A reappearance of Black Diamond Racing?

Honestly, I doubt it, the way things have been going..... of coarse if I'd quit listening as much as I do, I could.

Know what you mean. Every time the choice is sit and listen and enjoy what you got or do something else to maybe make it better. But its so much easier to sit and listen, so much work to make it better. It seems I am more lazy than energetic so often its a little surprising I have a stereo to listen to at all.

Just talked with the folks at Music Direct. They are not stocking the BDR shelves, but will order them for you. Looking at the BDR website, all size shelves are available, including custom sizes. The regular shelfs are 3/4" thick, the Source, The Shelf is 1 1/4 " thick. They are introducing a "Cloud Shelf "  They are Spendy, but worth the price.

Oh yeah, definitely worth the price.

Something very important that never seems to come across in any of the websites. The BDR vibration control approach is modular, flexible and progressively complimentary. In other words the stuff is designed to work together, and the more, the better.

The first and most cost-effective step is three Cones under everything. The next step up from Cones is Pits, Pucks or Those Things- but they are all slightly different versions of the same thing, basically a pad or base that spreads and improves the effectiveness of the Cones. A Cone can go between the component and a Pit, or be screwed into a Puck and placed under the component. The improvement either way is big but like everything else you just have to experiment to find which way is bigger. One thing you learn doing this, the conventional wisdom about points and vibration flowing is just bonkers.

The next step up from this is to add three more Pits or Pucks. So at this point it goes component, Puck, Cone, Pit. Huge improvement. By the time you get to this point you have added something like $500 in BDR but have a component that sounds something like $2500 better. 

Only when you get to this level does it make sense to go to a Shelf. Then you are back with the same deal of adding Cones and Pucks under the Shelf. Doing the same thing only now at an impressively higher level as the Shelf drops the noise floor, grain and glare letting you hear impressively deep into the recording. 

I know everyone says that about everything. But the Cones alone deliver the same, only less, but enough so that at only $60 for a set they are still one of the best bargain tweaks in audio.

This is a good lesson for the newbies how audiophiles sometimes get carried away with things. Once they commit to an idea there’s no stopping them! 🔙 The same thing happens to lead as a filler or support or node damper or whatever. It seems like such a good idea, right? Not too soft, not too hard. And SONEX. 🤮 And room treatment in general. Foam padding in chairs. Sorbothane. Gawd! Look, I did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday and have evaluated all manner of cones, including the BDR Cones for ages, at least going back more than twenty years.

I have an advantage, admittedly, since I evaluated various materials & cones in conjunction with my advanced isolation stands including the sub-Hertz Nimbus platform. Now, one big advantage to being able to evaluate cones under the platform and cones under the component is all the differences are much more obvious in the context of component isolation and the drawbacks of certain materials are more obvious. The super hard DH Cones from Golden Sound outperform BDR cones hands down, it’s not really close. Very hard materials beat relatively softer materials every time. And the DH Squares, graphite composite and DH Shelves also outperform BDR shelves. The NASA grade ceramics are analogous to Rafa Nadal on clay. Nobody comes close.