Damping between shelves and sandbox

If you must use sand let the dry sand do the isolating but everywhere else you wan to use extremely hard materials so that energy is rapidly Evacuated out of the system.That’s why I eschew soft materials like Sorbothane and rubber and lead and relatively soft cones like carbon fiber and brass. Step up to the plate and get some hardened steel cones or the NASA grade ceramic cones from Golden Sound. Springs are a better solution from a SQ perspective, that’s why the sandbox guy at Bright Star went to springs a long time ago. Twenty some odd years ago to be precise. Hel-loo!

Don’t worry, mc, your secret is safe with me. It’s protected by Audiogon teacher-student privilege. Everything is topsy turvy. Me topsy, you turvy.

The springs don’t bounce, silly. The combination of springs and mass acts as a mechanical filter. You desperately need to head over to your local library and read up on mass-on-spring isolation, you know the same method of isolation that the project to detect gravity waves used. Gravity waves have amplitudes on the order of the diameter of a proton and frequencies that include very very low ones, so sand, oil, Sorbothane, carbon fiber cones, etc. won’t work to obtain the very great sensitivity of the detection system required. But springs will. The best isolation is provided when the ease of motion is the greatest. Ironic, huh?

@geoffkait Would you set your springs in between two layers of maple?
Thank you!

>>>>Yes, that’s what my Promethean Base did for many years. Now with the smaller springs you can still place them between two layers of maple or directly under the component. If you use two layers of maple you should use cones under the component and cones under the lower layer of maple.

Whoa! That blows the dry sand theory all to hell. How about compressible fluids for the isolation? Oh, wait! We already have gas shocks and air springs!  And compressible metals! 🤗