Has anyone had experiences good or bad with speaker isolation or isolation in general ?


hi
i have been enjoying buying and listening to hifi for some 35 years now and have seen many items come and go.I have also been interested in the audio cable discussions and i agree that cables do make a difference how much of a difference is a very individual, and a system dependent situation. There has been nothing that has got me so excited and improved the sound of my system that has ever made me want to really share it with fellow audiophiles until i started to try various isolation products.With so much choice from affordable to very expensive i found the hole subject very confusing and i did not know where to start. After trying lots of various products all shapes and sizes with very different results i decided to read reviews which is something i do not usually do to get some advise.I read a review on the Townshend audio seismic podiums they are isolation platforms that go under your speakers .This company is very famous for isolation ideas and have been around some 50 years based here in the UK they also had a factory in the USA back in the 1980s. I contacted Nick at Emporium hifi  and he agreed to install a pair for me so i could have a listen. My speakers are sound-lab dynastats which i use in quite a small room but with the adjustments give a nice sound. After installing the podiums we both sat down with jaws hitting the floor these podium things completely transformed the sound of my system to absolute perfection. After all this time trying various products under my equipment i have now isolated my speakers and the sound quality is exactly what i believe we all are chasing, my sound-labs are now transparent no more bass problems i have just got one big 3D sound stage the dynastats are now very open with deeper much better bass everything is perfect. I now believe isolating your loudspeakers is the first port of call i was so impressed by the Townshend audio seismic products i now sell them as i have never come across anything that has given my system such a great upgrade , the sound is the same as before but now its just so much better its playing deeper bass but tighter much more resolution and no boom , the midrange is so much more human sounding realistic and spacious with the top end so refined and perfect , is anyone using podiums and had the same experiences i would love to hear from you thank you john 
mains

Showing 13 responses by geoffkait

The take away from this recent discussion is that not only should speakers be isolated, especially subwoofers, but ALL components as well. The reason is because the seismic forces have frequencies BELOW those produced by speakers, even by subwoofers. Thus, isolating speakers is only a partial solution. Alas! But there has always been a wide variety of solutions available to audiophiles, both DIY and commercial. I’m pretty sure I could count 20 different products and DIY solutions without much difficulty. This all does not preclude the use of damping for certain applications, e.g., damping electron tubes, printed circuit boards, transformers, the top plate of isolation stands, etc.
Then you should probably read Kip Thorne's (LIGO) Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy

Re gravity wave wavelengths:

"The wave-lengths of gravitational waves emitted in such merger events are typically of the same order as the dimension of the system. That is, for black holes with masses between 10 and 100 times the solar mass, wavelengths are typically a hundred to a thousand km – right in the range that LIGO is most sensitive."  Feb 10, 2016

confusin', ain't it?

Ak chew ally, Gravity is the weakest force. Nuclear forces are much stronger. In fact the reason why LIGO needed to develop such robust seismic isolation methods was because gravity waves are so weak, having amplitudes around the diameter of a neutron. Thus, the detection of such waves would have otherwise been drowned out by the slightest vibration, even the vibration of atoms in some of the LIGO sapphire filament suspensions were an issue. In audio it’s not difficult to see isolation related issue with the nano scale laser beam and the nano scale data spiral on the CD, even the very small signal in stereo cartridges and tonearm wires and the 10 Hz or so resonant frequencies of the cartridge and tonearm represent challenges since seismic vibrations include that region 8 to 14 Hz. It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

"My scepticism arises from the huge difference in wavelengths..."

That's actually the part that threw me. Which wavelengths are you referring to?

 
toddverrone
My scepticism arises from the huge difference in wavelengths and the law of something returns.

And that was in reference to?
Gee it was only last week I walked a customer through the construction of a double decker mass on spring isolation stand using my compact cryo'd high carbon steel Mini Isolators and a stack of ceramic tiles from Home Despot. Of course, not to be too intellectual about it, you have to arrange things so that the resonant frequencies of the two mass-spring layers don't interfere with each other. Ouch, that hurt just saying that.
One can't one can't help wondering why LIGO the science project to observe gravity waves didn't use an inexpensive and simple solution for their seismic vibration isolation systems? But instead as a rather complex system of heavy masses and springs as well as inverted pendulums, sapphire thread suspensions and other advanced isolation devices. I sometimes suspect audiophiles don't believe audio electronics are too susceptible to very low frequency vibration or else a certain amount of isolation, but nothing more, is sufficient to get the job done. 

The good thing about concrete slabs is they are very very stiff so they resist, but not totally eliminate, the rotational forces that result from Earth crust motion, traffic, subways, etc. The concrete slabs do not do so well in attenuating low frequency vertical forces since the entire building is being moved by the motion of the Earth's crust, etc. At the same time I have found very hard cones improve the sound and presumably the isolation effectiveness when employed under both the component on the isolation device and below the isolation device. 

It’s really a center of gravity issue. A very heavy subwoofer with a relatively low center of gravity would be more stable on a springy type stand or feet than tall speakers that weigh the same but with higher center of gravity, all things being equal. Employing a wide arrangement of the springs by placing them under a board the dimensions of which are much greater than the footprint of the speaker goes a long way to bolster lateral support and might be the only way to do it sometimes.
Isolation generally refers to mass-on-spring techniques but can also be magnetic levitation, filament suspensions, roller bearing assemblies, negative stiffness, I.e., any technique that attempts to decouple the component from the room structure and the seismic I.e., low frequency vibrations that would otherwise be transferred to the component. Since there are six, count em, directions of motion for seismic vibrations, including three rotational directions, cleverness of design of the isolating system has its rewards. Even a thick granite slab has some benefit for isolation inasmuch as its inherent stiffness resists rotational forces. The Townshend Seismic Sink was one of the very first audiophile isolation devices, the Big Bang as it were was the Vibraplane Stand circa 1996 and Shannon Dickson’s landmark article in Stereophile magazine 1996 on the dodgy subject of vibration isolation, "Bad Vibes."