Good one! 🤮
Component isolation
Let’s say you’re going to add isolation feet to a component with no moving parts, such as a preamp, phono stage, DAC, amp, tuner, etc.
Which one is most critical to the extent would get your attention first?
Which one is most critical to the extent would get your attention first?
Showing 15 responses by geoffkait
Not sure I go along with your detective work. Radio frequencies, like light, are not affected by magnetic materials or by charged materials. Photons, which comprise radio frequencies, have no charge. So, crystals by themselves or “charged crystals” would not make them RFI/EMI attractors or absorbers. |
mahgister104 posts03-18-2019 2:57pmThanks very much GeoffKait...I appreciate your explanation and it seems to me very clear.... I use a grid of stones connected by cable and with many batteries+magnet nodes like a passive grid parallel to the normal audio grid(speakers+dac+amp) and the impact is astounding , do you have an explanation why this passive grid(stones+batteries+magnets) work? >>>>I used to have “grids of stones” unconnected by cable and without magnets or batteries with excellent results. After mapping the entire 3D space of the room I was able to identify locations in that 3D space where sound pressure levels were more than 6 dB higher than the average sound pressure in the room, reflection points on wall, standing waves, etc. where xtals would have a high probability of success. At one time, in fact, I had so many crystals in the room, have built up the number over a long period of time, that you would only allow someone in the room if he agreed to be blindfolded. Loose lips sink ships. 💋 As I have intimated elsewhere I’m a big fan of magnets for specific audio applications. That is a long story that I’ll save for another day. |
mahgister103 posts03-18-2019 12:52pmThanks Geoffkait for the clear explanation...But Geoff how my stones or crystals act on that loop? I sense that these stones "filtrates" in some way but I dont understand exactly how and why... Do you have an answer? >>>>Crystals almost always work via resonance control. Even when they are used around AC circuits or wall outlets, or on circuit breaker panels, they work via vibration control/absorption. Other notable locations for crystals that demonstrate this concept are on room walls and glass windows and doors p, wherever a sound pressure peak occurs, and on top of Tube Traps. Crystals’ principle of operation is due to their atoms acting like mass-on-springs, albeit teeny tiny masses and teeny tiny springs, thus converting external energy to heat. |
jburidan678 posts03-18-2019 7:34amThe room is full of vibrations -- that’s what sound is. So, I’m not a true believer.... >>>>>Actually, that statement is patently false. I know what you’re thinking, that the sound musical instruments make and the sound speakers make is acoustic vibration. But that is not what the audio signal is. The audio signal in CD players, turntable tonearm wires, preamps, amplifiers, cables is not acoustic vibration or any vibration. It’s electromagnetic waves, an entirely different animal. The problem is that audio signal, the electromagnetic waves, no matter where that signal is in the audio chain, is subject to external vibration - acoustic, seismic, transformer vibration, capacitor vibration, footfall, etc. a common example is acoustic feedback. The cabinet resonance and or acoustic waves from the speakers affecting the audio components via the air and or floor and producing distortion. That’s why isolating components and speakers improves the sound. Hel-loo! |
millercarbon419 posts03-17-2019 7:25pm geoffkait- Oddly enough, no Nobel Prize winner ever said that. >>>>Really? “Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel prize.”
>>>>>Duh! 😳 |
kingbarbuda14 posts03-17-2019 9:40pm**Leaving to ask what would be the incremental benefit of *any* expensive vibration resolution solutions. >>>>>Generally, the two determining factors for isolation device performance are resonant frequency Fr of the iso device and number of directions of isolation (degrees of freedom). Thus, the spring rate of the spring should be as low as possible for a given weight of the component. Very Stiff Springs 🏋🏻♂️ must obviously be used under very heavy amps, speakers and turntables, otherwise the component will topple over due to insufficient lateral support. As I already pointed out a Fr of 5 Hz will result in transmission of 90% of vibrations with frequency of 10 Hz, whereas if the Fr can be reduced to 2 Hz the percentage of transmission for 10 Hz vibration can be reduced to 50%. The low pass filter characteristics of mass on spring isolators provide very low transmissibility for frequencies greater than 20 Hz. But obviously there’s an incentive for trying to achieve very low Fr. My Nimbus Sub Hertz Platform was the first audiophile iso stand to provide six degree of freedom isolation. By contrast, most audiophile iso stands provide one or two directions of isolation, the vertical direction 🔝 and horizontal plane 🔛. There are six directions of motion for any object, including three rotational directions around the x,y, z axes, respectively. Forces in rotational directions are usually caused by Earth crust motion that is analogous to shaking out a carpet or a wave 🌊 passing under a boat 🚣♀️.Thus, the ideal vibration isolator addresses all 6 directions. But the more directions addressed by an isolator the greater the complexity and cost, generally speaking. A combination of mass-on-spring isolators and roller bearing assemblies can provide isolation in most of the six directions, for example. There are additional factors involved in effective vibration isolation, such as method of mounting the component on the top plate of the iso stand, method of mounting the iso stand on the floor or rack, and method of reducing “residual vibration” on the top plate of the iso stand. The geometry of the spring or airspring is yet another variable. A bicycle 🚲inner tube, for example, has a very non-ideal geometry. And the airspring used in my Nimbus Sub Hertz Platform had ideal geometry, whereas the air bladders used in some iso devices are not at all ideal geometry-wise. |
tt1man4 posts03-17-2019 8:47pmHello all, As a manufacturer of pneumatic isolation devices (feet), am I permitted topost our website which contains pertinent isolation/vibration information, and an informative White Paper? If so, can our technical director also join in on this discussion? Thanks in advance for your feedback and consideration. >>>>>Go for it! Don’t be shy. |
Michaelgreenaudio >>>>>Springs by themselves do nothing. They need mass to perform. The isolation devices that are based on Springs or airsprings employ mass to produce a low pass mechanical filter. It’s called mass-on-spring isolation. The objective is to achieve a very low resonant frequency for the isolating system to reduce the transmission of vibration as much as possible to the item being isolated. For an iso system with a resonant frequency of 5 Hz quite a bit of very low frequency vibration will still be transmitted since the low pass filter is relatively inefficient for those frequencies and will allow ALL frequencies below 5 Hz to be transmitted. Very low resonant frequencies can be easily achieved using this method. “Mass-on-spring” isolation is the primary method of seismic vibration isolation for audiophile iso devices and for LIGO, the project to detect and observe gravity waves, which requires extreme isolation measures to reduce background vibration to the absolute minimum, isolating the super sensitive optics from seismic vibration. My Nimbus Sub Hertz Platform, Townshend Seismic Sink, Vibraplane, Ginko iso stand, Vibrapods, bicycle inner tube, Gaia isolators and other speaker isolators - they’re all mass-on-spring devices. Anywhere a spring is used between object A and object B less vibration will be transmitted. You could even call it a damper. |
The signal itself is subject to mechanical vibration. That’s why isolating apparently inert objects results in better sound and why isolating, i.e., suspending cables and power cords results in better sound. Furthermore, objects that appear to be inert actually are not (rpt not) inert. For example capacitors vibrate and transformers vibrate. There is no getting around it. That’s why a wise man loosens or removes the bolts holding the transformer to the chassis and isolates the circuit boards from the transformer and isolates the transformer from the chassis or removes and relocates the transformer. Furthermore seismic vibration moves the entire building structure so, even if there was such a thing as a completely inert component, which there isn’t, it would still be moving right along with the building’s motion. There’s no getting around it. |