piece of wood — you could even use a bigger one — is that I wanted longer screws to go through so it would hold more securely. You could technically mount the transducer directly to the table, but I didn't want to damage it, and I wanted plenty of thick wood for the screws to grip, because it vibrates a lot. The transducers have a bit of foam on the outside that helps diminish the vibration on the screw, but they do still vibrate, so you have to check them every once in a while. You can also get screws with foam or rubber that hold better and won't vibrate loose as easily. There are lots of options, but this has worked really well for us.

The wiring is literally just speaker wire — the same as wiring up any sound system. These come with connectors at the end; I just strip the wire, push the little copper connection through, press it down, and let it pop back to hold it. I haven't had to mess with those at all. On my other table the vibration caused some issues — I may have used the wrong screw sizes, and it had a lot more transducers — but these have held up really nicely. Same thing on the other side. Basically you have the left and right speaker wire connected in, and each one goes into its transducer. This is black, this is red — we use black and blue for the different coloring. I try to get good, strong wire that holds up well.

So that's the bottom of the table — very simple. We have just two transducers, faced toward each other. That's just how I did it; you can experiment. But the reality is, all we're doing is converting the frequencies in these sound therapy tracks into a physical vibration that goes into the table and then into you. The particular frequency matters for the therapeutic benefit, so I separate those out in my app, and In Harmony does a good job of that too.

I'll be straightforward with you: there are a lot of traditional ideas out there about frequencies. 40 Hz has the best research behind it, so I use it a lot because I think it covers a lot of benefits for people. There are many traditional frequencies that may have benefits too, but they don't have as much research, so you have to do your homework. For our app, we did a lot of research in choosing and creating those tracks. Some are single tones, because that's what was used in the studies to see how much benefit people could get. Others we build into an ambient journey, which I think makes them more enjoyable. You can absolutely create more enjoyable music with these underlying tones and vibrations. You can technically use any bass-heavy music with strong vibration — the problem is you don't know what it will do to you. So be selective about the frequencies you put into your body as a physical vibration. That's just my opinion; you might be fine.

Let me show you how these connect at the back. Each one has these little connectors — I think they're called banana clips — that set up and connect into these terminals very easily. Then they plug in. The red goes to red and black to black, and you make sure each speaker matches the terminal you're using. All of these are speaker outputs — if you look at the back it says "speaker out." The important thing to realize is that you're getting a right and a left channel. So if you're listening on the headphones and the sound pans left and right, it will do the same thing physically on the table — the top half hits one channel and the bottom half the other, and it moves like that. Some tracks do waves that pan back and forth, and you can feel it. It's really cool.

Now I'll plug it all in. You can make one of these really cheaply — you can get less expensive versions of all these little parts. The three or four most costly items are the transducers (you need two), the iPad or whatever device you use (which you probably already have), and the headphones. These are the best headphones. You can use your own if you want, but let me tell you — you'll blow the speakers in them. The Heavys are definitely the best out there. I highly recommend them for vibroacoustic therapy. You have options — Bose and others — but I've seen those break, and I've gone through so many headphones. The Heavys hold up the best. It's worth the investment.

So you have the headphones and the amplifier. I turn on the amplifier, make sure the headphones are on, and put them in silent (noise-cancelling) mode to block outside sound — you don't have to if you'd rather not. Everything's connected: the amplifier is on, you just push the power button, and there's a little volume control here so you can tweak things. The balance is basically already set, but you adjust it until it sounds right for you.

So the person is lying on the table, however they like, and you open In Harmony or whatever app you're using. Again, if I had to pick who to support: Sage Space is awesome, In Harmony is awesome, and Opus is free. And you can always get our app too. I'm going to play the ocean one because it has a really strong vibration, so you can hear what it sounds like.

So the person's lying there, the sound is up, everything's connected — the vibroacoustics are on, the headphones are on. To recap: turning this on sends the sound through here to the amplifier; the amplifier sends the sound out to your two half-speakers (the transducers) and to the two speakers on your head (the headphones). They're all connected, and this is plugged in. Now I'll hit play.

Right now it's the sound of kids playing by the ocean. You can hear some of it through the headphones, because it does put a little sound through, but mostly it's converting into the physical vibration. There it goes — it drops down and you can hear and feel it. It's vibrating really well. The idea is that the person is on the table getting that frequency of vibration while they listen to the sound journey. It's very relaxing, and you get this really amazing benefit of blood flow and capillary perfusion that occurs with those particular vibrations.

So that's the crux of it. I hope this helps you understand how vibroacoustic tables are really easy to put together, and I hope lots of people build them and enjoy them. Maybe go start a business — there are lots of them out there right now — or just build your own table and get this therapy out there. The truth is, this is really good for people, and it doesn't have to be a massively expensive thing to build yourself at home.

Let me give you a rough idea of cost. If you skip the lash bed extras and just buy a basic massage table, you can often get one on sale for around $150, maybe $200 new — or find a used one on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for much less. The amplifier will probably run you a couple hundred dollars, less if you buy used. The Heavys headphones are a couple hundred dollars and often go on sale, and they're very worthwhile. So between those three things you're probably looking at around six hundred dollars — and again, I'm pointing out things you may already own.

The two transducers cost me around eighty to a hundred dollars each, so call it two hundred dollars for the pair. Speaker wire is only a few dollars, and the little adapters are maybe ten or fifteen dollars each. The Dayton Audio BSA-200 amplifier was, I believe, a couple hundred dollars at the time. Add it all up and you're looking at roughly a thousand dollars to put this together — and honestly it can be much less if you're frugal and hunt down the pieces. This should give you a really good idea of how to build a vibroacoustic therapy table. I hope you got a lot out of this.