Isolation Feet for Laptop
It seems fairly common knowledge that vibration is a form of distortion in many electric components, not just for turntables and speakers. Isolation feet seem to work well in most applications.
I searched around and I didn't find any information to suggest that folks are using isolation feet on laptops or desktops, despite increased streaming usage. In a great many cases, there are indeed heavy vibrations coming from within the computer. Whether it is the fan for the CPU or even GPU to the all the various chips/transformers, etc or even power supplies and batteries. If adding isolation feet to a streamer, DAC or power supply makes sense, then wouldn't it also make sense to apply isolation feet to your laptop; if you use it for music?
Well, I am going to find out. :)
I ordered some IsoAcoustics Orea Series Audio Equipment Isolators with a max weight of 16 pounds. The laptop weighs about 6.7 pounds, so it shouldn't be that much strain, even with all the cables creating some measure of down force as they dangle over the edge.
My expectation is that the DAC will be able to perform slightly better due to reduced vibration across the USB port and power filter. The DAC is a USB stick (Dragonfly Cobalt) so it has a very rigid hard connection to the laptop; so vibration is very easily transferred.
Has anyone else tried this?
My dac came w HRS isolation feet :-) My amplifiers came w hanging truss…wait for it….. HRS isolation…so when it came time to isolate my server and preamp…i chose HRS Nimbus and a damping plate for the server….. Even the Teddy Pardo is isolated…. BTW dedicated audio servers / streamers, the really great sounding ones anyway run a very lean ( think reduced instruction set ) operating system for a reason…. Hint : have ya looked at the electrical panel yet ? |
@ghdprentice right on ! @jerrybj good on ya man ! |
“ heatshrink the body ( of the DAC ) and also the FMJ Jitterbug, it’s a resonance thing ..not emi… although any good dac or processor have a faraday cage around the digital bits ..and you are stuck w laptop, which is a negative Faraday cage. Think creatively about getting around the rental panel problem… but looking at tge breakers..is easy and free…. i would do surgery on the laptop power supply cord / connector for sure…. or better yet Teddy Pardo make an excellent server / accessory power cable and linear power supply… |
well, if the constraint cannot be relaxed…i would attack the problem in several ways… First i would work on isolating the laptop. Is it quieter both physically and thru your system on battery or the power supply ( likely a hash producing SMPS ) ? isolating the PC to the dirty leg of your power panel is always a good idea, as is some form of digital only power cinditioning.. Then i would work on the DAC, heatshrink the body, use a jitterbug FMJ also w heatshrink. Finally open up aperture on other effective mechanical isolation devices… HRS strongly advised…. i would work a nimbus coupler under the dac / FMJ hanging in space….. |
