Isoacoustics Orea vs Townshend Seismic Pod on Components

IMHO I would do the amp first among other things because it is tubed

@arafiq, there is fine tuning to be done. The space between the plates should 1-3mm, sometimes 4. I would start with the least amount of springs and go from there. If you have REW do some measurements before and after along with the different setting changes so you can keep track of what you did. Try to make the gap even regardless the amount of springs in each of the plate pairs.

@arafiq I would start by using the least amount of springs possible to keep at least 2.5-3mm in each individual set.

For example. lets say that you will end up using 4, and that your tube amp has 2 transformers on the back left and not much on the front.

Then for your amp lets say you need 6 springs in the back-left to get the gap to 3mm, then your back-right might need 4 to keep the 3mm gap, then the front-right might need just 2 and the front-left 3 for example. 

If your amp is really heavy in the back, you might need lest say 4 sets. with, starting from the left-back all strings, then one less on the back-middle-left, 3 less for the back-middle right, and 4 less for the back right.

In other words use the least amount of springs to keep the gap as consistent as you can. This should be your base line, and experiment from there either moving the sets around, changing the spring load or both. 

For my RELs I spent a lot of afternoons, trying different configurations, listening and measuring. REW is a great tool to visualize how your sound is changing and guide you in the right direction. By no means I am a sound engineer, sound expert or anything remotely similar. I used to do the tuning by ear but it would take me for ever, and not always end up with the sound I used to like, but the sound was not an accurate reproduction so it took me a while to get used and fully appreciate the changes. Give your ear time to adjust to the new sound, then move in the way you think is best. I have found that going back and forth without getting used to the new sound it led me many times in the wrong direction.

For example one the records I was using that used to sound warm now started too too bright, but others records sounded much better, lots of definition and dimensionality. It turned up to be that the record was recorded too bright, and given the decay I had, before the changes, was very big so it kind of cancelled the brightness. 

Other records that felt had no bass, now they started to have very defined bass, I would assume that it could also be attributed to decay and distortion.

I am an engineer so I make one change at the time, listen, make notes then measure and see how it correlates, and so on until I got now where I can be confident that I am listening to the records as recorded and not as an artifact of distortion, decay, timing etc. 

I would say that I am 75-80% where I would say that I am happy, I still have some excess energy around 28.5Hz and  321Hz that I need to fix but I have a very flat response. All this was achieved using Nobsound, Townshend pod and podiums, REW and moving things around in my room.

The mechanical isolation was of huge help to position my speakers and subs.  

I am sorry if my English is not good that you can not understand. I just started to use English when referring to audio.

@grannyring I jus don’t understand what it is the point of cutting these open. They do what they claim to do and need to do.

Are they expensive, yes but they work.

Are overpriced? I do not think so, if they were there would be many other options as good as these for less. The fact is that there aren’t, probably because any of the potential competitors had made their own business analysis and concluded that it was too much of a pain to compete.

If you think different then, do the R&D, productize your device, build a supply and distribution chain and then sell them at whatever amount you think is fair to you.

This is free market and anyone not making as much as they can on their product are not good business men/women. Nothing last forever.

Next time, before you butcher a perfectly functioning product, please let me know before hand! If I am interested I pay you a fair price to get it out of your hands.

How many did you buy and how many did you butcher? If you have some that you don’t want let me know the load rating and get them from you

@grannyring I am sorry, my mistake.

@tsushima1 First let me apologize for my English.

At the end it does not matter what manufacturer claims and I do not care, because the measurable improvement cant be denied, at least by reasonable people.

There are 2 objectionable factors

1. the experiments and measurements were done in one of my rooms and although the room is temperature controlled, RH and pressure are not, so these factors allow for some unknown variables. However the tests were done in multiple days and since the variability is well within the margin of error ( 1/10%) I am not concerned.
2. I should have not reported the 1/100% because in this case given that I have done only 400-500 tests reporting 1/100% is not very relevant.

Although I am not a sound engineer I hold 2 PhDs on 2 different mathematical subjects, and I have had my experiments and tests assessed by 2 different colleagues/friends that hold PhDs in sound physics, and one with a PhD on mechanical engineer more specifically on isolation. Both of them also like audio systems.

I have done hundreds of tests, more than 400, the measurements are consistent and reproducible.

I am fortunate that I can afford to buy and test almost whatever I want, I have only alliance to my family and friends, and none of the companies I buy products from give me discounts, beyond what they would give to any good customer.

Maybe my impartiality and close relationships with numbers, tests and analysis might not mean anything to you, but who knows maybe you are open to accept that I have absolutely nothing to gain, beyond getting my systems sound as best as they can and hopefully help others to make their own decisions based on numbers, and not based on some unmeasurable description of the improvements.

In my environment and system, the facts and results are very clear, the Podium cut decay in one of my room/system got cut by 3x, distortion reduced by more than half.

After Xmas everything will be resting on Pods.

If you want to pick a manufacturer go an pick on IsoAcoustics Gaia and Orea because when it comes to isolation and measurable sound improvement they are worse than the $35 NobSound.

Here are my some basic test results

The original distortion from the fundamental all the way to the 8th harmonic get reduced:

4.72% average with spikes. (baseline)

4.64% average with Orea.

4.28% average with Gaia.

3.86% average with Nobsound 2-3mm space.

2.42% average with the Podiums.

2.11% with the Credo

I will average decays because I do not have time to go and type each frequency decay number.

Spikes for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 603ms. (baseline)

Isoacoustic Orea for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 561ms

Isoacoustic Gaia for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 542ms.

NobSound for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 389ms.

Podiums for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 139ms

Credo for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 122ms

Please notice that I make no sound claim, because it is subjective.

I use REW, and Earthworks TC20mp calibrated microphones.

Maybe next time you take the time and use REW (free and sound industry accepted) and a calibrated microphone (anywhere form $100 to $100s of K) to test and measure your next isolation/decoupling solution before dissecting the product.

If you have facebook, go and join Pathos, there I posted some pictures of before and after measurements in case you need to see the results in your own eyes. Which I would find it flattering so you could give your opinion.

Why keep giving this gentleman/woman the time? He has no argument to present, beyond it is overpriced. Until he comes with a similar product that performs as good and cheaper there is no case argue.

BTW, I just tested the solid-tech feet and come nowhere close to Townshend or  Credo.

Marry Christmas to all those who have contributed to my learnings in this forum, and to those that are so angry Merry Christmas to you too, and I hope that for the sake of your health that you find something that brings peace and joy. 

Felicidades.

I used Tannoy Kensington for speakers, I bought the podium you recommended. I told John David Hannant what speakers I had and I bought what he recommended. 

The Credo, I bought with the EV Reference One a while ago, and I got the bases  shipped to the USA while I was waiting for my new turntable and Pathos I was supposed to get a month ago. 

I gave up waiting last Saturday and came home to spend Christmas and New Years with my friends and family.

I would not draw too much of a conclusion between the  Credo and Podiums, for the numbers to be mathematically  relevant to a 1/100th I would need another 500 or so measurements. 

As far as it goes, the Podiums do an incredible job in improving decay, overall distortion, timing and group decay. 

@millercarbon you are correct, either platform the Podiums or Credo will do a fantastic job. The Podiums get the prize in my opinion because the wide range for all kinds of speakers.

I will try to make a comparison for components but for it to be fair I need a very sensitive accelerometer, and able to get the laser tracer out of the lab again. 

@arafiq I am glad you found something that made a difference for good in your system.

@millercarbon music is to be listened and enjoyed more than measured. What I am learning on this forum, is that people like to make opinions and believes  into facts and then since there is no way to prove things get out of control in anger.

I think I mentioned before, I only measured because the sound quality changed so much that I though that there had to be a way to measure. There are ways to measure how sound changes, and I have used these measurements to help me understand why I was not hearing differences when others claimed that there was. I know I am gifted with sensitive ears so to me was more like a sanity check if you wish. I did not hear much improvement when using the IsoAcoustic products from spikes or even cork,   but when I put the Nobsound I did, at the beginning the sound sounded dull, but at least I was able to hear a difference. That is when I started to think how to go about more scientifically and measure. I always let my dealer place the speakers, and my partner to setup the TT, but this time I had time in the USA for me to experiment and learned a little about sound. As a result now, I can somewhat back up and explain what I hear with measurements to my partner and friends. These experiments learned me how connect the dots in my ear and systems.

I do not know how accurate the iPad seismograph is  so I can't comment. I was shown by friend how to measure the effectiveness of isolation and decoupling with an accelerometer and a laser. It very well be that the accelerometer in the iPad is good enough, I just do not know any of this stuff. I started to be curious a long time ago but did not have the time to spend time doing experiments and learn. 

I do experiments and math for living and I listen to music to peace my mind. I will not be doing more of these measurements until I get the new racks and see if they make a difference that I can quantify.  

Can you kindly explain me what is "pitch" used for in music terms in English? 

The 28.5Hz is about the sound, but more about how the some of the notes feel. Is hard to explain, but for example  notes like D#0 --- E#0 --- F#0--- G#0--- A#0--- B#0---C#1--Pedal C-- D#1 and even E#1s sound and feel exaggerated; sometimes their decay and, I believe, resonance(?) (if I use Google to translate it says blooming to the feeling I want to express) feel like hitting a hump in the road... especially in some specific passages in the following pieces Dvořák – Cello Concerto in B Lalo – Cello Concerto in D Minor, Schumann – Cello Concerto in A minor, Shostakovich – Cello Concerto No.2 Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto, Boccherini – Cello Concerto in B Flat, Brahms’s Rhapsody in G minor (Op.79; No.2), Alexander Scriabin, Piano Sonatas, Debussy’s Isle Joyeuse.

I know I am being very precise or delicate (?) on how the music sounds but I promise that it can be listened and felt.

Walking away from the room as I did to come back to my family, will be useful to see how the memory of the room sounds reflect on when I listen it again. 

To be frank, I am really surprised how far well this modest system sounds. I do not know if because I did all the work myself, instead of having my partner and dealer set it up, so I notice every incremental step, or the Tannoy Kensington, with the 2 REL, PL300, Steelhead, Acoustic Sound and Koetsu are just a fantastic combination. 

When the 2 new Solid-Tech Rack of Silence, the Montana and the Pathos Heritage arrive to the USA I will spend a couple of days rearranging the system and see where these components take the room.

Now that I think, maybe the extra energy can be modified with the Koetsu gain?

Feliz Navidad!!! to everyone from Badalona Spain. 

@lemonhaze you are correct, if my math is correct modes for my room are  

34.1Hz ,42.95 Hz ,54.84Hz,..., 

The energy at 28.5Hz is a strange one, I will need to continue to move the subs around and see if I can correct it. If I can't correct it with the the sub placement then it might be a room mode given the vaulted ceilings.

@millercarbon I already have the speakers in the podiums. Given the dimensions of my room, those are the room modes and as far as I understand there isn't much it can be done, practically because the room has to continue to function as a living-room. 

The standing energy at 28.5Hz might be able to be tamed by the subs orientation and lowering a little the volume but if it does not improve then I will live with it because as far as I can ear the room's acoustics are pretty flat.

BTW do you know what app Townshend used in their videos and if they used an external accelerometer?

I got a couple of apps but none are sensitive enough on an iPad.

Thanks for telling me what pitch is.

I did not say I have perfect pitch :) I did not even know what it was. 

All I know is how the different notes sound, and since those notes sound bigger I deducted that it must be in the 20-32Hz. Maybe if I use REW I can confirm what I am hearing.

But it will not be until mid-late January until I go back to the USA. 

@nonoise isn't amazing how our ears and equipment work?! is your integrated SS or tube?

The first component I always isolate are the tubes, even a pair of mono amps do not react the same to the same isolation, and my house has all walls, ceilings, made of proper bricks and stone, and doors are think wood too. I even have tried to swap the right with the left and the "right" (maybe it is better said to what I like) isolation follows a specific amp. During the Christmas break I played with one of the rooms using REW to understand what we were listening, it is so fun to get some type of validation on what you are listening. 

I wish I could figure our why my pictures in Google appear as a broken link in my posts. 

Maybe you can help me with it? I click in the picture icon, paste the link i created in Google to the picture I created the link to share, enter the dimensions in the Height and width in pixels and nothing. 

@nonoise I do the same thing and not love, but it works on other forums. Do you enter a height and with? Do you use pixels or what?

@nonoise Thanks! there was something wrong with my account in imgpile.

Here are some interesting

Look at the decay on Orea under my speakers and subs.

Subs at a slight different volume and crossover.

Sub with no isolation, speakers in Nobsounds, look at the difference in decay and stored energy.

Anything under 35Hz is amplified by the room mode and I took care of it by adding a sub and put it in phase canceling (I do not know if this a good English term but the idea is to have the subs cancel/diminish the room modes) as much as possible. I hope you can see the difference. Exact everything to a millimeter, same exact db.

Granted that this measured sound, I do not add what I listen because it is subjective.

This is the result of adding the Podiums to the speakers, the Nobsound to the subs, getting the room modes as mitigated as possible. I had to get the crossover a little lower and increase the volume on the subs, which increased the energy in the room thus the decay has increased as well but still under/near-lower audible range. 

No room treatment at all so far.

Here is the SPL before and after. I still need to tame a little the 200Hz+ by selecting different tubes, and adding a little more energy below 200Hz. 

Although I do not like to add my opinion, but it is my room, system and  ears I am pretty impressed with I was able to achieve; especially if I consider that the house is made of wood sticks, plaster walls, suspended wood floors and vaulted wood ceilings. In other words a magnificent resonator :) 

Can you post the link to the springs you bought? 

I know that they will not be the same for my speakers but I could use them for reference.

thanks! I will buy some and test them too.

about 37Kg each. 

Either system is fine, thank you!

Here is my experience.

I used the Isoacoustics Orea Bordeaux and Indigo and did not make much difference if any at all. Now, if you really want to isolate use the Seismic Isolation Pods from Townshend. IMHO way better by a long shot. I did a simple the test the Pods, Orea and no Isolation. I have an unipivot tonearm in one of my tables. I put the table on top of the Orea, played a record, then I tapped the shelf with 20gr pendulum, the sub extended 1.23 inches, then I put the table on top of the pods and repeated the the experiment, and the sub extended 0.21 inches, without isolation the sub extended 1.24 inches. The reason I did use this method was an attempt to take all the subjectivity out of the equation. Yes the Pods are more expensive, but they work. I repeated the test 4 times and these are the averages. The Nobsound pucks did a much better job than the Isoacoustics too, the only "problem" with the Nobsound is that you need to figure out how many pucks and springs, but once you dial it in, then they land at 0.86 of an inch of extension.

I used laser range traces to measure the extentisions.

Is there a way to post pictures here ? I can post decay analysis for a couple of my tests.

lets see if this works

PS: forget about it.. I clicked the picture icon, entered the google link and nothing shows up...

@ryder I have been in the USA for a few weeks with not much work to do so I have spent a lot of time measuring different platforms.

The Isoacoustic product i.e. Orea and Gaia provide almost unmeasurable improvement, the $34 for 4 Nobsound are about 3.8 times better, than either of the Isoacoustic products,  the Podiums/Pods are about 18 times better than the Nobsound and the Crest Audio are about 1.8 times better than the podiums.

The big thing with the Crest audio from Switzerland, is that they are not available for all speakers and weights as the Podiums and Pods.

I made sonic measurements using calibrated microphones, REW and laser traces.

When I say better I mean the Isoacoustics products do not do anything of significance to sonically diminish decay, coherency, RT60, RT60 decay, clarity, distortion or impulse in my room with my Kensington speakers and tube amps.

For some reason, this forum software is not liking my links so I can't post pictures of my measurements so you will have to trust me or you can join the Pathos group in Facebook and see a couple of them there.

Some could question the room setup, etc. etc. but this is a black box type of experiment. you input the same sound frequency sweep to the same room, same everything but the isolation mechanisms and measure the difference. 

My house is made of wood and plaster, with hardwood flooring sitting on car-decking (I have no clue what type of wood this is but it is thick and bendy), I believe this is how most homes are built in the US. I would imagine that my home is not much different than most homes in the US.

To say that these type of homes are far from ideal for sound is the biggest understatement I have made in the last few years :) so in theory a great environment to test.

For example. I will average decays because I do not have time to go and type each frequency decay number. 

Spikes for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 603ms. 

Isoacoustic Orea for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 561ms

 Isoacoustic Gaia for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 542ms.

NobSound for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 389ms.

Podiums for frequencies between 25Hz to 10K the decay average is about 139ms

Without pictures is hard to visualize the decay effects, but imagine a piano note that is supposed to linger for 20ms but lingers for 400ms+ and so on, then the silence disappears and with it the music.   

I am not saying that every room/speaker/isolation mechanism will react the same as mine room, I am just saying that in my environment in the USA with this gear these are the measurable effects of each platform.  

For example my decay in one of the rooms in my home in Spain with spikes is 227ms still a LOT for $100K speakers, but I cant wait until I put some podiums or pods, with the Kensington $20K the decay on spikes is 338ms on the same room as where I have my good speakers. 

I have no affiliation, I get nothing from any of them except the products I pay for as everyone else does. My intent is solely to share my measurements.

I love math!

@millercarbon My bad Credo :)

@whipsaw I will have those measurements when I get home, still waiting for Acoustic Signature to send me the replacement turntable as mine was not working properly.

My home in Spain is made out bricks, stone and have a lot of plants in my listening rooms. I will be happy with anything in the 100ms-160ms as I have been told that our ears can't distinguish on anything below 100-120ms. But I would love some confirmation on this so please not quote me on it😏. I will be doing some research on this.

I believe that the main thing with these measurements is that bellow 448Hz there was a lot of stored energy not only affecting decay, clarity and impulse but distortion, with the Podiums and Credo is all but gone, even in my room mode. I can't wait for my second sub to arrive, because if the simulation in REW is correct it will solve the rest of the 160Hz-200Hz and down decay and distortion. 

The original distortion from the fundamental all the way to the 8th harmonic get reduced from:

4.72% average with spikes.

4.64% average with Orea.

4.28% average with Gaia.

3.86% average with Nobsound 2-3mm space.

2.42% average with the Podiums.

2.11% with the Credo.

I do not want to get into describing how much better or worse the music gets because we all hear different. 

@tomic601 Hello Jim, we will figure it out on how to meet. I love to listen to music and usually I do not mess around with measuring much, but this time I wanted to understand what I was listening because for a long while I had the Gaia and Orea products and a lot of people were saying how drastic of improvement they made but I noticed almost nothing. @millercarbon made the suggestion about the Nobsound and podiums, so I stated with the Nobsound and I was able to listen a big difference, so I bought some podiums and wow, then I found a video of Credo so I bought another pair and wow again! As an engineer I thought that there must be a way to measure this and there was! with REW.

I must be very slow because no matter what sharing site I use the pictures do not show up in my posts so I can’t show the actual measurements so there is no room for misinterpretation. I have no doubt that there are a lot of people in this forum with way more knowledge on sonic measurements than me and would have been nice to get their comments.

I posted some pictures of the actual measurements in the Facebook Pathos group is you want to check them out.

I hope the new Solid-tech reference racks will help to improve the resonance and distortion.

@whipsaw I have no doubt that the impact on different floors and houses can be measured. The gains might not be as big but measurable.  The thing is that I wander how one goes about differentiating between the inherited/base values from the speakers (i.e. what one can not do anything without modifying them) and the rest because without them we do not know how far from the best achievable values we are. 

But then I do not want to lose focus on what I like to do and that is to listening to music. I think that with the new racks, pods for my components and additional sub I will be right there. Maybe after having everything dialed in I will look into some acoustic room treatment.