Butcherblock Acoustics "feet" effecting sound and isolation
Hello, general question here do you believe the feet being used under a Butcherblock Acoustics platform effects the overall sound? I'm using metal spikes resting on metal decoupling discs that I ordered from Butcherblock instead of the stock rubber feet it came with. I have maple butcherblock under my phono preamp (3 inch), all tube preamp (3inch), and amplifier (1.5 inch).
Also do you think I could be over isolating with all that? I'm gonna do some experimenting this weekend but just wanted to see if anyone had thoughts or opinions on it. I've read good and bad things about isolation and over doing it. Thanks for any responses!
OK so you're talking about components, not speaker right? Speakers vibrate, components shouldn't. the answer is the same but for slightly different reasons. so I'll give you my 2c. I'm a physicist and I like to keep things simple.
So if you want your components to NOT be vibrated from the floor or the cabinet, you need to isolate them. To do this, you need something that doesn't transmit vibrations. Solids transmit vibrations very well. Rubber and sand, less so. Springs are the best at not transmitting vibrations. So I put the relatively cheap Nobosound or similar under my important equipment.
Hate to say it but butcherblock is good hard wood and transmits vibrations pretty well. You mention "decoupling discs". not sure what that is. maybe gel, which is probably similar to rubber and somewhat decouples but less than springs.
Spikes do the opposite of decoupling. they couple.
If you look at my system in my profile I have my maple isolation platfrom resting on brass isolation feet. Each component on the platform rests on a rubber/cork "Isoblocks" device. It works in my system and I would recommend it.
@blue_collar_audio_guy I would pay attention to what carlsbad posted. As an engineer, I can tell you that what he stated here is spot on correct.
From what you wrote, you are not isolating, you are coupling in a significant manner. Look at it this way, if you use spikes on a concrete floor, which is setting in the earth at least 6 inches, then the floor is reasonably solid and unmoving. Using spikes to set a equipment stand on that keeps it from moving about since the floor is not moving about. However, if you do the same thing on a wooden floor, say an older home where the floor joices are questionable, then you are coupling the floor vibrations into the equipment rack. Back to the concrete example, if the earth moves, so does the equipment rack.
When you decouple, movement of the floor, in my examples above, do not transmit through the equipment rack. In order for this to happen, you need to have something that "does not couple" between the floor and rack and also between the rack and equipment on it. Spikes couple, the flat disks they often sit on also aid to couple.
Carslbad suggested rubber, sand, or springs for decoupling, do follow that line of thinking. I can add to that a bicycle tube filled with air, Sorbathane mats and hemi-spheres. Consider putting sand in a thick sealed plastic bag.
Another option is layering. For example, pick up four Sorbathane hemispheres, set them on a hard shelf such as Maple or Oak to make a floating shelf. Set the floating shelf on your equipment rack shelf, then use four more Sorbathane hemispheres under your equipment that you set on the floating shelf. What happens here is the vibration energy transmitted from the equipment rack into the floating shelf is reflected by the ratio of the density of the Sorbathane and the hard shelf, then what little transmits through to the next layer of Sorbathane is also reflected by the ratio of the Sorbathane hemispheres and the bottom of the equipment chassis, typically steel or aluminum. The energy that is reflected back is absorbed by the Sorbathane hemispheres and covered into a small amount of heat, which is what you want.
If the equipment rack is also isolated from the floor, then you will have three layers of isolation. It isn't too hard to get 60 dB of isolation by using multiple layers. At that point, there is more vibration via the sound in the room than up through the rack.
And, yes, you can isolate the vibration of the sound as well. There are sheets of self adhesive materials, typically Sorbathane or something like it, which you can cut and stick on the insides of your equipment chassis. Look for automotive damping sheets that attach to the insides of doors and car body parts. Tube gear have high temperature O-Rings that you can buy to slide over the glass envelopes to squash the vibrations there as well.
Lastly, you can't over isolate your equipment from vibrations. What you can do is isolate so much that it becomes a waste of money to continue; money that can be better spent on better equipment, vinyl, or streaming sources.
I have a high end Silent Running Platform isolation platform under my turntable (the most sensitive component). I am using sandwiched elastomer / ridged platforms (Black Diamond Racing composite), with Nobsprings on my other components. Each change has improved the sound. As I can afford additional isolation platforms I will add to other components replacing the inexpensive Nobsprings..
Dang, I'm going to sound like Amir. The right way to do this is measure the frequency and amplitude of the device you want to isolate. The next best is to put your gear on solid bases and hope you are addressing the issue. I've been dragging a 200-pound piece of granite around for 50 years...not sure if it works but it makes me feel better.
@russ69Makes you feel better is key. Your granite may be large enough mass that the noises in the room cannot affect it. the natural frequency of a spring system (from memory to excuse me if I get a constant wrong) is sqrt(k/m) where k is the spring constant. so your very large m makes the natural frequency so low that it will not get excited by sound.
Electronics don't vibrate? Really? Ever listen to a rectifier? Virtually everything else was accurate though. Rubber and sorbothane are great isolators.
I use HSR rack with components on an isolation rack - it was presented an opportunity I could not refuse when exploring options to isolate my turntable. It’s dramatically improved the performance of my turntable.
Under a past amplifier, I used a bamboo cutting board that had a groove around the the edge( to collect juices). In that groove I glued some fishing, soft rubber worms. Turned it over so the worms were all that touched the counter. I thought it made a noticeable difference. The amplifier I have now is to heavy for that and I’m going to get some Isoacoustics Indigo isolators.
I’m an engineer working for over 20 year on dynamic analysis and vibrations. Normally in airplane components.
Like pretty much anything in relation to stereo systems, there are more that one possible argument or interpretation. There is no specific data all the discussion are based on assumptions.
the wood block is made of hard material and at the same time the large weight and high stiffeners produce a low resonance frequency where music vibration has low influence in the block but given the large mass factor of the block, it influence any other component in the vibration path.
the rubber feet had a linear dampening relation. The metal decouple feet has the differential factor of reducing the amount of energy transfer thru the system.
therefore the system final result can be very similar. If you want to reduce any vibration the best thing would be put neoprene under the metal decouple plates. but High dampening materials have limitations depending of the mass load and displacement amplitude of the vibrations.
you need more energy to move a heavy component. If you reduce the amount of energy input by the decouple support…. The system is more stable.
the sand only benefit ( in relation to speaker stands) is the high mass and
Moving the cg of any system to a lower point, making the stand more stable.
like I said in the beginning there is no simple answer.
every system is different and it depends highly of everything around.
if you are not happy with you system or sound I don’t think those changes would be a game changing…
Still points look them up work excellent .evern components vibrate from power supplies and other things from transformers, regulators ,and are cumulative
put in the Duelund Audio purifiers down stream at your speakers to clean up theHF distortions that are there.
Vibration isolation in audio is a subject surrounded in mystery half truths and any number of wild theories. As an engineering exercise, the explanation is quite straight foreword and may be explained by the “Theory of more stuff”.
Take a surface, be it the floor or a table, on which your hi fi component is placed and it is desired to reduce the vibration from the support to the equipment. The way this is done is to put “some stuff” between the equipment and the supporting surface. There are three possible outcomes.
1 The vibration in the equipment is more than the vibration in the support.
This is not possible as if it were; the energy crisis would be solved! More
out than what is put in. Free power forever! Unfortunately, this scenario
contradicts the first and second laws of thermodynamics, so is not
possible.
2 The vibration in the supported equipment will be the same as in the case of no stuff. The chances of this are one in a million because something has been changed… it may be the same, but that is extremely unlikely, therefore, the only possibility is,
3 The vibration will be attenuated, to a greater or lesser degree, and this is the case.
There are many products out there that do in fact attenuate vibration. Be it spikes on glass, wood and slate, aluminium spikes in cups, ball bearings in cups, solid plates separated by compliant sheets, lead, Bluetack, sand, marble, concrete, the list is endless. It is also known that multiple combinations of the above produce better results because there is more stuff. E.g. multiple platforms stacked really high.
The engineering approach is to get the best result in the simplest manner by optimizing the “stuff” and way back about two centuries ago the Victorian engineers came up with the solution…. the spring! The spring may be anything “springy”, from elastic, rubber, coiled steel, straight steel, air-bladders to flexible wooden strips. As long as it has sufficient spring or compliance, when optimised with an appropriate mass, a mechanical low pass filter is realised.
The ideal is to have the resonant frequency as low as is possible, ideally around 2Hz in both the horizontal and vertical planes and with a damping ratio of about 0.16. This will give an attenuation of about 25dB at 10 Hz increasing at 20dB per decade above. This will ensure excellent isolation for the deleterious audio system vibrations which are from 5Hz to 500Hz.
Those discs the spikes sit on should have a rubber disc glued to the bottom of it so that should offer some isolation. Blind testing would be the best way to see if something works or not.
This is another area that a little goes a long way and too much can cause more harm. Richard Vandersteen put out a paper on isolation for speakers. He expressed caution in having to much isolation based on the facts of the movement of the speaker drivers. The movement of the driver is critical to its function. The speaker has to have a solid stable base that allows for the driver to function and perform at its best. If the isolation detracts or takes away from the driver movement the sound and performance can produce bad sound. Experiment with options, let your ears be the judge but start small and know when the solution starts to be negative.
Everything in the Universe vibrates....The frequency of the vibration give everything its shape. good iso feet and a thick butcher block works great. Audio Mirror actually uses Iso-Acoustics GAIA vibration absorbing feet on their Toubadour IV SE R2R tube DAC with fantastic results. Good Listening to All.
I posted above about the physics involved. Now @townshend-audiohas posted and in their last paragraph they elaborated on the resonant frequeny relationships and that is why I went with Townshend. I knew they had done the work and sized the springs to the mass of my speakers. I use thier seismic platforms.
if you want to isolate the vibrations from the speaker which causes all the problems the best isolation is the Townshend podium they're not cheap but boy do they work well when I put them underneath my platinum 200 Gen 2 it was like I upgraded my electronics everything got so much better room problems if you have any will disappear for the most part.
I have the regular rubber feet under my Butcher Block Acoustic Platform that I use for my turntable. I couldn't believe the difference it made. Maybe try the rubber feet out as they're not too expensive. I'm super happy with mine.
All good suggestions with regards to decoupling and/or the application of mass but be weary of how Sorbothane can interact with your surrounding surfaces when under compression. The plasticizers used in the formulation can stain and actually adhere to each side of the interface. I learned this the hard way!
While I have not tried hockey pucks, I can say that all vibration control footers that use elastomers are many, many times softer and less viscous. Much closer to jello as opposed to hard plastic.
I use Nobsound springs under all components including turntable after a lot of testing. I threw my pointy cones and spikes away. I found that spongy materials like cork, rubber, Sorbothane, foam etc. to soften and color the sound. Granite as a shelf or tabletop sounded bad—dry, pinched and strident.
...well, since befriending my mad-scientist audio chum in the mid-90's, addressing unwanted distortions and resonances has been an integral piece of my journey to great sound in a dedicated space. Rick, for a time, was the US repair person for Audio Matiere, amazing French tube gear. I can qualify him in many ways...Pierre Sprey of Mapleshade, Ron Hedrich of Marigo Labs, as a dealer for Audible Illusions is the tip of the iceberg in his experience. Rick was a person who could awaken at 3am with an idea and have it on his test bench in a few days. He lived inside circuits and ways of isolating unwanted elements, and his results were proofs.
Please take a minute to watch "George Cardas - Current Through a Cable" on YouTube. Very very little in audio does not affect the sound in some manner, generally in a negative way, including "under the hood." Only in recent years has the exotic high-end been directly addressing some of these issues with interior isolation, anti-resonant exotic materials (especially loudspeakers,) aggressive room treatments etc.
Rick would spend hours upon hours in experimenting with materials...isolating, dampening, suspending, bladders, grounding approaches and early computer technology. He did re-master work for Mapleshade artists who visited him in Maine. Find his article written for The Audiophile Voice on Marigo VTS tuning dots.
There is very little that is mass manufactured and marketed that cannot be somehow improved upon. My audio niche is by experimentation and research equal to my ability and budget, in making careful choices of gear, treatment and tuning...pulling everything forward. It's creative, exciting and rewarding. A life-long passion.
Good reference to the Cardas video. It is great when someone simply demonstrates an aspect of audio… few words needed. The point is irrefutable.
Also, the follow on video describing the Cardas philosophy and progressive change in sound characteristics is something anyone considering cables should hear. It is short.
There are 2 main issues that isolation devices may solve.
#1 is external vibration to the component (e.g., footfalls causing a record to skip)
If you have a solid floor and solid rack/stand, and footfalls are a non-issue, this should be easy to solve and not involve tire tubes and sand boxes. (I have zero footfall issues so my solution is designed around that scenario)
#2 is internal vibration generated by the component (integrated tube amps and CD transports are among the worst offenders)
#2 is addressed by coupling the component to allow the vibrations to dissipate and absorbed by something that can convert that energy into heat. In this case, sorbothane, wood etc. makes it worse. In my case this simply meant removing the plastic "buttons" on the bottom of the metal turntable feet and removing the stock rubber/plastic feet from my amp, then applying several different application-specific solutions from Symposium. They are reasonably priced and they work. Peter knows his stuff.
Details are in my virtual system in case your are interested.
The biggest impact was my integrated tube amp, followed by the center channel speaker. (not listed in my system but I use JR. roller blocks to lift the Paradigm speaker off the wood cabinet instead of having it sit on stock rubber feet, or sorbothane pucks, and the clarity and detail improved - a LOT), then TT.
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