Active isolation; what can it do for music reproduction?

so what am i doing in my system with active isolation?

i’ve had stock Herzan active TS units in my system since 2013. i first tried one in 2002 in my old room and it was in the back of my mind since i heard what they could do then. in 2013 i found with my new larger MM7 twin tower speakers with the bass towers 6 feet away from my turntable that the bass energy radiated into my turntable was causing feedback. the Herzan’s apparently eliminated that feedback. my simplistic viewpoint back then has considerably changed, but i was not wrong. it was just never as simple as i had thought.

fast forward to today; i now use -5- Taiko Tana active shelves. a Tana active shelf is a Herzan TS shelf on steriods.

http://taikoaudio.com/products/taiko-audio-tana/

first off the SMPS (switch mode power supply) is removed, and a power port is installed. then a very optimized outboard linear power supply is substituted. you can see these -5- Tana active shelves on my system page, and note the linear power supplies with large panerholtz cases, sitting on Taiko Daiza platforms. these power supply mods greatly increase the accuracy and overall performance and also eliminate the SMPS noise into the system signal path. as always power supplies become the limiting factor.

each of these TS units is also modified as follows; a tapped aluminum top plate to substituted for the solid top plate; and a 10mm layer of panzerholtz is attached. then a thin rubber layer is laid down and a Taiko Daiza platform is set on top. these passive modifications extend the resonance attenuation effectiveness from under 200hz to the whole frequency range.

i have these -5- devices as follows;

-one ’each’ under each of my darTZeel 458 mono block amplifiers
-one under my darTZeel 18NS preamp
-one under the dac box of my MSB Select II dac
-one under my Wave Kinetics NVS direct drive turntable

my system information;

http://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615

what is the effect on the music?

generally; properly implemented, what a single active device will do is to bring a level of calm and naturalness to the music. it will allow moments of musical stress and energy to be more finely sorted out, to flow better. the musical focus will increase, but without an unnatural type of false edge or high frequency increase.

and the greater your dynamic expectations for your system, the more resonance attenuation matters, and the more active can take you further. if you look at my system it is designed to do big music effortlessly. i have a large room, very well tuned, headroom in my power grid, headroom in my amplification, and a high level of driver surface. i can really get lots of energy. which means lots of potential feedback into my signal path to smear and blur the musical message. active resonance control keeps the music pure on musical peaks and makes me want to listen more and allows me to immerse myself more in the music.

what is not always appreciated is (1) how electronics sing along with the music, and (2) how the environment around us compromises any electronics and adds it's own noise. you will never realize those things until you remove them and then it's an epiphany moment. 

having -5- of these devices in my system takes it all to another level because the normal feedback loop for the resonance corruption is completely broken. think about it. if your source is protected by active, but your preamp or amp is not, then the resonance in those devices will be picked up and fed back to the signal path into the speakers, then back into the system. active in each step has a multiplier effect on the degree of benefit.

it's easy for me to just turn the active effect off for my amplifiers briefly and the 3D effect in the music relatively collapses. turn it back on and the 3D is back.

@mikelavigne   Thank you for this wonderful series of posts. Informative and educational and true to the spirit of our pursuit. 

And who says physics isn't fun?
Mike, you and others on this forum do so much to further the listening enjoyment of music lovers. Makes it quite the hobby.

Thanks Mike
This is interesting to me because I think I am at that point where I do not want to make big changes because what I have is doing really well for me. And one thing I did recently was put some passive isolation feet under my speakers. I was quite impressed with the nice overall improvement in textural detail, less smearing. Even though I could not hear anything wrong before. So I have just been thinking about isolation of my other components.

Very thorough background on the offerings, use, and effects.  I have used two large Herzan tables since 2010 to support my TT, DAC, and preamp. In general I would agree completely with your notes about sonic impacts.  When I added them to my system I was very pleased at the improvement they wrought to my SOTA Cosmos table at the time. It seemed to strip out colorations at several frequency regions, not just below 200 hz.

The Herzan units incorporate the active pezioelectric system from 200 hz down, but they also employ a mass and spring passive element that is effective, too, and certainly above 200 hz.  

Regarding the switching power supplies, I simply run them on their own separate electrical line, and I have not been able to detect any detrimental sonic impact from them. It would be interesting to toggle some lps’s to see if I can hear a difference...

The Herzan units have a bank of LED lights that flash when the sensors are stimulated across their threshholds, and another bank that flash when the canceling actuators fire to cancel the detected vibration.  IME these actually fire pretty infrequently, and require a lot of system volume to do so.  This leads me to believe that the greatest impact I am hearing is from the passive element.

So, fun story that illustrates their effectiveness: I bought mine dirt cheap from a Silicon Valley salvage firm that was clearly parting out some failed venture, and they had them poorly described on eBay. I had to ship them 1500 miles, and they looked a bit worn when I got them, so I was worried that they may not even work. To test them, I set them up on some steel tables we had in our Lab where I work, and plugged them in. They lit up! Then I set a cup of water on each and a cup of water on the steel table surface. I pounded increasingly vigorously on the steel table and my tympani rolling did not create so much as a ripple on the surface of the water in the isolated cups, while water was jumping out of the cup on the steel table. I was a true believer at that point! Active vibration isolation is dramatically effective. Probably why these are favored for supporting scanning electron microscopes.

What's interesting about active anti-vibration is how the electrical quality of the power supply affects the performance for audio applications.

Unlike optical applications, residual noise in audio applications needs to separated into noise correlated with the music, and uncorrelated.  Correlated noise has a lot more effect than uncorrelated and needs to be carefully managed

Taiko Audio in Holland experimented extensively and developed a linear power supply housed in Panzerholz which utilizes high end audiophile power supply practices 

Ok Mike, I know what you are talking about now,

Mike

Fantastic, thanks Mike. I need to rob a bank.

The effect of the Herzan isolation on my turntable is clearly shown in the data readouts that are part of my system description. You can see the motor induced vibration that the Herzan eliminates. This is a good example of how the sources of vibration can be many fold -- both external (seismic), system generated (acoustic feedback) and system generated (motor noise in this case). You can also see the LF external vibration as well.

What is more tricky to describe is the effect of active isolation on vinyl replay. Many listeners actually initially prefer the sound with the isolation off. It can see more warm, more rose tinted, more euphonic and more pleasant. But all of this is in fact coloration. The Herzan strips all that away and actually makes my vinyl sound more like the best digital, cleaner and more distinct without that rosy glow. You quickly then begin to appreciate all of the extra details and subtleties that previously were disappearing into the goo.

I also have the external Taiko PSUs and they have a profound additional impact -- as does also adding grounding blocks to the BNC socket on the back of the Herzan, and also paying attention to the power cord driving the system.

@jbrrp1 have you at least tried a range of power cords on your Herzans? I found changes in power cord before I got the PSU to be very audible - actually the more expensive and "high end" cords didn't necessarily work best but getting the right one did make a good improvement.

Finally as @mikelavigne has noted you do need to take care what you put these active systems on. My primary stands (GPA Monaco's on Apex footers) would not be a good fit at all and my turntable now is on a rigid Adona rack (previously it was on a GPA Brooklands wall shelf with the isolation overloaded to defeat it and make it suitably rigid -- this worked fine)

Finally it's also worth noting that Frank Kuzma has also started selling these systems as well -- another convert to the cause

http://www.kuzma.si/zerovibe-6050p.html

@folkfreak  I heard that same removal of warmer colorations, which some might like.  To me it was a pervasive flavor overlaying all vinyl, and I welcomed its removal, as I enjoy the added musical information that is revealed. Yes, it makes my vinyl and my digital be closer in agreement in this aspect. 

I have not played with power cords. Sounds like I should. Thanks for pointing out another fine rabbit hole in our garden!  Any tils on particular cords that improved things for you? (And I am not prepared to extend usage of Elrod cords to this aspect!)

Also, I, too, am using a rigid Adona stand for my Herzans to good effect, resting on my tiled concrete floor.

The power cords I initially tried were the generic one that came with it, a $2k SR Atmosphere UEF L3 and a $200 basic power cord that I forget who makes. It was actually the cheaper cord that worked best, the SR cords are perhaps a bit too “warm” for this application and something more on the fast/yin side seems a better match. I’ve since moved on to a $4k Marigo platinum cord with the external PSU and this is a great fit - anyway my point is that it’s not simply a matter of spending more but of looking for the right complement so experiment and see what works for you

Only $17,000/each. I would need 10 of them. Piece of cake.

Passive isolation gets a bad rap. If you take a gander at the various isolation techniques employed by LIGO the project to detect gravity waves, most of the methods of isolation are passive, and fairly traditional mass-on-spring isolation. And the challenge for LIGO was much greater than for scanning electron microscopes, inasmuch as the gravity waves have an amplitude on the order of a diameter of an atomic sub-particle.

Much of the effectiveness of isolation for AUDIO lies in the “black art” of how one implements the iso system....everything matters. How the component is mounted on the iso stand, how the iso stand is mounted, the material, shape and direction of the cones used to mount them. How many components are isolated. One common mistake is allowing cabling to exert “pulling forces” on the iso stand, degrading the isolation effectiveness. Speaking of cabling, cabling should all be isolated using fishing line or rubber bands, which are passive devices. With a little ingenuity you can accomplish as much with $1 worth of rubber bands as you can with a $17,000 iso stand.

mikelavigna, any comments on that?

Each to their own effective application, re active vs passive.

My preference is to use passive as I’ve a slowly, over the years, gained a lot of experience in implementing it, and the other half of Teo Audio, Taras Kowalcyszyn, has forgotten more about such applications than I’ve ever learned. Seriously.

Taras, for example, has been brought in as ’The cooler’, in situations that no one else has ever been able to solve or figure out (understand). He is also the only one I know of, who for a commercial or industrial acoustics install, has guaranteed hard numbers, sometimes impossible numbers.. or your money back. (FYI, no one I know of guarantees acoustics installs re hard or written down numbers, especially in the bass register area.)

And this is him being brought in by a company that was probably the original isolation experts on this planet (in the actual history of the developed trade), as they were doing it in WWII for the military.

So if someone wants world class isolation, damping or acoustics in a space or place, I’ll put Taras’ skill set and capabilities against anyone or any corporation, in a heartbeat, and with my literal head on the line. Without even blinking.

Apologies for that plug, but he never toots his own horn, ever, and thus no one knows..and they mostly get horrid installs, when his are always beyond the pale. (One of those "Oh, the stories I could tell.." things)
~~~~~~~~

Back to the subject at hand, which is that active can, many times, be re-tuned to deal with various loads, whereas passive, if it is to be tuned as best as possible, tends to have a single 'best' loading scenario or target area/zone, and then all else is a form of subtle to gross drift from that 'perfection'.  It is possible to re-tune passive systems through a load range, though, depending on how the design of the specific device is implemented.

But when nailing it, a perfectly or close to perfect passive install is preferred to active in a pro market, as passive is (loosely) considered to have higher reliability in almost any case. EG, damping a large multi billion dollar bridge or building. Active no, passive yes and no known way past that, as simple is the way to go, that is more properly failsafe. This is not always the concern in audio, so active stands a chance to get into the mix, here.

i would not begin to talk tech with Geoff. :-)

horses for courses.

solutions are scaled to the target situation. not sure electron microscope targeted tools (the intended scientific use for these active devices) is appropriate for the uses Geoff refers to. but.......science and industry has chosen these active units over other choices. and their tools ’work’ for our High Fidelity purposes with a few modifications.

i’ve not heard anything do what the Tana active devices do in my system.

far be it from me to suggest that maybe better choices don’t/can’t exist. i will watch for Geoff to introduce his new LIGO spec isolation hifi product line. i think that maybe when we build our rooms we do some of what Geoff refers to here. for instance; depending on the distance from major sources of ground noise we might use sand or some other material under our concrete floors. as i’m in the mountains, away from highways, surf, or train tracks, on glacial till, away from any urban center, in the middle of 5 acres, in a separate building from my house.......6 inches of concrete did the trick. does this go as far as the LIGO approach? maybe not. but those factors are passive things we do to set the stage for our other efforts.

i agree with the associated equipment comments; the link i posted above to the Herzan tutorial goes to great lengths to address that issue. ultimate resonance isolation needs a comprehensive approach.

i am planning on suspending my speaker cables from ’half rounds’ with a series of bungee cords. i have the bungee’s and am looking for the proper ’half rounds’ that will work. i want something in metal or hardwood that fits into my system vibe. even though i can quickly A/B on and off and hear the active contribution i know it will improve, as my speaker cables are heavy and i know it’s damping the reaction performance of those Tana’s beneath my amps.

and there are passive components to the Tana shelves. which i did describe above.

so i’d say i have no issue with any of what Geoff describes.

For informational porpoises 🐬 only,

The description of the various isolation techniques used in LIGO, the Mother of all Isolation Techniques, 

https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/vibration-isolation

Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
Give me the right spring and I’ll Isolate the world 

Thinking about it from a scientific standpoint, the reasons for isolating a turntable are obvious and I have been using passively isolated turntables exclusively since the late 70's with one silly exception ( a Transcriptors).
There are two types of vibrational influences on turntables, structural vibration and air born vibration (sound). Both the SOTA and SME shield themselves from structural vibration down to 3 Hz with dampened spring loaded systems. The isolation platforms do essentially the same thing. Do they do it better? Mike thinks so but I am not so sure. The isolation platforms are limited to 200 Hz, the SOTA and SME are not. I can jump up and down right in front of both turntables without any effect on them. That is pretty decent isolation. I assume you can put something like a Clearaudio table on an isolation platform and get the same result...up to 200 Hz. Then there is air born vibration. On tables with massive sub chassis and platters air born vibration will have virtually no effect. The problem will be exposure of the record, tonearm and cartridge. As far as the record is concerned both the SME and SOTA have excellent record hold down mechanisms that fix the record to the platter. Then there is the tonearm and cartridge. The dust covers I use give almost 6 dB of attenuation at 1000 Hz (measured with a meter) which is better than nothing. The best way would be putting the turntable in a sound proof room. The isolation platform does nothing for air born vibration only structural. Funny thing is that with new phono amps that have balanced outputs you can now put the turntable and phono amp at some distance from the preamp without ill effect making this a more practical idea and indeed if I ever build another house I might just design it with a turntable closet! So, IMHO the best way to isolate a turntable would be to get a well designed suspended turntable with a good record hold down mechanism and put it in an isolation closet. 
Next comes other electronics. The reasons for isolating a scanning electron microscope are pretty obvious. It takes several seconds for the microscope to complete a scan with resolution down to angstroms. The object being scan has to be absolutely still relative to the scanner or you get a blurred picture. It is a purely mechanical problem not an electronic one. Does motion or vibration affect electronics in any way? You could argue that mechanical devices like switches, relays and mechanical contacts might be affected. You could argue that capacitors might be affected. Is there any evidence for this. Not that I can find. If anybody can find something on this please post a link. Can vibration affect the travel of electrons through anything else? Only in your worst nightmares. Imagine what the traction control in your car would do. Or the auto pilot in an airplane. IMHO anybody that argues that it does is not lighting up on all eight cylinders. 
What about people like mikelavigne who say they can hear a difference when they turn the isolation platforms off? I do not expect anybody to take for granted what I say I hear. That is entirely a matter of my perspective and psychological state at the time. If 100 people hear exactly the same thing at the same time now perhaps I can make a believer out of you. Whose brain (ego) wants to admit they just wasted 17 K on a lark? Maybe some day I will get to hear Mike's system and even hear what he hears. One good thing I can certainly say for Mike is that he does not sell these things which makes his assessment more valid even if he has the silliest looking amplifiers on the market:)  Never believe a human who is trying to sell you something. 

What about people like mikelavigne who say they can hear a difference when they turn the isolation platforms off?

i welcome skepticism.

just to let you know, last Thursday i had visitors to my room who asked me if they could turn those Tana active platforms off and see the effect, so i said go ahead. that was their viewpoint. there were 4 of us in the room at the time.

here is a link to those comments;

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-cr%C3%A8me-de-la-cr%C3%A8me.27433/page-64#post-603082

come on over anytime and hear it for yourself.

twice in the last year i had some local audio friends come over and check my own perceptions on the active Tana shelves prior to buying the last couple. i wanted to make sure i was not being delusional.

this is not any subtle feeling over days of listening. this is poke you in the nose obvious.

would the effect be as obvious in every system? of course not. my system is all about hearing everything. as i said above, this is the kind of thing you do when you have done everything else, and you have the optimal environment to get the most out of the investment.

and having 5 of these in the system increases the effect since any resonance feedback restriction is broken by removing one. so that’s a bit of a multiplier effect on turning one off. not saying you are accepting that, but that is what i observe.

Three things. Isolation platforms are not (rpt not) limited to 200 Hz. The way they work is that as vibration frequency goes up so does isolation effectiveness. Thus, for a 3 Hz passive platform the effectiveness at 10 Hz is about 50%, at 20 Hz about 90% and over 30 Hz at least 99.9%. Passive devices have a 6 dB per octave slope for the mechanical low pass filter. It follows that the lower the Fr of the device the more effective the isolation will be throughout the frequency range (of the vibration). The low pass filter has a hyperbolic function.

Two, as we now know from the Townshend speaker passive isolation video on YouTube, mass-on-spring iso platforms reduce vibrations on the platform itself, including those produced by acoustic waves. So, the iso platform is a two-way device. 🔛 As I’ve oft pointed out the top plate of the iso device can be damped using one-way devices to improve the evacuation of energy from the top plate.

Three, the audio signal is affected by vibration wherever you find it, wiring, capacitors, printed circuit boards, electron tubes, transistors, power supplies, power cords, fuses, etc. Therefore isolating as much as you can - everything - has it’s advantages

what i said was that the ’active’ part of the resonance attenuation is most effective under 200hz. there is still passive attenuation going on. purely passive isolation platforms ’in general’ work differently.

try as they might....passive platforms cannot STOP and START....they settle, overshoot, and float. they are springs. or they provide impedance breaks....or mass loading...or combinations of those attributes.

understand i have lots of passive resonance attenuation in my system and am a true believer in it. active is reserved for where i can justify it.

The vibration isolation performance of every TS table allows research instruments to maximize their resolution by removing ambient vibration noise from affecting their data. Essentially, any instrument sensitive to vibration noise less than 5 Hz can greatly benefit from the unique technology found within a TS Series table.

• Active vibration isolation from 0.7 – 1,000 Hz
• Passive vibration isolation from 1,000 Hz and beyond
• 90% vibration isolation at 3.5 Hz
• 99% vibration isolation at 10 Hz
• 99.9 vibration isolation at 20 Hz and beyond
• Up to 55 dB of vibration reduction beyond 20 Hz

Mike nice thread and post, Welcome back...

A point that should be made is isolation is the long-term path to higher ultimate sound quality, "tuning" limited to short-term gains, but ultimately a ceiling, or dead end.

@mijosyyn -- re the effect it is "slap you in the face" obvious, not at all subtle. And this in the context of my TT that has a pretty effective inbuilt suspension, and was mounted on a very high end wall shelf. @bdp24 will provide an unbiased perspective ... so yes these things do have an effect. As to whether this is worth it for you I cannot answer but vibration control is in any sufficiently resolving system the prime route to continuing (increasing not diminishing returns btw) and my system employs a plethora of passive approaches as well as the one active stand described above.

@mijosyyn said "You could argue that capacitors might be affected. Is there any evidence for this. Not that I can find. If anybody can find something on this please post a link. Can vibration affect the travel of electrons through anything else?

Take a look at the photo of the damper ring on the cap

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-cr%C3%A8me-de-la-cr%C3%A8me.27433/#post-555910

Taiko Audio does not CNC machine this Panzerholz damper to fit around the cap for fun, there is a reason for it

Dueland uses cast copper in their caps for a reason too

All caps are microphonic to a degree and managing those vibrations and microphonics is the key to their sonic performance in High End audio applications

Speaking of capacitors, I encourage people to use Marigo VTS Dots or cork to dampen vibration of Capacitors, in fact I’ll go as far as to suggest isolating the entire printed circuit board PCB in components from vibration, especially vibration of the large Transformer, which is direct coupled to the chassis. This is important even if you have isolated the component on an iso stand.

The way to isolate the PCB form the transformer is to remove or at least loosen the screws holding the PCB to the chassis. Also loosen all bolts holding the Transformer to the chassis. Use thin natural cork squares or slices as shims between the PCB and the chassis. Use a thin cork sheet or viscoelastic sheet underneath the Transformer. Cork can be gently wedged between capacitors in capacitors banks. If anyone needs some natural cork, I’d be happy to send some free of charge for these porpoises. 🐬 PM address.

I did not say vibration control was not important. For turntables in particular it is very important for rather obvious reasons. My point is that there are ways to do it that are just as effective and seriously less expensive. It seems to me this is analogous to driving a finish nail with a sledge hammer. 
Folkfreak, whenever someone uses hyperbole in reference to sound my BS antenna goes up. Describe what it is you think you are hearing.
Mike, unfortunately few people will give their real opinion in such circumstances, not to hurt your feelings. I only have one close friend who will let me have it when I screw up. Not that there is no improvement but I would suspect It is primarily to isolating the turntable. Get it out of the room an it will be even better. I am very skeptical of isolation platforms improving the performance of purely electronic devices. I would only believe a well run double blinded study on that issue. I would not even believe myself. I love experimenting and it be loads of fun having your resources to play with.

Mike 

Mike, everyone has a right to their own opinion. judging results based on the theoretical dots not connecting for you is your issue, not mine. i have satisfied my own concerns.

next case.

please visit me and listen for yourself if you like. many have.

Whoa! What? There it is again - double blind testing! I did not see that coming. 👀 Is there a full moon?

Here's a great article by Shannon Dickson of Stereophile back in 1995. I think it was one of the first that looked at vibration effects in audio.
https://www.stereophile.com/reference/52/index.html

@mijosytn. I already described the effect up thread, and on numerous other occasions in other similar threads and in my system description. My point was simply that it is not a subtle difference, whether you view it as a positive or not (and some listeners do not)

Hats off to Shannon Dickson for his landmark article on vibration isolation and for his suggestion to attach a large auxiliary air canister to my single airspring Sub-Hertz Nimbus Platform via the air fitting on the airspring, thereby making the relatively small airspring think it was a great big SUPER airspring.

Hats off to Shannon Dickson for his landmark article on vibration isolation and for his suggestion to attach a large auxiliary air canister to my single airspring Sub-Hertz Nimbus Platform via the air fitting on the airspring, thereby making the relatively small airspring think it was a great big SUPER airspring.

off the shelf piezo electric active devices did not exist for us to buy in 1995 when Shannon Dickson wrote that article. back then it was air bladder passive for the state of the art......like my Rockport Sirius IISE turntable. my later Sirius III turntable which was introduced a year later in 1996.

one relevant point regarding active from that article was that Mr. Dickson went to great lengths to say that once resonance is introduced into the system or rack you can’t get rid of it. you can only change the frequency or degree....the overall energy remains.

but......now the game has changed.

we are no longer limited to passive resonance attenuation.

you can now actually ’STOP and START’ and compensate for that sensed resonance with active resonance attenuation devices and remove some that resonance from the equation in the specific most harmful frequencies.

@mikelavigne - what other devices have you used to good effect? what would you recomend?  For some, the "tables" you are using are cost-prohibitive.  

respectfully,
Jose

Yes, I have been following the developments. While it’s very nice that active devices are available, it’s remarkable just how far you can go with passives. Plus we had to start somewhere. Ha ha I can isolate an entire system with 2 Hz performance for about two bills. By devices are now pure springs, make things simple. I’m rather fond of the passive Minus K, at least in concept. I also like what Townshend is doing for speaker isolation.

Jose,

i would not want to hold myself up as any tech expert or authority. i have some opinions and observations only. that said here are a few products i know about.

besides active; the top level of passive i’ve used myself are the air suspended Rockport turntables. which is analogous to a Vibraplane.

http://positive-feedback.com/Issue50/vibraplane.htm

as far as the best passive i’ve observed at shows; the Minus K would be very good, but it’s hard to maintain the balance so not very user friendly.

http:///www.minusk.com/

the other top choice would be the Stacore shelf systems. that would be my first choice besides active.

http://stacore.pl/en/

those are the big boy passive choices on my radar; but much less than my Taiko Tana TS active systems.

next is an inexpensive platform system from Taiko Audio called a Daiza. i have 18 of these in my system. you buy them in custom sizes equal to the footprint of your gear. they are made of Panzerholtz.....and have footers included. from around $450--$1000 depending on size.

http://taikoaudio.com/product/daiza/

i use 8 sets of A10 U8’s; decoupling footers from Wave Kinetics. i also use 4 sets of 2NS, under the spikes on my speakers.

http://wavekinetics.com/products/a10-u8/?doing_wp_cron=1571866626.3730359077453613281250

i’ve used Stillpoints before; mixed experiences.

Center Stage footers have many fans; not used them myself and not cheap.

http://www.criticalmasssystems.com/productPages/CenterStage.html

as far as racks there are two pathways. you can get a solid grounded rack and then treat each piece of gear individually. this is how i do it and i use Adona Reference GTX racks. the alternative is decoupling racks, and there are many choices. mostly good. but big investment, and very hard to sell if your needs change.

this is only my own narrow answer to your question. and not meant in any way to be comprehensive. not sure if this thread is where we want 20 other recommendations from others, but i guess we just go with the flow.

Mike,
Thank you for taking the time.  
Much has been stated in regards to trial and error.  I for one value a "narrow answer" from an individual who has experience and first-hand knowledge.   


Best,
Jose

Correction: physics is phun.

Without my air bladder Townsend Sink for my VPI VI, I would have dumped the table.  It is essential, unlike my VPI 19-4 whose springs and rubber feet actually did damp vibrations.  With the Sink, my table is a great table (& modified SME IV arm).  Without the Sink, it sounds like a $1000 table (dynamic LPs actually sound hashy).  I recently moved and set up my table again without sufficiently blowing up my Sink.  There it was, hashy sound, as if my stylus was worn.  I increased the air to make it completely float and it returned to glorious sound.

There’s something called design height for airsprings and air bladders. It has to do with the idea that it’s not really floating that’s the key, It’s that the mass-on-spring isolator creates a mechanical low pass filter. In order for the best sound to emerge from the speakers there has to be the correct internal air pressure in the isolators, based on load. So, generally there should be more pressure than less pressure. Simply getting the component to float is probably not going to be the optimum pressure. Air escapes through the rubber fabric of the isolators so one much check internal pressure from time to time to maintain pressure and level.

Very informative thread. Thank you all.
What is the preference for 100 pound speakers (dynaudio contour 60 ish) that are setup in my basement. The flooring is, wall to wall carpet, carpet pad, concrete slab 6 inches thick, earth.
When I use the native speaker spikes directly to the concrete (through the carpet/pad) it's tricky to adjust 4 ...there is usually some way I can push in the x-y axes that result in some minor movements. I have tried over and over to make it 100% stable but can't get there. 
I am wondering if it's better to screw in some aftermarket damped feet to decouple the concret to floor interface.
(I'm a vibration nube, but beginning to realize the importance of reducing it in components) 

Thx

what might be happening with speaker spikes on the concrete is that it’s digging in a bit on a molecular level so the depth is changing slightly. if you use some sort of disc under the spikes (copper pennies actually work well) then you will stop any tendency to dig in but retain the solidity. there are lots of examples on the market of discs with dimples to accept spikes. i would be surprised if you don't already have some laying around.

in my long list of tweaks i do list the 2NS from Wave Kinetics which are exactly what you ask for; decoupling footers speaker spikes can go into. and their decoupling action is designed for speakers; to allow the drivers to stay linear by not getting ground based acoustic feedback. here is a link.

http://wavekinetics.com/products/2ns/?doing_wp_cron=1572282455.7133500576019287109375

i use -4- sets of 2NS under my 4 x 750 pound tower speakers. so they are ready to rock with lots of dynamics.

How about you embrace the instability and go with the Townsend seismic platforms? These really work to decouple the speaker from the floor and from seismic interference. They were ideal with my old Magic Q3s. The Magico Mpods world the same trick but via constrained layer faking on my current speakers and don’t result in wobble which can seem offputting 

@mikelavigne I think you are right; The sharp points eventually just burrow into the concrete; I can sometimes turn the threads just enough to give that rock solid foundation, but it does not last.

Something like the IsoAcoustic carpet spike thing makes some sense, as it distributes the corner loads to 3 spikes instead of the one, so this should help;

As for rack, the rack seems ok on the same surface (carpet/pad/concrete) even with the spikes. 

@folkfreak that is a cool thought; "embrace the instability"; this basically sums up my 30+ year run chasing high end audio shenanigans :)
Cheers all;

Just popping in to point out the way the Townshend pods or any spring type device work is primarily to prevent mechanical feedback from the speaker cabinets to the rest of the system via the floor. The pods do this exceptionally well since the lowest frequencies generated by the speakers are well above the point on the curve where mass-on-spring systems like the pods are 99.9% effective. Iso systems are two way systems. 🔛 It doesn’t do much good to prevent floorborne vibrations from coming up to the speakers since the speakers generate so much energy of their own. The secondary benefit of the pods is too reduce cabinet resonances. No, speakers are not (rpt not) like musical instruments. 🎻

@geoffkait 
in systems where the floor substrate is ~6" concrete slab the vibrations from the speakers through the slab and over to the equipment rack (10+ feet away) are likely much less than the acoustic vibrations impinging on the same equipment rack (and individual components)...correct?
If this is true, the "Iso acostics"-type (not picking on Iso Acoustics) products under the speakers are not expected to improve anything--best case. I'd be better of trying to drain vibrations away from the electronics...correct?