Sota Sapphire and Isolation?

Thank you, Mike and Larry.

Soix, you do want the SOTA on a solid support, which is the road bed in my analogy. Perhaps think of a spring suspension that bounces at 2 cps. Now mount it on a spring suspended shelf that bounces at any different frequency. Can you see that the two suspensions will interact negatively? At some frequency the TT will be disturbed to a greater degree than if there’s only one suspension by energy coming from below the bottom suspension..

I said nothing for or against the Ginkgo Cloud or other solid or semi-solid support systems designed to absorb energy sans springs or soft rubber mounts. (At least, I don’t think the Gingko uses springs; I could be wrong there, and if I am wrong, then I would not use the Gingko under a SOTA tt.) Yes, you DO have a way of knowing without trying (contrary to your sentence above) why spring on spring can be a very bad idea. (It’s never a "good" idea but by chance one might not create serious problems.) Just read up on Simple Harmonic Motion and spring rates, etc. Can you get away with it and using subjective judgement go away thinking there is a benefit? Sure. Happens all the time in this hobby. Consider this thought experiment: you have a nice modern sedan that has a spring and damper suspension conducive to a nice smooth ride down a typical imperfect highway.  Now put your sedan on a flatbed trailer, strap it down to the bed, and ride in your car while someone else drives the trailer down the same highway.  The trailer has its own suspension with its own spring rates and damping. You will be tossed around a lot more in your car tied to the trailer than you were when your own suspension was ameliorating bumps in the road.

Do whatever you want. But do realize that the built in spring suspension of the SOTA is there to filter out all the stuff you’re talking about where it counts, before it can disturb the platter/bearing/tonearm/cartridge. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but adding a second independent spring suspension to the closed system can only interfere with its function. This is demonstrable with math and physics, not just a matter of my opinion.

Soix, your reasoning is faulty. The substructure of the SOTA that sits on a shelf can be considered for our purposes to be part of the shelf. The platter, bearing, and tonearm are still suspended from springs. If you then add a base that itself is spring supported, you introduce an independent resonance to the system. The two different spring rates and resonant frequencies will likely cause problems

Never combine springs with springs. The SOTA is already spring suspended.