Isolation Feet for Laptop


It seems fairly common knowledge that vibration is a form of distortion in many electric components, not just for turntables and speakers. Isolation feet seem to work well in most applications.

I searched around and I didn't find any information to suggest that folks are using isolation feet on laptops or desktops, despite increased streaming usage. In a great many cases, there are indeed heavy vibrations coming from within the computer.  Whether it is the fan for the CPU or even GPU to the all the various chips/transformers, etc or even power supplies and batteries. If adding isolation feet to a streamer, DAC or power supply makes sense, then wouldn't it also make sense to apply isolation feet to your laptop; if you use it for music?

Well, I am going to find out. :)

I ordered some IsoAcoustics Orea Series Audio Equipment Isolators with a max weight of 16 pounds. The laptop weighs about 6.7 pounds, so it shouldn't be that much strain, even with all the cables creating some measure of down force as they dangle over the edge.

My expectation is that the DAC will be able to perform slightly better due to reduced vibration across the USB port and power filter. The DAC is a USB stick (Dragonfly Cobalt) so it has a very rigid hard connection to the laptop; so vibration is very easily transferred.

Has anyone else tried this?

guakus

The OP raised a legitimate concern, i.e., the annoying fan noise.  I use Dell XPS as a music source. A while ago the fan came up constantly and, without 2nd thought, I put the isolation feet underneath hoping the fan will quiet down epecially when music is playing. It turned out the CPU was occupied by some resided app. in the background and caused the fan to operate endlessly. So my advise is, as the first thing, to check on the CPU and eliminate unnecessary bagages. Whether adding isolation feet as a damper helps vibration attenuation is debatable. To completely cure the root of the problem, I will suggest the use of fanless Mac instead.

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My laptop has a built-in fan too but the noise is minimal. It sits close to me by my side. It has SSD instead of HDD so that might have helped a little.

@lanx0003 

The issue isn't actual, audible, fan noise.  I wouldn't have made this post if that were the case.  After 25+ years of computer technical support, I suspect I know my way around a PC.

There isn't a noise problem to solve that is directly affecting the sound output.  This is about tweaking the sound output for better performance.

If isolation feet are good enough for DACs, Streamers, AMPs, Preamps, and the shelving that houses them, I see nothing wrong with adding it to yet another heavily electronic device.



 

@ghdprentice 

What makes a streamer better? Better yet, what makes a streamer worthy to have isolation tech but not a computer?