To couple or decouple? That is the question.

I feel there is more mystical mumbo-jumbo and outright BS surrounding this issue than just about any other in the high end - and that almost no one talking about this stuff either knows what's really going on or is rigorously intent on finding out. I don't claim to know either, except to say that if audiophiles were actually seriously bothered by the effects of vibration, and serious about doing something about it, they would be taking much more decisive and drastic steps than simply playing around with various toys they place their components on top of.

Personally, I don't buy 95% of the claims made for most of these products, and am not particularly bothered by whatever slight effects are present in my system for not having spent a small fortune trying to make myself feel better about it. The one fairly significant thing I think can be done, most audiophiles - myself included - won't consider for practical reasons, which is moving your turntable completely out of the listening room. Other than the area of turntables generally, I am convinced that almost all the rest of it is largely marketing. The best thing you can do for your system in most cases is to install it on a foundational ground floor if available. Beyond that, the differences made by various kinds of supports, racks, shelves, etc. are not only quite small, but more importantly, almost wholly subjective. In other words, you 'pick your poison' without ever really 'eliminating' or 'controlling' whatever effects of resonance do exist - you're just mildly shuffling them around.

Warren, I did not say that whatever audiophiles are putting their components on top of won't make any sonic differences - What I am saying is that audiophiles who buy into the concept that particularly shaped pieces of metal constitute some sort of scientific, rational approach to the issue are being led by the nose, and are probably paying through it too.

One of my main contentions regarding the overall approach of our hobby toward this issue is that if we were really serious or bothered about it, we wouldn't accept components whose total build methodology didn't address it right from the ground floor.

There are some that try, but very few. In the vast majority of electronic audio components made (high end or not), circuit boards and chassis are for the most part entirely free to do their (entirely random) thing. And look at how few conventional speakers either pot their crossovers in resin, or better yet take them out of the cabinet box altogether.

The oft-propounded idea that certain footers and shelves can somehow 'evacuate' the alleged self-generated vibrations which are supposedly killing the performance of our electronics, whilst simultaneously preventing air- and ground-borne stimuli from ever reaching them, is to me a bunch of bunk, and I've never seen any good data in support of these claims.

Once again, I am not saying that what you put your electronics on can't make a small difference in the way they sound. I'm just saying that the magnitude of this difference is routinely oversold, as is the scientific (or non-scientific, as the case may be) basis for thinking that what's done is systematic or predictable. There's plenty of snake-oil sold throughout the high end, of course, but IMO this sub-area is probably the worst offender, even more so than a lot of what goes on concerning wire.

For the record, I've played with modestly-priced cones and elastomer isolators (plus racks), with appropriately modest results, so if you want to slam me for not having experience with 'the best' (read: the most expensive), go right ahead. The areas I think merit general application are rigidly spiking speakers to foundational floors, and decoupling of turntables. What one does with the rest of the electronics is to me mostly a crap-shoot given the status quo of their construction.