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Best vibration tweaks

The components in my system rest on a Lovan rack (not filled). Until recently, I hadn't considered doing much more to control vibrations in my system. But I've noticed that their are some relatively inexpensive (a dangerous phrase in our hobby) tweaks in this department that are available. I'm curious to know what experience others have had with things like Vibrapods, filling their stands with weighted material, airmats, Audiopoints (?), those half-globe gel balls (don't know their name), etc. If you've tried them, how much of an improvement (if any) did they make? Several of these appear to be mutually exclusive, so which do you recommend most? Thanks for your input.
macm

Showing 2 responses by dekay

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dekay
5,807 posts
 
Kubla: Before spending $80-$100 or so on butcher's block and X amount on cone points talk to Ken at Neuance about setting up a shelf/platform specifically for your turntable. He's a vinyl guy himself and the Neuance did wonders for the CAL that I use as a CD transport. I have played around with Maple and cones for a year now and the Neuance sounds much better in my application. The shelves that I had made are custom (with eight sides, not counting the top and bottom) and were only $165 each.
dekay's avatar
dekay
5,807 posts
 
Gunbei: Yes, try and arrange all of the cords and cables so that they do not touch the shelves and/or the rack (or anything else except the signal contact point for that matter, as much as possible). I use cotton ribbon to suspend extra lengths of IC/speaker cables between the components and where the PC's all meet at the power conditioner on the bottom shelf of the rack I prop them up (off of the shelf and rack) with Pods/cones (anything available) and do not let them touch the walls or the floor. I will eventually hang the PC's from the ribbon as well, but have not gotten around to it yet. The vibration from the components is being sent through the shelves and rack to the floor and I feel that it is wise to introduce as little of this vibration as possible back into the cabling at any given point. An easy way is to tie the ribbon from one side rail (the ones that do not support the upturned spikes) of the rack to another (underneath the shelf and do not tie the ribbon tightly around the supports, but do so loosly), then use another piece of ribbon suspended from that length to secure/lift the cables. The amount of vibration being transmitted through the double ribbon system would have to be minute and the whole contraption is not that visible as the shelves will help hide the madness going on under there. The worst thing that I have noticed is bunching a PC up against a wall (like behind the rack) as this will defeat a lot of what you are trying to achieve with isolation components. I use the cotton ribbon because we had it on hand, but it would seem to be more damped than a round cord in this application (and it's pretty:-).
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