Brent, i know that the Critical Mass website claims that Will Wright preferred the Critical Mass platform under his tt.....but that is not what Will said in his review.
he said;
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"......I decided it was time to try out the Grand Master I had purchased to go under my turntable in its intended application. At first I had planned to move the Micro 40 back under my universal player, but after pulling it out from under the turntable to install the Grand Master I got lazy and decided "what the heck, I'll put it under my preamp instead," just temporarily.
Much to my surprise, I ended up preferring this configuration. Although this is most probably not where I would have ended up without the Grand Master platforms to go under my source components, this configuration provided the best overall performance for the whole system. Whether spinning records or optical discs, the results were sublime. My preamp absolutely loved the Micro 40 and as a result, so did I. This was unexpected. In fact, I would have expected my previous configuration of Micro 40 under turntable and Grand Master under preamp to be superior."
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what Will said was that "this configuration provided the best overall performance for the whole system.".......not that he preferred the Critical Mass to the Halcyonics under his tt. he felt that in his system the Halcyonics made the most difference on his preamp. when Will visited my room with the Halcyonics he told me that he specfically preferred the Halcyonics to the Critical Mass on every component but that the Critical Mass was fairly close in some areas. it would make sense that since his tt started out with some passive isolation beyond the starting point of the preamp; there was more room for improvment with the pre.
there are a few excellent passive systems out there including the Critical Mass and others like my Grand Prix Audio.......but active isolation is on another level.
he said;
***************
"......I decided it was time to try out the Grand Master I had purchased to go under my turntable in its intended application. At first I had planned to move the Micro 40 back under my universal player, but after pulling it out from under the turntable to install the Grand Master I got lazy and decided "what the heck, I'll put it under my preamp instead," just temporarily.
Much to my surprise, I ended up preferring this configuration. Although this is most probably not where I would have ended up without the Grand Master platforms to go under my source components, this configuration provided the best overall performance for the whole system. Whether spinning records or optical discs, the results were sublime. My preamp absolutely loved the Micro 40 and as a result, so did I. This was unexpected. In fact, I would have expected my previous configuration of Micro 40 under turntable and Grand Master under preamp to be superior."
******************
what Will said was that "this configuration provided the best overall performance for the whole system.".......not that he preferred the Critical Mass to the Halcyonics under his tt. he felt that in his system the Halcyonics made the most difference on his preamp. when Will visited my room with the Halcyonics he told me that he specfically preferred the Halcyonics to the Critical Mass on every component but that the Critical Mass was fairly close in some areas. it would make sense that since his tt started out with some passive isolation beyond the starting point of the preamp; there was more room for improvment with the pre.
there are a few excellent passive systems out there including the Critical Mass and others like my Grand Prix Audio.......but active isolation is on another level.