Amp stands- Do they work?

Yes, agree with Mazort and others. My stands are several types of construction, depending on the component. 6061 Aircraft alloy, tig welded (non Magnetic), filled with silica for the phono. Steel, Sound Anchors, with Simply Physics feet under stand, and McCormack and/or Walker spikes between the amp and top of stand (for amps). Hard rock maple butcher block platforms for the turntable, DVD player and power supplies for phono and preamp. Is it worth doing on your system? Depends on how high end you are at this point in the evolution. It can matter very little, or make the difference between "just good" and "excellent." As a friend of mine once said "It only costs 100% more to go first class." Sometime that is not a joke. If you need the "excellent" and you have done most of the other things right, it can be incredible what benefit a stand will provide.

Hi Ejlif. I only have time for a quick response on the bladder stuff at present, but here goes. Obviously you can buy a Vibraplane or Townshend etc. But to make your own you need a minimum of a top plate, a bottom plate, a bladder of some kind in between, and some kind of footer. The rules for the top and bottom plates are pretty much the same as for shelves - ie a trade-off between light, rigid, and acoustically inert. MDF is OK but I find thick perspex is good. The plates can be less acoustically inert than for a shelf since bonding the bladder to it reduces resonance. The Townshend products use steel plates, but use constrained layer damping inside to deaden the steel. The "best footer" question depends on what they sit between. Rubber or polymer is perhaps best when they sit between rigid but noisy plates, and cones are perhaps best when they sit between floppy/dead plates. The bladder is where it can get very tricky. The easy DIY methods are to use; squash balls sitting in O-rings - ie. the o-rings are to stop the whole thing rolling off onto the floor; a 12" or 14" bicycle inner tube (but it needs to have the valve refitted to the outside so you can get at it); one of those air cushions that haemorrhoid sufferers use; maybe even a whoopee cushion... you get the idea. But the squash balls do not provide much isolation, and the others (have not tried the whoopee cushion) suffer from a tendency for the component to pitch and roll rather than bounce up and down. So the commercial products attempt to overcome this by having complex bladders like you might find in a car with hydraulic or pneumatic suspension ie. some way of providing independent suspension. The cheapest and easiest way of doing this is to have three or four separate small bladders (if it was four then you would have one at each corner), but you may need to construct these by cutting down and resealing an inner tube. This is how the top-of-line Arcici rack achieves independent suspension (ie. it has separate bladders), and it has the benefit of providing a means of levelling components that have uneven weight distribution. Note that Arcici decided to move from four to three bladders some time ago - hopefully because they figured it worked better, so that might be a clue. I hope this is enough to get you started. I recommend you start by putting a 12" bicycle inner tube between your rack's shelf and lay another shelf on top of it, and then put the component on top and inflate the tube only so much that the top plate just floats. Then listen to what this does to the sound - it will free the sound from a lot of mud and grit and the music will breath. If the result is in the right direction for you, then you will have a better idea as to whether you want to go ahead and make a proper one. The result is not always beneficial. An already bright system can become too lively, or you may like the particular cacophony of your existing rack - but these problems are not born of the bladder. Otherwise the only downside I have found with bladder products is that sometimes, if you get the wrong amount of compliance in the system, you can get a "suck-out" effect in the audio band.

The only thing "amp stands" work on is your delusional imagination ! Try a properly set-up ABX double blind listening test- if you dare ! your Pass amps ( or whatever ) will sound NO different from, say, a current model receiver ( you pick the brand !! )

This is for Nanderson & others who need a scientific explanation. Every 'stand or "non-stand" your precious gears are resting on are governed by the same fundamental physics; and those who are in engineering would agree to that. Basically our intention is to ensure that all vibrations real or perceived/predicted should be kept out or attenuated sufficiently of the audio range of frequencies. Check out http://members.xoom.com/rjmaudio/twk.html for some basic physics. You don't have to agree to all the principles explained but rjm's theories made some sense to an engineer. Buy or diy, but understand first!Phil.

If you are on a wooden floor with a basement or crawl space, bracing with jacks and wooden pillars individually under the equipment and the speakers works wonders. I also find that lead shot "sand platforms" and flat bags of lead shot as equipment dampers work very well and aren't too expensive. Just make sure they are sealed and don't try is if you have kids.