cones or sorbothane or both?

Cones and sorbothane disks are based on two different theories. Although there are those who would claim differently, I believe you negate the effects of cones using sorbothane anything. A cone is a coupling device, sorbothane disks are a decoupling and energy absorption device.

A cone, by putting the weight on a very small point, makes whatever is on top of the cone vibrationally couple to whatever is under it. In other words, if you put a heavy speaker on cones on the floor of your house, the speakers act as if they are a much heavier object. That means that vibrational energy will have a smaller impact on the speaker itself, because the vibrational energy is attempting to displace a much greater mass (your house).

A sorbothane disk, on the other hand, is designed to decouple two things by absorbing vibrational energy and turning it into heat. In other words, if you have something that is vibrating one one side of the footer, the footer absorbs the vibrations instead of transmitting the vibrations to whatever is on the other side.

Thus, if you put a speaker on cones and put the cones on a sorbothane footer on the floor, you may couple better to the footer, but you aren't coupling to the floor. You might as well just use the footers.

So, if you are trying to prevent vibrations from one piece of gear on a shelf to get to other pieces of gear, pucks may be a better solution. If you are trying to keep things from vibrating at all, cones may be better. I'm a believer in cones myself. YMMV.

Theaudiotweak, I don't comprehend. Is the earth direct coupled to what? The vibrations don't go on forever, so ultimately its turned into heat from internal friction--the earth is thus, in fact, absorbent. Also, things *can* be effectively isolated. I doubt, for example, vibrations from your stereo are affecting mine...

Twl, I have to believe, in Karabiyikoglu's odd position (no real room for racks, everything on a desk), there might be *some* benefit to pucks. While they certainly don't isolate all vibrational energy, some of it has to be turned into heat...

Anyway, Karabiyikoglu, if you are still listening, sounds like you have a problem because of space constraints. If everything is on your desk, try some experimentation. How resonant/flexible/wobbly is your desk? If it is really solid, you might be better off with cones--if the desk is solidly coupled to the floor, you are basically coupling to the floor if you put points between the desk and the gear. On the other hand, if the desk vibrates or resonates, you might have the only instance I can think of where isolation makes some sense. As I said before, I'm a cone-guy myself, so I can't help you pick pucks. I would try, as much as possible, to avoid actually stacking components on each other. Any possibility of getting some shelves you could mount on the wall? At least that way the gear wouldn't be in direct contact. I know target, for example, used to make a fairly heavy duty wall mount turntable shelf...