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Just wanted to share my constrained-layer platforms that I used for my amps. I did this mostly because I wanted to isolate the amps from one another and from the wire shelf. I plan to build a replacement for the wire shelf, but with these platforms in place, things sound pretty good! I decided to leave the maple shelves in place as a base for the Rollerblock Jrs. I have three RB Jrs under each platform, and I have the amps "coupled" to the top plate of the platforms with nuts. This allows the vibration form the transformers in the amps to be transmitted into the platform. I like the resulting sound - more relaxed, quieter background, and larger soundstage.
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That's a whole lot of Servo amps!
Looks like all 4 of them have the double transformer "God Mod".
I also have a pair of X's like Benie. Raised up about a foot and tilted forward. Saving up for more mods.
Kudos.
-Dogwan
Dogwan, you wouldn't happen to be located in California, would you? I ask because I am at the point where I'm considering selling my truck to fund the full God Mod upgrades, but the thought of making this sort of financial commitment without hearing the amps makes me nervous.
BTW, I've had very good results with my new 3+1 reconfiguration. Best sounding setup so far. Overall better bass than the X by itself, and while it sounds better seated, it sounds sufficiently good while standing.
Sorry, I'm in Portland, OR.
Yeah, it was a tough nut to swallow myself. Sold a pair of 300b monoblocks to fund mine. But they weren't being used since getting the Acoustats anyway. I think it was worth it to my ears. Especially when you count in the peace of mind that the power supply is much more stable and the load on the transformers is easier. My God Mod came about because I blew up one of the original transformers so it was all in the timing.
If you want I can hold the phone up in the room for ya. Just kidding.
-Dogwan
D'oh! Maybe I can concoct an electrostatic telephone. :) I'm going to call Michael Savuto to see if he has any California customers that might be willing to let me have a listen to their rigs. It's too much money at this time to risk on something I've never even heard. Thanks!
Nice! I like what you've done with those Xs.
Yes, I've been working on these amps with Mike Savuto at Analogue Associates for close to 10 years. He really keeps these things moving in the right direction sonically. The dual transformer setup is one great example of the stuff he's come up with.
Nice work! Also nice Servo amps, looks like alot of mods on them.
It is hard to do something with the bottom plate and Chassis of the amp.
I like what you have done. FIM has roller Blocks and they have a shelf in which the roller blocks go between the 2 wooden shelves, if I remember correctly, a simular idea to yours.
I also like roller blocks under my X speakers, a nice tweak!
Great to hear from a fellow Acoustaphile! I love the Xs, one of my favorites! Yes, my Monitor 4s are on roller blocks, too (see pic). I love the sound that way. I have them on a piece of Granite that is on top of a piece of felt. The whole system keeps the speakers from charging the floor so much. I might try a constrained layer platform and compare it to the Granite. I know folks here don't care much for Granite, but placing the speakers on these slabs really did clean up the bass.
Edits: 04/20/10
Thanks for the pic, I'm using thick ceramic bathroom tiles between the X cabnet and the roller balls. Sometime in the near future I will be building some new frames for them. Still not sure which way to go, might try a 1+1 setup.
Well... when I had model 6s (3+3s if you will), I had them bi-amped. They were driven with interfaces at the time, one amp/interface drove the top three panels, and antoer amp/interface drove the bottom there panels. One day I played just the upper panels. The effect is more hall ambience, more room excitement. Later I had stacked Monitor 4s with servo amps. That was a killer setup, but I needed a very large room. Now my listening room doesn't have high enough ceilings for stacked Acoustats, and I really don't miss the upper panels. You really only get a few more DB with the added panels anyhow.
As for the panel angle - I tend to like slightly angled panels. maybe you could make a frame that allows you to experiment with that? Also, have you considered using the two 9" panels from your Xs as the bottom level, and placing the 8" panel above? A 2+1?
Ultimately I think the Xs, Monitor 3s, and Model 3s are the ultimate Acoustat for Servo amps. Monitor 4s if you have the room.
Would have loved to have heard stacked Monitor 4s with servo amps, :O)
It's funny you mention a 2+1 setup. Moray James had said that might be an option as well. Some food for thought there, that's for sure.
A good friend is a cabinet maker so he will be helping me with the new frames, we plan on using some nice wood as well, maybe Black Walnut.
A frame that allows me to experiment with angle is worth putting some thought into. Great idea!
Whatever I do, I will post pics on the Plannar forum when I'm finished.
Thanks again for added info.
Are you running servo amps?
The older Monitor 3 cabinets were nice, and they got the panels up a bit which seemed to clean up the bass response. I also found that raising the Xs off the ground about a foot and tilting them forward a bit helped them image a bit better.
IMO the servo amps don't work too well into narrow speakers. Maybe model 2 or 2+2 with the right room and setup... but I think the 1+1s won't be a good match for the servos. In my experience anything less than three panels wide sounds too, um, thin. :-)
Yep, I'm running the servo amps and I have the amps on my audio stand, not on the speakers. I have a few patio stones in the speaker to help for mass.
I did try them about a foot off the ground but didn't find much difference, but that was quite a while back and I have made alot of changes since then. Maybe I'll revisit that, I do have them tilted forward a bit and that helps.
That is what I wonder about, will I lose to much if I go to a 1+1.
My system does have incredible weight to it and losing a bit is alright, but not to much.
Maybe just redo a nice 3 panel frame. I am in near field so I'm not even sure what effect the taller panels would have, maybe not worth the try. Any ideas if I should have the panels flat or angled like the X ?
Thanks for the input, always nice to hear from others who have first hand experience.
To be honest, the rack just looks really shaky... I think it would be better to get a (or build) a more solid rack, and then experiment with the balls and sandwich stuff. Crazy looking set up!
Peace.
v.i.
Million miles from home.
Yeah. I got nothin' there. Building a better one is on my to-do list. This one is pretty sturdy, FWIW... it's an industrial and heavy gauge version of the more common wire racks available at Lowes, Home Depot, etc. It's still a wire shelf, though. Yep, it can certainly be improved upon.
Good setup.
I have a similar setup at home. My gear is on symposium platforms, on top of seismic sinks. It works very well for pretty much all gear.
Jack
What it appears you have done (effectively) is to make the sandwiches part of the amp cabinetry by hard screwing them together, then using the roller balls to couple them horizontally/rotationally, then using the maple for tuning more than anything.
I'm not sure this is the most effective use of the sandwich layers, however. Only experimentation will tell.
Did you try using the rollers between the amps and the sandwiches first, and skipping the maple altogether? You might want to do that. It's the more commonly effective approach.
"What it appears you have done (effectively) is to make the sandwiches part of the amp cabinetry by hard screwing them together..."
Thanks for your input. The nuts are just resting under the amps, they are not fastened. They are there to keep the amps off their stock rubber feet. and ensure that vibration borne within the amps make it into the shelves.
"...then using the roller balls to couple them horizontally/rotationally, then using the maple for tuning more than anything."
My thought was that the rollerblocks would not couple the amps to the platforms rotationally or horizontally - they are in fact de-coupling the amps. That's why I chose a "hard foot" - a nut in this case - to couple the amps to the platform. This makes it more likely for vibration modes in the vertical and horizontal plane to make it into the shelf to be dissipated.
"Did you try using the rollers between the amps and the sandwiches first, and skipping the maple altogether? You might want to do that. It's the more commonly effective approach."
Now, I haven't tried that, mostly because the bottoms of the amps are quite flexible. The amps are heavyish at about 50 lbs. The bottom is .1" steel. I could perhaps try your suggestion by inverting the rollerblocks so their bases are on the amps and the ball is beneath. Hmmm... or I could try the maple under the amps. Lots of options to be sure!
OK, here's what to try first: get rid of the nuts and the maple shelving and put the rollers how they are meant to go: between your amp bottom and your sandwich shelving with the ball against the amp chasis.
If you're concerned that the 1" chasis bottom is flexible, then try a small sheet of hard aluminum, such as you have on your sandwich, double-sided taped to the bottoms where the balls will touch them. If that is a shiny smooth aluminum plate, it will maximize the rolling while minimizing any flexing.
But either way, you misunderstand what the rollers do.
What they actually do is NOT isolation, it's coupling. They couple metal to metal to metal in your case via the small point of the ball top and bottom. How they work is that they move both rotationally/horizontally and vertically (small bit up the increasingly sloped sides) to convert the energy of vibrations partially into heat of friction.
Your sandwich works more closely by a form of isolation similar to a seismic sink. That is, it also converts vibrations in the vertical plane into heat at every interface between the different materials.
Your nuts are not optimized couplers like the roller balls. Your maple platforms are not optimized isolators, they're more like tuning blocks. Your sandwiches ARE an optimized seismic sink.
Thanks again for your perspective - geez, I should have posted my plan first... it took me an hour to get this rig set up!
I actually have some 7075 aluminum discs that I can attach to the bottom of the amps. I'll give that a try. I would like to loose the Maple shelves as they take up too much vertical space.
BTW, I take exception to your statement that my nuts are not optimized. 8^)
Rollers couple VERTICALLY and isolate HORIZONTALLY.
Your second point is arguable, but it's not worth having the argument.
Key is that he's not understanding what the rollers do mostly and he can do better by rearranging his stack.
"Key is that he's not understanding what the rollers do mostly and he can do better by rearranging his stack. "
Again, I appreciate your feedback... but I don't think there is a right answer here, and I don't think I fall into the camp that "doesn't understand". A pure horizontal vibration mode will be isolated by the rollers. Better put, a pure horizontal vibration mode borne within the amps will not transfer into the stack of the constrained layer shelf through rollers as well as it will through rigid couplers. I agree that the rollers will couple the same as rigid couplers for pure veritical vibration modes.
Without experimentation, I think you are taking a leap to say I can do better by rearranging. I will be glad to try your suggestions, but what sounds best is anybody's guess.
I have no idea what your stack sounds like nor your sonic preferences. I'm just commenting on the usual physics of these devices and my own experimentation on my own devices relative to my own preferences.
Yeah, that was quite a slip there! ROTFLMAO
The discs should work fine for the purpose I suggested.
I placed three Symposium Rollerblocks below each shelf - helps reduce the vibration induced from the wire rack. yeah, I know... I gotta buld a better rack. 8^)
Here's the stack, from top to bottom:
1/8" 6061 Aluminum
1/8" Hardboard
3/4" MDF
3/4" Gator Foam
3/4" MDF
1/8" Hardboard
1/8" 7075 Aluminum (harder material to provide a surface for the Rollerblock Balls)
Of course below the Rollerblock Jrs. is plain ol' Maple.
These things sound very nice, much better than the Maple alone...
Personally I would have either painted the MDF of edged the platforms with wood.
And before any one tells me that that would attach the layers together, it's easy to cut the MDF a few mills bigger in each direction and keep the trim off the other layers.
It adds significantly to the WAF.
In the long run you have to live with this stuff and not paying attention to those details, for me least, detracts from how much I enjoy being in the room.
Well... I haven't finished them at all yet, but black paint would be my choice. These amps are actually in a closet, completely out of sight. Not only is the whole setup ugly, but without tube cages... well let's just say it's best that they are in a closet.
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