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In Reply to: RE: I absolutely agree. posted by Duster on January 24, 2015 at 18:45:13
You absolutely agree with who, Steve? If you are quoting Steve accurately (and I'm sure you are), he is incorrect on at least several points.
For example, the best opportunity for speaker stability is to lock them into the sub-flooring system if wood or onto the sub-flooring system if concrete or similar. I have no idea if the Maggies require 3 or 4 points. If 3, then the locking is even more superior since 3 points make a plane. If 4 points, 4 points can lead to instability via rocking due to unevenness, however, a thin washer here or there can still lead to enough stability to make a difference. But even if the 4 points induce rocking you still have 2 points making solid contact with the subflooring system and that should suffice.
How can a speaker on points resting on gliders resting on carpet resting on a pad be any more stable? It can't. Especially a lighter weight speaker.
Steve said, there are distortions induced if points are making solid contact with the flooring or sub-flooring as the vibrations make their way up from the floor. Let's think about this. Now Steve didn't but let's think about this. The speakers are generating a continuous bombardment of vibrations in the room perhaps equivalent to being at the epicenter of a very small seismic earthquake.
And then there's the floor. Now if all the unwanted resonant energy in a speaker cabinet is trapped without an exit point, where's all that energy going to go? It has no choice but to fully dissipate within the cabinet because all of that pent up energy is trapped within. To make matters worse, cabinets and their internals resonate. That implies that with every mechanical vibration, the cabinet and innards stand a good chance of making matters worse by vibrating in sympathy with the unwanted energy being dissipated within. Almost like an amplifier.
Now which is generating more vibrations? If (and it is not so) that vibrations are traveling upwards from the floor to the speakers, where do you suppose the vast majority those floor-borne vibrations are coming from? Yup, the speakers. Again, if you're quoting Steve accurately, then my question is, if he really believes this, then why the frick is he mfg'ing points/spikes? The only logical answer can be, so he can sell gliders.
There is not one justifiable performance reason for anybody to be selling gliders or coupling discs resting on carpet. A performance-oriented mfg'er who understands vibrational behavior would sell gliders or coupling discs for 1 reason only. For the prissy types who willing to compromise performance rather than allow 3 or 4 tiny dimples embedded into their nice hardwood flooring. That's it. Any other reason would seem to be a contraction in one's understanding of vibration behavior and management.
The same methodology applies to our sensitive components. For 40+ years we've tried to defy basic laws of physics by attempting to isolate our components from vibrations. It's an impossibility, but obviously many will die trying.
Also, it would seem that Steve has a very common misunderstanding of the terms coupling and decoupling. Think of a superior lamp with a plug, wire, switch, socket, lightbulb, and all the connections in between. Would that light bulb perform at its optimal if all of the conections were loosely decoupled or tightly coupled? Back to audio, would vibrations stand a greater chance of traveling through a box of kitty litter or through a steel rod? Doesn't it stand to reason that kitty litter is more closely related to the term decoupling? If so, then why would a mfg'er design and machine metal points/spikes and call them decouplers? There simply is no consistency or accuracy between the product names, their designs, and their materials. By the way, the only reason for a cone or spike to be pointed is to pierce through a thick carpet and a premium carpet pad to make a superior contact with the wood sub-flooring.
Again, why would somebody label their metal cones/spikes as decouplers if their entire design and associated materials give the appearance of a resonant energy transfer methodology?
That's my take anyway.
Follow Ups:
I agree that one should seek superior interconnect cables, speaker cables, and power cords that exhibit among other things, a tight, well-defined, and musical bass.
Your response to Steve is not of my concern.
With all due respect, Duster, if what Steve says is of no concern to you, then why would you waste your time, mine, and anybody else's by quoting Steve?
I accept your apology.
as he makes stands and footers, my understanding from other posts about is John doesn't feel like he needs to identify himself as a manufacturer because of lack of sales in the last few years though his site is up and running which would indicate he still has interest in the business as sites don't magically stay active. I would imagine if someone contacted him interested in a purchase he would oblige, right John?
I am not a member of the bored, that probably wouldn't be good for anybody, so he can do what he wants as they are aware of the situation but it seems a bit disingenuous to me. It is much easier to question what another manufacturer is doing when you don't seem do have a vested interest, but in this case, on some level if only ego, you do.
That being said I would not use a product like a glider under a speaker as light as a 1.6 on a carpeted floor with stable flooring underneath. With a significantly heavier speaker and a wooden flooring that has notable flex decoupling the speaker could actually improve the situation though on a whole be far from optimal.
As for Dust I don't believe he said he didn't care about what Steve wrote, he didn't care what you thought of what Steve wrote which I understand as you were looking to get into a pissing match over it. Your right though he does post very sporadically having registered in 2001 and posted a couple hundred times in 14 years....oh wait that is someone else.
Wow, Cpk. I just informed my wife that it looks like I found somebody who knows me better than her. Now I know how Justin Beiber must feel.BTW, that's made, not make. Big difference but I suppose made wouldn't support your preconceived notions as well as make. BTW, here's a little audio gathering I hosted just last month. Tell me if you see me attempting to sell anything or even an inkling of somebody else attempting to purchase anything. They know me and they seem to get it. You don't know (like you apparently want to) and you don't get it.
http://www.meetup.com/Portland-Audio-Club/events/218719664/
As for my website, I have every intention of keeping that website up for as long as I live. I'm proud of what I've accomplished from both a design perspective and especially from a performance perspective.
Also, you (and the Duster) seem to lack the ability to distinguish the differences between "sporadic posts" (which I did not say) and "sporadic thoughts" which I did say.
As for your other comments attempting to bring my character into question, well first of all you don't even use a personally identifiable moniker. So what the frick are you talking about?
Some could perceive these anonymous allegations as your being either a chicken hawk or a chicken shit.
As for your alleging that I'm looking for a pissing contest? Hardly.
It seems many in "high-end" audio will believe the most outlandish and absurd things and not even give it a second thought. So when the Duster posts what I consider some highly questionable quotes from a supposed expert, I attempt to address those quotes to demonstrate just how questionable and potentially contradictory they may be.
It seems the Duster (whoever he is) attempted to use Steve's quotes to add credibility to whatever nonsense he was propagating. And when I questioned the validity of those quotes, it seemed that he quickly attempted to disassociate himself from them.
But the name of the game is performance and common sense. Both of which seemed to be lacking. So I spoke up.
Edits: 01/25/15
Nothing anonymous about me, most people here know who I am, and if not it is certainly easy enough to find out. I don't know how your audio club works but hawking your wears at the one I am a member of is frowned upon so that means nothing. You conveniently didn't answer the question poised to you instead choosing to respond in a rather hostile manner which people tend to do when guilty of what they are being called out for. As for the website if you were not making product anymore wouldn't you say that instead of requiring a 60% deposit on orders. You can go back to your Beiber fantasy now.....
Dorfman, I checked out your telwire website. I must say the website is done in good taste and from what little I saw, it would seem that your cables are well-built too. I perceive tho art a designer.
I noticed that you mentioned there that your cables exhibit exceptional transparency, neutrality, and a soundstage with incredible depth/width. But I didn’t notice anywhere that your cables are cryo-treated.
I’m not sure what your ultimate goals are for your cables, e.g. performance, aesthetics, etc. but if performance is one of your pursuits, wouldn’t you want to cryo-treat your cables? At least by the inferior vapor method if not preferably by the superior full-immersion method? Some-to-many performance-oriented cable mfg’ers do this very thing. I suppose that’s why they’re called performance-oriented cable mfg’ers. Duh? :)
Without this treatment, I can’t help but wonder how much of your understanding of exceptional transparency, neutrality, and soundstage expansion might be compromised. Not to mention one or 2 other highly coveted characteristics that in my experience are only revealed when a cable is cryo’ed via the full-immersion method.
Anyway, excellent job on the website and your cables.
Nothing anonymous about you, Cpk? Are you aware that common sense ain't so common?
nt
Why am I not surprised?
Then how about applying a little logic and consideration to your thoughts before you consider typing your posts?
Not that your doing so would guarantee an improvement, but there's always the possibility you won't be wasting others' time with your sporadic thoughts.
With well over 10k posts in AA, I've shared far more than just simple "sporadic thoughts" with fellow AA inmates over the years.
Cheers, Duster
Kind of interesting how posts by determined naysayers are always posted by someone with no hands-on experience or real understanding of the product. They'll theorize and explain why a product won't work when in fact the product does work, and works very well. I don't sell anything just for the sake of selling something. Nor do I make thoughtless comments.Steve Herbelin
Herbie's Audio Lab
Edits: 01/25/15 01/25/15 01/25/15
Very cute, Steve. By all means, please feel free to take a stab at my responses to your questionable quotes that others are apparently using thinking they add credibility to themselves.
Okay, I'll take a stab. Your responses to my quotes contain some misconceptions. First of all, Herbie's Audio Lab does not make conventional, completely rigid spikes, nor do we make any kind of spikes that are intended to be used together with Gliders. Our decoupling spikes feature exclusive dBNeutralizer isolation material, providing a barrier from vibration passing from one surface to another, thus "decoupling" within the vibrational environment they are dealing with. The spikes themselves certainly "couple" to the floor or shelf they are used on, and also couple insofar as being an intermediary interface. I don't see any need to argue about or parse these definitions though, as they are intimately inter-related and subject to varied interpretation.Herbie's Audio Lab's Decoupling Spikes are intended only for free-standing use in specialized circumstances, not for use with our Gliders. Our Cone/Spike Decoupling Gliders are for use with a loudspeaker or rack's stock spikes or spikes that you already have (we also make Threaded Stud Gliders for use in place of spikes altogether).
Spiking to the floor is of course better than nothing and more than sufficient for most music lovers. A loudspeaker cabinet just sitting on a bare floor or carpet with nothing in-between is relatively unconstrained, free to wobble and vibrate from its own energies. Placing speakers on rubbery resonating materials like rubber or Sorbothane causes all kinds of anomalies like loss of dynamic vitality and linearity. Spiking, even with its drawbacks, holds the speaker more firmly and more stable. Because spikes don't drain all of a cabinet's vibration though, a non-resonant decoupling approach often works even better. This has been proven thousands of times with dBNeutralizer-based products replacing spikes for an audibly superior result--scarcely ever the other way around.
"Three points defines a plane" has little to do with vibration isolation other than accommodating the problem of surfaces not being perfectly parallel. Having to use three points instead of four is sometimes detrimental rather than a bonus. With footers having just a little "give" or compliance, three points defining a plane is usually not an issue. With four feet, you have better lateral stability, more latitude with placement of the footers, more physical "beef" to accomplish the task, and most importantly you'll usually get an audibly superior result.
A speaker on points inserted in Gliders can be more vibration free, not because they are gliders, but because of the dBNeutralizer material imbedded in the Glider. This is the material that absorbs vibration and prevents the transfer of vibration through the material. Much of the vibration that causes glare and distortion, even sonic dis-linearity in deep bass, is very high-frequency, acute micro-vibration that dBNeutralizer tames very effectively. Spikes, on the other hand, often react to some of these vibrations with resonance, introducing some sonic "character" or coloration into the music (in such a case, fewer can be better).
With a careful re-reading of the phrase, "you'll have floorborne reverberations shooting right back up the spikes," you'll see this refers to vibrations going back to the speaker cabinets from where they came (right back up the spikes). It's primarily loudspeaker-generated vibrations that shoot back up the spikes. Speaker-generated floorborne vibrations can also affect sensitive electronics in rack components. Floorborne vibrations from other sources can also adversely affect speakers spiked to the floor. Subwoofers coupled to the floor generate floorborne vibrations detrimental to floorstanding full-range speakers, and vice-versa. It's a mistake to dismiss concrete (or hardwood)floorborne vibrations as nonexistent, miniscule or inconsequential. Though concrete floors vary in their capacity to convey micro-vibrations, they are structures of steel/concrete that transmit aggressive, acute micro-vibrations readily, as most rigid materials do. Concrete floors all have a natural frequency and reverberant tendencies. Simply walking on a concrete floor induces vibration. Hospitals know this, and that is why they must specially treat concrete floors to minimize vibrations in labs where sensitive equipment like optical scanners are used. Several optical scanning laboratories use Herbie's Audio Lab products to isolate (and decouple) equipment from vibration, including concrete floorborne vibrations.
I believe most loudspeakers are every bit as sensitive as optical scanning equipment. Floorborne vibrations do not have the inertia necessary to cause a dead-still loudspeaker driver to exert an audible sound. Though miniscule compared to the energies a loudspeaker driver generates, floorborne vibrations have plenty of acute energy to influence the movement of moving drivers. Speaker drivers produce myriad musical frequencies simultaneously, some extremely low-amplitude and nuanced, some having less inertia than external vibrations they are competing with, many below the RFI noise level. Most of these extremely low-amplitude musical signals help to define the ambience and real-life presence of the original recorded event. Though it's perhaps David versus Goliath, floorborne vibrations cause audible anomalies in the music.
The main benefit of Herbie's Audio Lab's Gliders is the sonic benefit they bring. Protecting the floor and easy mobility of the speakers are secondary. In some cases, it's virtually essential to be able to move speakers a little this way or that to bring in the best soundstage and imaging and best interaction with room acoustics.
Whatever the method applied, minimizing the effects of floorborne vibrations on loudspeakers and subwoofers is audibly beneficial and substantially worthwhile.
Sure, it's impossible to completely isolate components; many laws of physics are at play, not just one or two. Taming vibration to a degree that substantially brings out more of a component's inherent potential is possible and has been done, though. Not only by Herbie's Audio Lab but by many others as well. Some approaches are more system-dependent, others less so. No one product or approach is ideal and perfect in every audio system, though many are highly effective in most cases, even though different approaches to the same solution may be employed.
Steve
Herbie's Audio Lab
Edits: 01/25/15
I appreciate your comments, Steve. BTW, unless you have a partner I think we may have met at THE Show in 2011 when you, or somebody from Herbies, visited my room. Whomever I met, seemed to be a pleasant enough gent.
Nevertheless, you say in your opening paragraph that you do not make completely rigid spikes. But that your “decoupling” spikes feature some isolation material creating a barrier from vibration passing from one object to another.
There’s much in your response for me to take a stab at, but if we stopped at your first paragraph, your philosophies and strategies are clearly of the vibration isolation methodology camp and your high use of the “decoupling” term substantiates that. Even though quick glance at the external hard metal materials can easily mislead one into thinking the products are intended to transfer energy. My apologies for any misconceptions there as I only viewed some of your spikes and gliders.
But if we did stop there, my response would be, it is against the laws of physics to completely isolate an object from all sources of vibrations simultaneously (not even in a vacuum chamber unless the object was levitating) and once an object captures a vibration it does not discriminate between the vibration’s sources nor its types.
If that is true, then that implies that the vibration isolation method is an invalid methodology and hence, the so-called vibration isolation methodology is really just a grossly inferior and perverted form of the one true vibration controlling methodology, resonant energy transfer.
And if vibration isolation is an invalid methodology, then what does that say about your vibration isolation philosophies and products used in pursuit of an invalid methodology?
I was going to say your only potential saving grace must be that your dBNeutralizer material must a bit better (less destructive) than kitty litter or Sorbathane, by allowing at least some of the trapped vibrations to escape and therefore, might provide your customers a slight performance increase (a little less inferior version) than the usual vibration isolation executions.
But upon viewing your website, at least on one page I could only find this statement of yours describing the function of the dBNeutralizer material:
“Reformulated in 2012 for even better lightning-fast response, this firm yet loosely structured material is formulated specifically for blocking mechanical soundwave energies.”
You don’t use the word absorb or quash and “loosely constructed” implies decoupling which is an isolation word you use throughout. Blocking mechanical soundwave energies (vibrations) is the attempt to isolate vibrations. However you want to sing it, you are still in pursuit of accomplishing what is clearly against the laws of physics. Albeit your methods and products are perhaps less severe than others, hence some performance gains.
My one question to you is, if you know that your speakers are generating volumes and volumes of vibrational energy, why would you insist on blocking or trapping them so they cannot escape, but must fully dissipate within what is already an object completely saturated with vibrational energy? Hasn't this so-called methodology been beaten to death, perhaps like beating one's head against the wall until it starts to feel good?
Do you really think vibrations coming up from the floor (even if you’re convinced they originated from the speakers) induce more sonic harm than those already trapped inside the speaker (and x-overs and drivers) and with no hope of escape?
And if you’re blocking energy from exiting the speakers via your dBNeutralizer material, what vibrations in the floor are left to give you concern?
Ok, so it was 3 questions.
There's more information on our website and FAQ pages. Also discussions at our Audio Circle forum regarding some of these issues and more. Nobody is trying to defy the laws of physics. There are many, many laws at play in the vibrational environment that applies to audio, not just one or two. Sometimes there are many different paths to the same outcome. I don't insist on blocking or trapping vibrational energies so they can't escape, nor is that a goal. One goal is to block the transfer of vibration from one surface to another (between floor and speaker cabinet or between component and shelf). Another is to not necessarily trap vibrational energy inside, but to partially absorb it so it dissipates within the absorbing material, just as a goose-down pillow can absorb some kinds of vibration. Being impossible to completely isolate, the goal is merely to calm down vibrations so that they create fewer sonic anomalies. The methodology, philosophies, and whatever that are used in our products are valid because they work; results are measurable and varifiable. All our products have been developed from diligent trial and error, audition and tweaking the results--not from conjecture or fantasy, but by going with what works. Real results from one audio system to another are sometimes slight or subtle and oftentimes quite substantial and Big WOW!
Vibrations coming from the floor are generally detrimental; internal vibrations are also and in most cases more significant. Internal vibrational energies are not hopelessly imprisoned, though--they can be tamed to a satisfactory degree. Just as spikes help with these vibrations, so does appropriate isolation, albeit with different physical approaches. The idea is to keep the speaker baffle as vibrationally motionless as possible so the drivers provide the most faithful rendering of the music. If the speaker/floor interface is well isolated with dBNeutralizer material, there shouldn't be much or any concern with floorborne vibrations.
I think some ideas have been beaten to death and that's why we've had to formulate many of our own materials instead of using off-the-shelf products not formulated specifically for use with home audio systems. I think the idea of "draining vibrational energy to ground" is also an idea that has been beaten to death. It pertains to a law of physics, but then again there are many other laws of physics also at play. In any regard, draining vibration via spikes is not of itself a whole solution and is not completely effective, relatively speaking (as to how much vibrational energy a speaker generates compared to how much is drained via spikes). Vibrations in the audio environment do not all follow the nearest path to the drain.
Within this thread, it's started out with one person who has mixed results or "the jury is out" using Gliders under Maggies. Also, indications that some people have gotten very good results with Gliders under Maggies. And a person who seems to be satisfied with spikes under his Maggies and feels no compulsion to try a different approach. I can accept these different takes and find no reason to go on and on about the whys or wherefores.
Steve
Herbie's Audio Lab
Steve, I’m still willing to let you have the last word, But that implies that you provide an earnest last word.
Considering that:
1. Your initial response to me seemed intentionally insulting and condescending.
2. Your quoted response in your buddy the Duster’s post and your subsequent posts contained what I suspect are highly questionable statements and claims. (BTW, it seemed the Duster was awfully quick to provide a small quoted dissertation by you addressing this very topic/thread. Per chance, are you and the Duster roommates?)
3. You claimed that I was theorizing to explain why your product won’t work. When it seems obvious to me that one of us is theorizing (perhaps guessing) a whole lot more than the other.
4. You claimed that I accused you of making thoughtless comments. Again, I’m pretty sure I didn’t use the word thoughtless and if I did I apologize. To clarify I think the appropriate word then and now would be misinformed, uninformed, or lack understanding. Which in this industry I think is quite a common occurrence.
5. You claim not to be attempting to totally isolate when in fact you use the term “decouple” (aka disconnect, block, disengage, disable, severe, break, isolate, etc) throughout and even include the term in your product line. You even said, "I don't insist on blocking or trapping vibrational energies so they can't escape, nor is that a goal. One goal is to block the transfer of vibration from one surface to another (between floor and speaker cabinet or between component and shelf).” Not only does it seem that you speak with forked tongue here and elsewhere, but in this 2nd sentence you freely admit your goal is to isolate vibrations by blocking the transfer of vibration from one surface (object) to another. If that’s not vibration isolation, what is?
Frankly, Steve, IMO, you’re all over the frickin’ map with your seemingly repeated illogical and contradictory statements (which is typical of a “vibration isolationist”) and I could probably list concerns almost line by line throughout your 3 or 4 above posts but I’ll spare us both that anguish.
In spite of your apparent rudeness and/or arrogance and your seemingly routine and contradictory statements, I’m still willing to let you have the last word provided you supply an earnest response to the questions about the car in the bottom of my previous post to you and you answer one more question, which is:
In that same car at the stoplight analogy, how is the car resting on air-filled all-season radial tires (think dbNeutralizer material) being continuously bombarded with vibrations from the other car’s woofer (or even its own subwoofer) any different from a speaker or component? e.g. couldn’t the rearview mirror vibrating violently be akin to a a transistor, op-amp, capacitor, tube, etc?
Don't be silly, Steve. Of course you're trying to defy the laws of physics. Everything about your terminology, your philosophies, executions, and products are all about decoupling and vibration isolation. And since the entire universal is made up of one form of vibration or another, it's simply an impossibility. But as you know, you're not alone as nearly everybody's trying to do likewise, including some really smart physicists.To say there are many laws of physics at work here, well, to me that's a given and a cop out since there are many laws of physics at work as I type. But I think it worth noting:
1) It's human nature to overly complicate even the most simple problems. For example, if given the choice, who wants to be noted for improving the hula-hoop when they could be working on NASA's next space probe?
2) If I use the analogy of a lightning rod on top of a house being struck by lightning, there are many laws of physics at work there too. However, the only law of physics requiring our consideration at that moment in time is the one where destructive energy is or is not being redirected to ground before it can induce its catastrophic harm on the house.
You can overly complicate that analogy all you want (as high-end audio types appear wont to do), but that's all there is to it. Do you want to try to trap that unwanted energy at the lightning rod, create an escape hatch so that some energy can exit, or do you want to create a superior electrical conduit to hopefully redirect all of that energy elsewhere before it can induce its destructive harm?
Do you really think this lightning rod analogy is so different from a speaker or a sensitive component attracting unwanted energy? Isn't electrical energy just another form of the vibraiton family? Are you aware that wire vibrates when current is passing thru them?
We're obviously coming at this problem from diametrically opposed positions so I'll close and let you have the last word with this old analogy I used 10 years ago.
You're sitting in your car at a stoplight and some kid drives up behind you with his subwoofer pumping out the nastiest, most ill-defined rolling earthquake type of bass you've ever heard. You look in your rearview mirror but it's vibrating so violently you can't even tell if the kid is a boy or girl. You're stomach's churning and you're starting to think if you blew chunks, you might get some relief. So there you are, in your car which is resting on your air-filled radial all-season tires and you're experiencing one of the most physically nauseating moments of your adult life because of the kid's subwoofer.
From whence are these vibrations coming? The ground or the air? And why?
Edits: 01/26/15
I would suppose most of the vibration is from high-energy SPL airborne obtuse bass soundwaves. These vibrations will activate solid, rigid materials in the car to vibrate and resonate at other, higher frequencies, both macro and micro, and travel readily throughout rigid interior structures. Isolating/decoupling an audio component and/or speakers from these now-mechanically transmitted acute vibrations will help alleviate audible distortion caused by these vibrations. Nothing silly about it.
Edits: 09/17/15 09/17/15
I've been advised by someone smarter than either of us to ignore you.
Edits: 06/16/15 08/11/15
I said "firmly coupled" - I didn't say spikes. In fact I use my own BlackPods, which I find better than spikes. I've had 3 pairs of Maggies over a 25 year period, and I've tried various stands/isolation techniques/etc. I have not tried Herbies sliders, but I have tried some of his other products and don't feel like going down that path.
Seems like BlackPods should work superbly under Maggies. BlackPods are functionally much closer to firm-yet-compliant dBNeutralizer-imbedded Gliders than they are to rigid spikes. Providing for being excellently "firmly coupled" as opposed to being rubbery/unfirm or rigidly coupled like spikes, BlackPods also provide for the vibrational "decoupling" interface between speaker and floor, as Gliders do.Steve
Herbie's Audio Lab
Edits: 01/26/15
You are right that Blackpods are superb under Maggies, but wrong about how they work, or why. Blackpods are a hard coupling device, not a decoupling or firm-yet-compliant device (whatever that means? Slim-yet-fat?, rich-yet-poor?). You see, I've actually tested a variety of Herbie's products, both bought and borrowed. But as far as I know, Herbie has never touched a Blackpod so this might be why he doesn't know how they work.
Hi, Bob. My tentative endorsement of BlackPods is based on the website information about them and word-of-mouth that they are effective isolation devices. Also a lot of past experimentation and prototype work with products using similar approaches as the BlackPods do, some eerily similar, some of these using Gabon ebony instead of composite material, using different kinds of balls and different constrained layering materials. Though I haven’t touched BlackPods myself, I don’t think I’m totally in left field. I said your product provides for being “firmly coupled.” Right?By your reply, I assume that the main body material of the BlackPods is a hard material, perhaps something closer to Gabon ebony than dBNeutralizer. Some hard materials, especially composite materials, are lossy and can absorb micro-vibration, Black Diamond Racing Cones for instance. Graphite also absorbs some micro-vibration, though that material imparts a characteristic sonic signature. Anyway, materials like these can firmly couple without being as rigidly coupled as metal spikes.
A compliant material can be relatively hard or relatively soft. For example, an ink eraser is relatively hard, yet compliant. dBNeutralizer, by the way, is much firmer and harder than the grungebuster Dots and damping sheet that you’ve purchased from Herbie’s Audio Lab. (Grungebuster is not intended or recommended for supporting loudspeakers.)
I think the part of my comments that caused disagreement is regarding the “decoupling” aspect. I didn’t refer to BlackPods as a decoupling device but just mentioned they “provide for” the decoupling interface between speaker and floor. BlackPods use constrained layer damping using an elastomer. Because elastomers are compliant, this achieves a factor of decoupling to at least some degree. If the BlackPod’s blue layer of material is an elastomer–and apparently not a micro-thin layer--this factor might be substantial and quite beneficial. The idea of diodes also is to achieve some of the same functionality that Gliders do by preventing speaker-generated vibrations from reverberating from the floor back up the footers the way they came–so at least in a way achieving a de-coupling in that regard.
Though employing different approaches, I think the functionality of BlackPods and dBNeutralizer Gliders are not that far apart. Maybe BlackPods are functionally closer to spikes, maybe closer to Gliders. I don’t know, but it seems their functionality is a hybrid somewhere in-between the two. Not necessarily any hows or whys but just their functionality. I think neither BlackPods nor Gliders completely couple or completely decouple. As mentioned in a previous post, these terms are often inter-related with different aspects open to varied interpretation.
I’m not trying to pick or prolong an argument or parse definitions, just hoping to find some common ground. BTW, I will soon have a hands-on feeling for BlackPods, as a friend in San Antonio who has them under a couple of his rack components has invited me over for a listen, and a beer.
Steve
Herbie’s Audio Lab
Edits: 01/27/15
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