Walker Valid Points or Mapleshade Footers for preamp?

Glory, I don't know what you mean by "having to deal with the lead" It is coated.

The Walkers with their pucks are far superior to the Mapleshades, but I would agree that there are far better devices. The Halcyonics is so superior as to make everything else sound broken. Second best is the Acapella Silencio base.

Glory, I strongly dislike maple. In every instance, it has robbed my sound of dynamics. Actually, I didn't use Walker's pucks under the Valid Points. I found the IsoClean small cups sound quite a good deal better. I did find that Walker's pucks helped the performance of components once you found the right place to put them. Now, however, I don't use them there either.

I think Walker's Valid Points and pucks can be quite useful and are a less expensive method of improving isolation. I also thought the Neuance shelves were outstanding and inexpensive. They are no longer made.

I have found no better racks than the long ago always quite favorably reviewed Mana shelves. I have tried many others to no avail other than that they looked good.

I say all of this assuming that everyone knows YMMV.

I recently tried three Acoustic Revive RIO-5010 clear quartz disks under my H-Cat line stage. I must add that it already was on a level 5 Mana stand with an Acapella isolation base using the special pucks between the unit and the isolation base.

Simply inserting the RIOs between the pucks and the unit resulted in such a positive change that I was shaken in my commitment to the Halcyonics base, but then again I have only been able to afford two of these and my line stage isn't lucky enough to be on one. I really don't want to hear what it would sound like on a Halcyonic base.

These quartz gizmos are just unbelievable. The dynamic jumped and the precision of the sound stage was just scary.

I don't know what they would do under other units or between my amp and the Halcyonics. In the last case just because I don't want to know.

Honestly, I don't know why these have such benefit. I have found some instances in which the RIO-5010s do little or nothing and really hate trying them everywhere if it is more than just placing them on top of components.