I have confirmed everything millercarbon has said using empirical measurements. I don't know why I didn't isolate with springs before. They are incredibly effective. The nobsound spring isolators work well. I am down to two springs per isolator and still cannot get them down to a system resonance of 3 Hz which is ideal, I think. 8 Hz is where they measure but they are still effective. Using an accelerometer app on my iPad and iPhone I can see the difference with and without the spring isolators. They are not just effective in isolating taps on the floor but I also see a large reduction in vibration levels on top of my preamps from airborne vibrations while the music is playing. Granted, these vibration levels on the top of the preamp are already very small but an order of magnitude or two reduction in these already small vibration levels is still a very good thing. The only negative effect I have seen is that while I have all of my components sitting on springs now, if I tap on one component all of the other components react at the same resonance frequency of 8 Hz. I don't think that is a problem while listening. For me, speaker and amp isolation was a big change- for the better. I isolated my DAC, CD Transport and preamps. The most noticeable component for me was isolating the phono preamp.
Isolation Feet Recommendation for Equipment Rack
I just bought a 4-tier equipment rack to set up a 2nd system. It’s not audiophile standard and comes with standard spikes. The sound quality of the system is decent with this rack but I intend to replace the spikes on the rack with something else in the near future and was wondering about the available options.
The target support weight inclusive of the rack is up to 150 lbs (on a more accurate level it's around 130lbs). Apart from the Isoacoustics Gaia, are there any other worthy options around the same price range? What about the Finite Elemente stuff such as Cerabase and Cerapuc? I have the FE Cerapuc installed on the equipment rack in the main system but did not compare the Cerapuc with anything else for the past 15 years of ownership.
I would appreciate experiences from folks who have switched from spikes to any of the "audiophile standard" isolator options on the equipment rack, going from coupling to decoupling. These isolation feet will need to bring some noticeable if not significant change or improvement to the sound quality of the system after they replaced the spikes on the equipment rack. If the difference is subtle to the point of negligible, or the sound becomes worse instead of better, I’d say forget it.
The target support weight inclusive of the rack is up to 150 lbs (on a more accurate level it's around 130lbs). Apart from the Isoacoustics Gaia, are there any other worthy options around the same price range? What about the Finite Elemente stuff such as Cerabase and Cerapuc? I have the FE Cerapuc installed on the equipment rack in the main system but did not compare the Cerapuc with anything else for the past 15 years of ownership.
I would appreciate experiences from folks who have switched from spikes to any of the "audiophile standard" isolator options on the equipment rack, going from coupling to decoupling. These isolation feet will need to bring some noticeable if not significant change or improvement to the sound quality of the system after they replaced the spikes on the equipment rack. If the difference is subtle to the point of negligible, or the sound becomes worse instead of better, I’d say forget it.