What is sound floor

When someone says that a change to their system lowered the noise floor they are saying they heard more low level detail emerge from the general murk that lives within the reproduced sound. The noise that is not correlated with the music is not usually the issue, it is the stuff that is correlated with the music that does the most damage to our ability to hear the more fine details.

I don't find weighing components down improves the sound at all. It can take out peaky resonances but causes gross time smeering which robs the music of its PRAT (pace, rhythm and timing), which is that thing that makes you want to move with the music. Instead you are best to isolate equipment from vibrations by supporting it with light and rigid structures (eg. welded steel racks, spiked to the ground and with spikes supporting the shelves), and then to have some form of damping of the shelf. If you are going to damp equipment then it is best to use a damping sheet. Sheer weight is not the way to go from my experience (I have travelled that path).

Hi Detlof. Just my opinion of course. Weighing components down can reduce the peakiness of resonances in the mids and highs, but just shifts them into the bass (at best). In my playing with using mass I eventually concluded that although neutrality could be obtained, the energy storage was smearing the bass. This resulted in what was initially a pleasing increase in bass weight. But I eventually realised there was something about the sound that was unnatural, and eventually pin-pointed it as time-smearing of the bass making it appear to lag the rest of the music. It is only in the last few months that I have finally had success with using light/rigid structures. Previously I had felt there was a trade-off between the superior PRAT of light/rigid, and the superior removal of resonant peaks of the mass damping approach.

I have to admit, however, that with very heavy components the light/rigid approach has so far been less successful for me (eg. my Plinius SA250 Mk IV and my Theta combo respond less well than some of my lighter stuff - but still sound better to me on light/rigid/damped supports).

As far as PRAT goes, like all other aspects of reproduced music, I have never come across a system where its PRAT is perfect.

Keis. My playing with this vibration issue suggests that it affects electronic equipment like DACs and solid state amplification too. You should give it a try.