Ethan Winer wrote,
"And as for Geoff’s magical belief in a building moving in six directions when music plays, all I can say is LOL times 100. Actually, if that were true then the listener’s ears would be moving too, thus negating that ridiculous logic."
Ethan, are you really that dense or are you just pretending to be dense? Like the other isolation denyers hereabout you obviously don’t even know what vibration isolation is. It doesn’t matter if your ears are moving, you silly goose. That doesn't even make sense to the guy under the bridge. The damage to the audio signal has already been done by the time it gets to your ears. Look, even if you move your head back and forth as fast as yo can while listening the sound doesn’t change. That’s because your head motion is very small compared to the speed of sound - and can be ignored. Hel-loo! As I said, you have no idea what to measure. You’re just grasping at straws.
😄
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I really like your new avatar Mapman. I can’t quite make it out. Is it a windmill?😀 |
mapman
Sure go ahead and explain including why it matters here. You’re like a guy lost at sea and trying to figure out what to do by counting the stars.
Save the drama for your mama. Everything is on the table, nothing is off the table on this thread, grassshopper. If you don’t wish to discuss it don’t. Try not to have a brain aneurism. By the way that’s the worst insult I’ve heard on this thread.😀
“The fault, dear Mapman, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
look within, grasshopper
btw Dave already explained it. 😀 In order to figure out whether or not stands have an effect on electronics it would be helpful to understand not only the nature of vibration but also the nature of the audio signal, no? Am I missing something? 😁
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Mapman
12-16-2016 5:00pm
Well I asked a question and you swung and missed. Strike 1.
how so, moops? I bet you didn’t even read Dave’s post, did you? Tsk, tsk
as they say in the Navy, never up never in. 😀
Here’s the relevant part of Dave's link, moops:
"Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist, applied Maxwell’s theories to the production and reception of radio waves. The unit of frequency of a radio wave -- one cycle per second -- is named the hertz, in honor of Heinrich Hertz. Hertz proved the existence of radio waves in the late 1880s. He used two rods to serve as a receiver and a spark gap as the receiving antennae. Where the waves were picked up, a spark would jump. Hertz showed in his experiments that these signals possessed all of the properties of electromagnetic waves.
Heinrich Hertz
With this oscillator, Hertz solved two problems. First, timing Maxwell’s waves. He had demonstrated, in the concrete, what Maxwell had only theorized - that the velocity of radio waves was equal to the velocity of light! (This proved that radio waves were a form of light!) Second, Hertz found out how to make the electric and magnetic fields detach themselves from wires and go free as Maxwell’s waves."
if you need some help with any of the big words feel free to Google them.
just a suggestion, you might try putting your transceiver in the receive mode more and the transmit mode less. 😀
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Suspending all cables and power cords above the floor is always a good idea. Suspending them from eye hooks in the ceiling using thread, using a rubber band on one end, will provide very good isolation for the suspended cables and cords. This suspension of cables and cords illustrates the deleterious effect of vibration on the audio signal per se as well as on the electrical power coming into the system.
By the same token the Enid Lumley cable tunnels of yore provide the same sort of protection against vibration and static fields. I.e. Cables suspended by string inside treated tunnels constructed with long sections of three 2x4s, two sides and a top 2x4 with eye hooks on the underside for suspending the cables.
A skeptic would have to be exceptionally hard headed not to see that vibration is bad for the sound wherever it is found in the audio system, no?
The only good vibration is a dead vibration.
geoff kait
machina dynamica
give me a stiff enough spring and I’ll isolate the world
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dlcockrum
Agear:
"That in and off itself does not mean anything".
That, in and of itself, says everything.
Eggs ackley! There's the high end and then there's everybody else. Talk amongst yourselves. Smoke if ya got em. |
As for the cables going into the speaker cabinets that’s a problem, too. Fortunately the speaker cabinets can be damped, the speaker cable connectors can be damped and the speakers can be isolated. If it were up to me I’d take the whole crossover network out of the speaker and place it on an isolator. Problem solved.
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theaudiotweak
in response to the question, how would you isolate the cables?
"Thru the use of a select natural material that has the same velocity of sound as that of air. This material may still perform better if it were also mechanically grounded. Dave..thanks for asking."
A perfect example someone who hasn't yet glommed on to what structureborne vibration is all about. Besides, what on Earth is a "material with the same velocity of sound as air? It’s air! Hello! And grounded to what? - the very structure you’re trying to escape?! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. 😩
It would, appear based on recent posts by the "other side," there’s an ever-widening chasm between Mid Fi and Hi End.
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theaudiotweak
"Suspending an audio device from the ceiling will never isolate the device from its self generated vibration or resonance."
I never said said it would. Besides, there are no internal self generated forces involved with the cables. Unless you want to argue that photons have force. I’ve always said you need to isolate AND damp internal self generated vibrations. Haven’t you been paying attention? That’s a rhetorical question, no need to answer.
then Tom wrote,
"The suspended device in motion ..and everything is in motion needs to dissipate the negative influences of some but not all waveforms. Some waveforms will travel the chassis but can be directed out via a copper ground strap to a mechanical/electrical ground. Without the exit point provided you will have a resonance build up even when suspended."
There are no internal waveforms in the cable to worry about. All electronics should be isolated, too. Everything should be isolated. Hel-loo!
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theaudiotweak
But there are wave forms being developed within the component even when suspended. There are polarties that are part of the intended signal you want to maintain.... and some of the same original wave that travel and create polution. Those you want to exit. You meaning your stuff..cannot erase the bad without killing the good ..as your crap does. Selectivity is not a part of your devices. Keep looking.
Let's try to stay on topic, shall we? I'm talking about suspending cables. Say the drama for yo mama. |
theaudiotweak wrote,
Cables vibrate do they not..internally and externally. You can screw up the sound of those as well. I think even suspended audio gear has wires and circuit paths that are degraded when unintended wave forms that run rampant are left with no exit. Your Play Dough is not the answer but is a part of the ongoing illness.
Can 50,000 advanced audiophiles who have bought spring based isolation devices in the last 20 years be wrong? Do you think it’s group hypnosis? Do you think they are deluded? Do you think the isolation gurus on LIGO project are deluding themselves?
Nice insults. At least they are more entertaining than usual. 😬
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Theaudiotweak wrote,
"A section of LIGO is suspended but not tethered or grounded. You should ask them if this was by design or have they eliminated a polarity of shear by an alternate method. I would like to know that method."
A section? The entire experiment is suspended but not tethered or grounded. The mirrors, the laser, everything. Otherwise they wouldn’t get the sensitivity to detect the gravity waves. The problem is the seismic vibration, you silly goose, not the self induced vibration. The whole point is to eliminate ALL contacts with the structure and with the Earth. He-loo? If you’re posting drunk please let me know and I’ll take it easy on you. |
Theaudiotweak wrote,
"...only completed to ground when the speakers themselves reside on points or platforms. Springs put at stop to any exit plan."
sorry, you're confused. Seismic vibration isolation is a separate issue. Internal vibrations is handled by other means than spring devices. How many times have I said that? Too many to count, no doubt. |
theaudiotweak
No its not solved because the generated shear energy has no way out. Where there is motion there is shear thru solid materials. Even when suspended. All forms of motion are eliminated?
Yes, it's solved! They already observed the gravity waves, you know the waves with amplitudes of around the diameter of an atomic neutron. Your whole shear energy thing is a scam, a red herring. There is no motion, everything is down to cryogenic temperatures and in a super vacuum. Hel-loo! Wake up and smell the coffee!
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Theaudiotweak
Springs add another boundary layer and introduce more interfering energy. The motion artifacts of the springs and resulting inertia when driven by the voice coil of a speaker need to be overcome by the voice coil. If you suspend all speakers from either above or below you have the same retention of interfering energy. And so is your sound.
Boy, are you confused. The isolation is achieved by the combination of mass and springs. That’s why LIGO uses many mass-on-spring devices. That’s exactly how they were able to achieve results. If there actually were ARTIFACTS they wouldn’t have been successful. Say, whatever happened to the Seismologist, you know, one that presumably knew what she was talking about? If she was smart she grabbed a hat a long time ago.
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12-18-2016 9:49pm
But Geoff you said and the engineering manual confirmed springs do have a natural resonant frequency. Just wanted to confirm your statement as written in the journal. Tom
Tom, I said the springs have a spring rate. You said they have a natural frequency. The natural frequency of the spring is irrelevant. Besides, the spring itself is not really free to resonate, it's under compression.
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Agear wrote,
dlcockrum
Agear:
"That in and off itself does not mean anything".
That, in and of itself, says everything.
Eggs ackley! There’s the high end and then there’s everybody else. Talk amongst yourselves. Smoke if ya got em.
Thus saith Mr. Kait whose current sonic reference is a Walkman....
Hey agear, biology joke: bacteria is the only culture some people have? Get it? 😁
One more: The only culture you got at UVa was through osmosis. 😀 |
theaudiotweak
IGNORE is to be ignorant, duh! Cheers..Tom
one assumes you're looking in the mirror.
Have a a nice day |
theaudiotweak
"Geoff,
Those springs help develop and help retain shear wave interference."
No they don’t. The combination of mass and springs attenuates the structural vibration, ALL structural vibration, whatever its source. Vibrations that reside on the top plate or anywhere in the device can be dealt with by any number of means, as well they should.
Then Theaudiotweak wrote,
"The fact that a moving coil sits atop a moving object (your perpetual motion machine at least in motion while you are trying to listen to music in accurate formation and time) I guess you could move your head in the opposite direction in hopes of keeping perfect time and speed ..kinda like a woodpecker..He’s got it going....some Doppler distortion as well."
The motion of a spring based isolation device is minuscule compared to any motion of the voice coil or the speaker cabinet. You can therefore IGNORE the motion of the isolation device. In fact, there isn’t any motion you can detect visually, duh! The motion is damped by the inherent or intentional internal damping if the device. It’s probably, what, maybe a thousandth of an inch. Besides, the isolation device can only move with only ONE FREQUENCY - it’s resonant frequency. Hel-loo! There is not MORE distortion. There’s LESS. There’s less distortion because you’ve reduced the amount of seismic vibration getting up into the speaker or whatever. Of course for speakers the added BONUS is that the mechanical feedback of the speaker to the electronics and cables is reduced. You know, by decoupling them. Thus, LESS DISTORTION.
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theaudiotweak
A spring will move above and below its resonant frequency.
Springs don’t have a natural frequency. They have spring rates. The device as a whole has a natural frequency. The frequency at which it moves. The more springs the higher the Fn. When you force a device to oscillate it oscillates at one frequency only. See if you can guess what frequency that is. Answer at 11.
Note to self: this is like shooting fish in a barrel. |
theaudiotweak
1,455 posts
12-18-2016 8:48pm
That differs from what I just read in an online engineering journal saying a spring does have a natural resonant frequency. Everything has a natural resonance. Tom
As as I already said you cannot take the spring in isolation, as it were, it is the mass on spring together, forming a system, that is what matters. Therefore, it’s the resonant frequency of the isolation SYSTEM that determines its isolation effectiveness, not the natural frequency of the spring. And the natural frequency of the system is a function of both the spring rate of the springs and the total mass on the springs. You are one mixed up cowboy.
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theaudiotweak
Geoff,
I want to thank you for posting all my statements and those of others a second time for all to see. Tom
Tom, you’re welcome. I trust others can learn from your mistakes and confusion.
Geoff
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theaudiotweak
Is the phase lag of the system also irrelevant as when the force is applied or removed and the system responds in kind? Tom
This conversation can no longer serve any purpose. Good luck with your online scientific journal/manual/whatever.
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Theaudiotweak
Geoff
You neglected to add your personal tests and measurement results to the documents you supplied a link for. Maybe you felt your results were irrelevant or inconclusive. Tom
I didn’t neglect it. It’s not up to me to test anything for any other purposes than my own. It’s up to a third party to verify and validate claims or whatever and publish data. Didn’t you know that? I feel that your refusal to stop ignoring the evidence that vibration isolation is effective for improving audio system performance is irrelevant. |
ethan_winer
Geoff posted a link that shows how to measure vibration, but it doesn't show how to measure the affects of vibration on audio as I requested. So yet again Geoff has failed.
every environment is different and vibration sources and amplitudes and frequencies vary all over the place. Thus, any attempt to explapolate the measured performance of an isolation device's effect on the audio signal and say this is what you will experience in your system is naive. On the other hand you naysayers do come across as quite naive sometimes. |
illuminator
I agree with NoNoise. I find it interesting that the original intention of this thread doesn’t seem to have been uncovered in these past two and a half months.
That’s not very illuminating. The original intention of this thread was to troll. This thread was started by the OP immediately following the removal of a previous very similar thread by the moderators. I’m not wishing to judge things too harshly but it appears the troll was successful. 😀
The original troll: "Mechanical grounding or isolation from vibration has been a hot topic as of late.....The question is does it have merit when it comes to electronics and if so why? Are there plausible explanations for their effect on electronics or suggested measurement paradigms to document such an effect?" Geez, give me a break!
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How to measure the effects of vibration on the audio signal, for the newcomer. By "newcomer" one assumes they’re referring to folks like Ethan, Agear and Tom, not to mention Wolfie. https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/br0094.pdf |
mapman
Clearly and practically vibrations are worth some concern when dealing with mechanical transducers like phono carts and speakers. Also with devices like tubes that can clearly be micro phonic. Inherently less so if at all with most ss components. I would even entertain that vibration could negatively affect a cd optical drives ability to function optimally to some extent. Thats pretty much it. Amazing such a long thread full of mostly showboating and not able to constructively focus or agree on anything.
Speaking as someone with as much experience with vibration as anyone and a lot more than most, and having supported (no pun intended) some of the most important and famous rooms at CES, there is actually is not much that won’t benefit from vibration isolation. To name a few things: solid state amps, printed circuit boards, power line conditioners, DACs, CD players, subwoofers, big heavy turntables the ones with 50 lb platters, power line purifiers such as Quantum Corp. stuff, speaker crossover networks, cables and power cords and of course tube electronics and speakers. Oh, almost forgot, tube and solid state power supplies.
No offense Mapman, but you’re out ranked. 😄
And you don't have to be rich as Croesus anymore. If you’re a clever monkey you can isolate everything in the whole damn room for a hundred or two hundred bucks. I’m not hot doggin ya.
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wolf_garcia
"I find that the tubes in my guitar amps can only be isolated from vibration by not using them. They might still suffer some vibration from seismic sources, or from people walking around them…the doorbell (rare)…but the only real way to preserve tonality is to embrace tonelessness, and hey…nothing wrong with quiet!"
just a suggestion but have you tried holding them in your teeth?
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ethan_winer
Geoff Kait said, "every environment is different and vibration sources and amplitudes and frequencies vary all over the place. Thus, any attempt to explapolate the measured performance of an isolation device’s effect on the audio signal and say this is what you will experience in your system is naive."
LOL, dude, I’ll be glad to see your one lone example where isolation makes a difference. Just one. But as I already said, it’s clear you don’t have a clue how to even measure this stuff. Do you not see how foolish you look? Even the other believers in this thread are laughing at you.
Nathan, Don’t you think I know you’re a loudmouthed and naive troll? Albeit a not overly swift one. I see through you like you were made of glass.
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The secret is in the experiment of suspending cables I mentioned earlier. If the sound improves by suspending or otherwise isolating cables there’s a pretty good chance that the reduction of vibration is the reason. If that’s true cables and wiring everywhere should be considered at risk. It’s Logic 101. All internal wiring of tube and solid state electronics, internal speaker wiring, wires inside tubes, wires inside capacitors, wires inside transformers, to name a few. This is not to say that static electric fields on carpets and wood are not an issue as well.
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illuminator
Geoff,
I thought that you’d gotten it. I just couldn’t understand why you went along and added fuel to the fire instead of just letting it die out like it probably should have.
I appreciate a good troll as much as the next guy. A good troll is indistinguishable from magic. 😀
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Well, sorry to be the messenger with the bad news but no one is going to have much luck playing Untreated CDs on untreated CD players, or CD players that aren’t isolated. Without the entire system being tweaked, including the room. That’s pretty much the difference between mid fi and hi end. If you made your bed you’re the one who has to lie in it. Stock CDs on stock CD players all sound thin, compressed, rolled off, bass shy, metallic, two dimensional, amusical, piercing, boring, hollow, thick, like treacle, like papier-mâché mache. If that’s a sound you like, fine. But I don’t have to listen to it.
"An ordinary man has no means of deliverance." - Old audiophile axiom
Are we not men? We are Devo. |
Once you let them get a foothold in your house you will have a hard time getting rid of them.
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atmasphere wrote,
"...that its possible to be far more rigorous with testing than we are currently and also that the industry ignores physiological information about how we perceive sound and so is about 40 years behind as a result), whereas (and I do not mean this in any insulting way and for that matter could be dead wrong) it seems to me that you feel that everything we need to know about audio is already known and has been known for some time."
One assumes you meant to say psychological information, not physiological information, about how we perceive sound. If not, how so?
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All the giggling schoolboys apparently like each other's puerile and remarkably unfunny jokes. What we have here is not exactly the faculty of Harvard. Did someone forget to put out the Roach Motels again?
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Agear wrote,
"I have a few thoughts. First, the correlation between jitter and digital fidelity or musicality is murky. From personal experience, I have owned DACs with high and low jitter and musical enjoyment does not always track with specs. I know people argue all day about what thresholds of jitter are audible, ..."
Well, any damage to the music signal done in the CD transport would show up at the speakers even if the DAC was low jitter. You cannot separate them. The DAC will process whatever signal is sent to it. Besides, the transport and DAC are both subject to internal and external vibration just like everything else. I.e., the transport and DAC must both be isolated and damped. Jitter in CD transports has many causes and there are other causes of damage to the music signal other than jitter. |
Nathan Winer wrote,
"Putting a CD player on a platform won’t stop the acoustic vibration from the sound in the air reaching the player! I made that point clearly in my Loudspeaker Isolation article which none of you apparently read.
Uh, the acoustic energy is the same as the seismic energy, they’re both mechanical vibration. What’s the difference, Mr. Smarty Pants? Answer at 11.
I told you this would be fun. I just didn’t say for who. 😀
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agear OP
Geoffkait: All the giggling schoolboys apparently like each other’s puerile and remarkably unfunny jokes. What we have here is not exactly the faculty of Harvard. Did someone forget to put out the Roach Motels again?
You missed my innuendo which is not surprising since you attended my alma mater prior to the admission of women and/or people of color. The primary selection criteria was a whiteboy with a pulse and not academic aptitude.
You’re all innuendo, Mr. Bluster. At least you learned something in the college.
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12-21-2016 1:39pm
Nathan Winer: Ralph, I absolutely do not think I know everything. I do think that everything that affects audio fidelity is known, and so there’s no mystery, but I know very well that I don’t know everything. A list of just what I know that I don’t know would be pretty long. Then there’s the stuff I don’t even know that I don’t know. That said, if you think people like cockrum and kait have anything to offer that will increase my knowledge of audio, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
to which atmasphere responded,
"Regarding kait, I invite you to reread some of my prior comments that were directed at you; you should already know I don’t take him seriously."
The feeling’s mutual, big guy but I know where you’re coming from. You’ve just remained in the past a little too long and haven’t quite caught up with reality. No biggie as far as I’m concerned. The fact that you actually take Nathan seriously speaks volumes.
With all due respect,
geoff kait
Machina Dynamica
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ethan_winer
^^^ Yes, exactly. And nulling can be used in many other interesting and creative ways. The device I’m currently developing can measure distortion down to extremely low levels, and it can even use music as a test signal. It can also compare two wires to see how they differ. So you could compare the $3 RCA wire that comes free with every CD player versus a $2,000 "interconnect" and see how similar they are. If they null to below -100 dB then you know both wires must sound identical no matter what the vendors claim. Pretty neat, eh?!
Geez, Louise. Didn’t you get the memo, Nathan? Things that measure the same often don’t sound the same. At least in the audiophile world. One assumes you’re from the bullet headed Audio Review dude’s school of thought, the one from back in the 80s who said exactly what you just said. It’s just another example of what separates Mid Fi from the high end. You want some examples of things that measure the same and sound different, you say? Capacitors, cables, power cords, power cord conmectors, resisitors, speakers, CD players, stereo cartridges, amplifiers, preamplifiers. Even electron tubes that measure and have the same military spec sound different. Imagine that. Everything sounds different. Cones sound different. Isolation stands sound different. Even one with the SAME measured resonant frequency. Follow?
Geez, even TVs that measure the same look different. Or are you blind too?
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ethan_winer It’s clear that Geoff Kait doesn’t understand what nulling is or how it works. I’ll give you a clue: it doesn’t "measure" anything. Here’s a more complete explanation, not that you’re interested in learning anything but maybe others are: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTlN6wjcvQ&t=53m39sRight, only geniuses like yourself can understand nulling. Only a genius would be able to find some hare brained method to prove his phoney foregone conclusion. You'd fit in very well in the witch hunts of yore. |
Geoffkait:"issue. It’s something deeper. Because vibration degrades CD laser reading and distorts the signal in everything it’s a BIG DEAL. Microphonics is a strawman argument."
Seismic type vibration forces the ENTIRE BUILDING to vibrate. Because seismic type vibration is not unidirectional, but has 6 DIRECTIONS of motion, everything in the building that is sitting on the floor or attached to the walls or ceilings is vibrating in concert with the complex motion of the building. That is why, in order to escape the effects of seismic structural vibration, the components - even solid state components - must be isolated. Nothing is really inert unless it’s decoupled from the building. Thus, even a three foot thick steel or aluminum bar sitting on the floor will vibrate.
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shadorne
What a totally useless thread full of ad hominem attacks. If the OP actually cares anymore I will add that I concur with Mapman. Apart from turntables, tubes, and speakers, for the most part any mechanical vibration isolation is totally unnecessary with most SS electronics. This can be proven quite simply by gently tapping the chassis and noting that no sound comes out the speaker even with the volume turned up fully. (Of course, don’t try this with a tube amp or with a turntable or with a sledgehammer)
I would add that a large transformer on a massive power amp can vibrate or hum audibly and so can an optical drive when close to the component but this sound is not coming out from the speakers if the equipment is working properly.
sorry, that doesn’t prove anything. We’re not talking about microphonics here, we’re talking about vibration affecting the audio signal in capacitors, wires and printed circuit boards and microchips in solid state gear and how the CD is read and the affect on wires etc. in everything else. If you smack a CD player real hard it could make the CD skip, but you won’t hear the smack coming out of the speakers. Fuses in both tube and solid state gear are suceptible to vibration which is why aftermarket fuses are usually either ceramic or employ anti-vibration means of some sort. Look ma, no ad hominem attack.
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shadorne
5,398 posts
12-21-2016 11:18pm
Well if you agree that tapping components is causing vibration in the components and if it makes absolutely no audible sound out the speakers at full volume then you have almost certainly proved that vibration is not a big deal.
so it definitely proves something.
yes, it means microphonics is not the issue. It’s something deeper. Because vibration degrades CD laser reading and distorts the signal in everything it’s a BIG DEAL. Microphonics is a strawman argument.
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shadorne
Geoff,
The burden is on you to make a simple demonstration to show that vibration is a big issue. Cars and other mobile devices do not suffer electrical distortion due to vibration of electronics. You are talking about a fringe issue that is obviously rare or we would encounter it more often on a daily basis.
Huh? Portable devices like Walkman as well as car CD players employ data buffers to avoid the effects of walking, jogging, driving etc., which actually illustrates that vibration IS a problem for all electronic devices. Thanks for bringing that up.
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In this corner, Mapman, representing the Peanut Gallery, lowers the boom on high end audio. Don't hurt em Hammer!
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mapman
Yes and if the earth explodes surely our sound quality will be affected as well.
what’s that supposed to mean, Spaceman? Can’t you muster something more uh, pithy than juvenile humor?
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What’s all this? Someone call a special meeting of the 12 Angry Men Society?
Note to self: it was just a matter of time before Nathan raised the specter of controlled blind testing. I didn’t see that coming. Fasten your seat belts. This could get ugly. 😩
I hate to judge before all the facts are in, but it appears Nathan must certainly be thinking to himself, gee, these guys haven’t banned me yet, whoops! Looks like my troll with these nitwits will be successful. Now it’s time to smack them upside the head with the old controlled blind testing crapola. That's
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