Cheap Vibration Control Discovery

For an epiphany, try a set of Townshend Seismic Pods or a Seismic Platform under your table. I’ve had the Bright Star sandbox, SIMS Navcom Silencers, EAR Isodamp, Sorbothane, BDR/Mod Squad/Audio Selection/Golden Sound Cones (all cones are couplers, not isolators), roller bearings, and some homemade turntable platforms under mine.

The Townshend products are superior to all, but if you have serious money, get yourself a Herzan or Minus-K isolation table. Lotsa dough, though. Then there is the Symposium Acoustics Segue Iso, one of their Platforms on springs. Those springs are not nearly as sophisticated a design as the Townshend, so a Symposium Platform on top of Townshend Seismic Pods may be killer. The Townshend Platform is two pieces of steel with constrained layer damping between them (very non-resonant), with a set of the Seismic Pods attached to the bottom. The platform is very dead, but doesn’t have the layer of vibration-absorbing material the Symposium Platforms do. Your choice.

Art Dudley describes the effects of putting a set of the IsoAcoustic GAIA under his Garrard 301 in the current Stereophile, but a look at the diagram of the structure of the GAIA will reveal it to be nothing more than a rubber isolator installed within a stainless steel housing. The isolation properties of rubber is very limited. Sorbothane was long ago abandoned by audiophiles, but Navcom still has its' adherents. Perhaps that (or EAR Isodamp) is what's inside the GAIA. I myself am done with rubber. Books provide effective, linear isolation to a low frequency? If you say so!