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With so many tweak options what works best, I have heard so many variables to brass isolation of components, maple, etc etc etc. Doing some research I have found some cheap solutions to isolating my components (Maple) for my speakers. Brass spikes for my speakers now I am looking into glassHere are a couple of cost effective approach that I have found during my research:
Ebay maple item #120092997874
Ebay brass isolation cones #280090083911I have even found glass isolation spikes, nice and fat and aluminum but I dont know much about glass and aluminum qualities to isolate components, any experience or knowledge of these products???? I would really like to know! With so many options what really works best? Is it an opinion base subject or a scientific approach to isolation of your components? Does spending more money really means your getting the best or "we" are just making unwise decisions? I consdier myself a blue collar worker, working for the City of Chicago as a Firefighter doesnt mean that I am rich but I do have to take a conservative approach to making my music sound best with the lowest cost as possible, not being CHEAP just conservative on how I spend my hard earned money.
Just looking for honest advise on tweaks, especially isolation of components. Thanks to all in advance
Follow Ups:
There are so many different isolation products because there are a lot of different isolation problems. It helps to look critically at your setup and to try to visualize how the main vibration gets in to your equipment. This is more of a geometrical exercise, and can be difficult for some people.For example, I have a Wadia CD player supported by Lovan racks. The floor is thick plywood over beams over posts in a crawl space. The beams are about four feet apart. This makes the floor most likely to vibrate like a drum head.
Unless the rack is located directly over a post, the floor will vibrate in such a way as to induce a rocking motion into the rack. The height of the rack above the floor takes the angular motion at the floor and translates it into a lateral motion at the CD player.
CD players have laser heads that move horizontally, and servo mechanisms that attempt to keep the laser head aligned with the data track. Horizontal vibration from the external world fights with the servo. Even if the servo is successful in keeping things aligned, this conflict will result in excessive power supply noise, and that may corrupt the audio signal.
These thoughts led me to try a cheap DIY version of the Symposium Roller Blocks. I made mine out of stainless steel soup spoon bowls attached to acrylic blocks with polyurethane construction adhesive, and plain old steel ball bearings from a salvage yard. A little more expensive version uses ebony for the bases and steel-loaded epoxy to hold the bowls, and this is reported to sound better.
Putting the CD player on these roller balls made a large improvement in the clarity. One has to dress the cables so that the player has freedom to swing gently if pushed, and it becomes difficult to use the buttons on the machine, but these are small inconveniences relative to the major sonic improvement.
In doing this, I also considered the acoustic responses of all the suspension parts. The Lovan rack frames are welded steel and quite lively when tapped. I filled the legs with oil absorbent clay granules, stuffed the horizontal beams with polyester batting, and lined the beams with Dynamat X-treme on their inner faces. The shelves are also resonant objects, so I replaced them with aluminum channel beams. The roller-ball bases were cut to fit exactly into the U-channels, and the remaining surfaces were damped with another automotive body damper called Sound-Off. This stuff is less effective than Dynamat, but has an attractive diamond mat finish that complements the black finish on the Lovan frames. In my opinion, it is very difficult to make a sonically neutral shelf. Even if the board material does not support resonances, the shelf size makes it a player in how sound moves around in your room.
The newer roller-ball base design, with ebony instead of acrylic, seems to have an improved acoustic response. It provides a little vertical compliance together with damping. I have not tried it on my own system yet, so I don't know if these properties are useful in my application.
My power amps are Gilmore Raptor switching amps. They have large toroidal power transformers mounted in the centers of the bottom panels, which are supported by EAR damping rubber feet in the corners. The EAR feet are troublesome, probably because they allow too many ways for the cases to move (vertical, horizontal, rocking, twisting, etc.). The case panel flexes to allow the transformer to vibrate up and down. This reduces bass clarity.
My solution was to mount the cases directly upon Deflex rubber sheets upon thick end-grain butcher-block cutting boards. The boards have stainless steel sheets cemented to their bottoms so they can ride on my roller balls. The vertical suspension is stiff except for the damping action of the Deflex. The Deflex sheets do not support other modes of movement. The amps have good horizontal freedom to decouple them from the floor motions. I am very happy with the sonic improvments this approach made in my situation.
My rule of thumb is to tap on every candidate support item, and worry about it if I can hear an identifiable tone in the response. Most stiff materials are lively and require some sort of damping so they do not contribute to the sonics in an audio system.
Well .. .. I guess I need to find a way to move my rig from its position right next to my right speaker! Doh!!
Glass has a strong acoustic signature and resonance, I would avoid those.
I have a lot of their stuff. After 10 years being a dedicated audiophile I have tried so many Isolation Systems and after trying some of their products I upgraded everything, now I just have those massive Brass cones plus mapleshade wood platforms plus Isolblocks. Great improvement.
A slightly inflated 12" bike innertube is a very cheap way to try some isolation. Just enough air to hold the component up is about right.That would also damp any glass you are using. Glass tends to ring unless you do something to it.I will (tediously) point out that cones and spikes couple, they do not isolate.
That is not to say they don't or can't do good things to your system. But they DO NOT isolate.
Expanded polystyrene with a sheet of ply or mdf each side (and even a sheet of aluminium outside each of those) can be a cheap and easy platform.
Quite effective too.
Budgies go cheep :-)My local pet store also has Parrots available on Hire purchase.. or something like that. :-)
Cheerswelly
I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.
... it has further to fall.
Dave....you have to go wood :) I tried a set of Cardas Mrytle blocks a couple weeks ago and loved the result. I placed the block between the acrylic shelf surface and the bottom of the Soundcare adhesive spike (4). I'm sure if I remove the spike the effect will go up a notch, but the component weighs in at a hefty 140lbs....lifting a corner is all I'm going to do :) I was really impressed with the mid to upper midrange effect of the combo...so much that I ordered more and I'm waiting for them to show up in the mail. Make sure the wood foot / block is wider than the component foot for complete surface coverage. I found a small tonal difference between the small and large foot used on the same component...needless to say I settled on the large version of the block.
I may be due for a rethink on the system as I am considering putting a tuner back in and that would require a pre-amp as my Valvemark only has one input. Add the fact that my 40+ year old valve tuner is American and needs its own step up transformer and extra shelving seems the way to go!
...I think it's hard to go wrong with Herbie's exceptional Tenderfoot footers. Very good value IME.
If you're trying to find some tweaks to isolate your gear, starting with Vibrapods($6 each, in several different weight capacities) isn't a bad idea. Oftentimes the footers on equipment can be removed and the screws can be put through the Vibrapods to hold them in place.My suggestion would to be put them under your CD player, pre-amp, power amp or integrated amp. Use some clean sand( found at Home Depot or Lowe's) in zip lock freezer bags to dampen the top of your CD player. Maybe some Dynamat from the car stereo tweaks inside the cases of your gear could be a worthy and inexpensive tweak.
Next step is to clean up the A/C going to your gear. If you can put one in, a dedicated A/C line is a good place to start. Parallel line filters such as QuietLines or PS Audio's Noise Harvesters will take out a lot of the trash that rides along the A/C lines. Your money will be better spent on these tweaks than the "wire du jour" from the Cable Asylum.
Having learned the hard way about where to spend my mail man's pay on audio gear and tweaks, I can easily say that you should consider my suggestions. Try calling the people at the MusicDirect catalog. I think that they're located somewhere in the greater Chicago area and can give you more specific information and pricing.
While I completely agree with U, making a blanket statement such as "Your money will be better spent on these tweaks than the "wire du jour" from the Cable Asylum." needs to be qualified.One should take care of the basic's in ones system such as AC power integrity before venturing off into cable land for system "flavoring."
The AC tweaks U suggest are definately valid and one cannot dismiss the importance of the first step in the AC delivery chain.......the outlet!!!
Start there and THEN proceed with the other noise reduction implements :-)
Cheers,
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