looking for best isolation platform for CD player

Sean describe to Us your rack? Are you still using the high mass, high storage Michael Green rack? Or perhaps some new cosmic State of the Rack maybe consisting of exotic timber, lead shot and pneumatic hot air bags. Does It couple? Does It Isolate? Or is It a confused implementation of Both? Please tell Us? Inquiring minds want to know..Tom

I sold the Michael Green Deluxe Just-A-Rack two years ago after running it for a couple of months. To my ears, it did horrible things to the sound of the system that i had it in. I would have never believed that a rack could have that much of a "sonic impact" on a system if i had not heard it with my own ears. The person that purchased it from me was quite happy with it and in fact, bought another one not that long after purchasing that one from me. He is a respected member of the Agon community and has gone through more than his fare share of high quality gear. I guess that different people hear and like different things. Then again, due to the racks design, it's quite possible that he was running it in a different manner than i was and getting different results.

As far as the racks i'm using now, they are kind of a customized hodge-podge of what i wanted as an individual and parts that i could find to work with that were already on the market. As such, i'll try to give you a brief description.

The uprights are solid metal of low to medium mass and are directly spiked to the floor. The frame for each shelf is rigidly coupled to the uprights and are of a relatively lightweight welded tubular design. The shelves themselves are all free-floating on upturned spikes and are comprised of a low mass material.

I've played around with a few different materials in terms of the shelves, but have yet to find what i'm really looking for. There is one material that interests me, but i can't find a local source for it. I'd like to try some of Ken's Neuance shelves, but the price for the quantity that i need would just about bankrupt me. This is not to say that his prices are high for what you get, but that i need a LOT of them.

Does that help any ? Sean
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Sean: Agree with you on the Justaracks; I got some a few years back because I liked the ability to change the shelf spacing, which I needed for my setup, but wound up using all sorts of other vibration isolation devices, including decoupling the racks from the floor on a constrained layer damped platform and racketball feet and using isolation damping bases (KWorks IsobaseKs, innertubes with silicon in them in a sand and lead filled base) under all equipment on the rack in order to undo the adverse effects on sound that came from those racks. I never heard as pronounced a difference in sound as you did, but (particularly with all my tubed equipment) there definitely was an audible difference; I think that the theory behind that rack of taking all vibrations from the equipment and channeling them down the threaded rods into the floor through spikes just did not work in my setup; in fact, I think those spikes just rechanneled all the floor vibrations back to the equipment.

theaudiotweak, your statements are inflamatory, not to mention foolish.

Even if a stand or piece of equipment does not operate at 100% performance does it mean that the piece is of no value? Are you currently getting 100% from all of your gear?

To say that isolation is not possible since 100% of vibrations are not eliminated is to ignore the benefit of all good quality isolation. Should we use nothing regardless of the sonic benefit, since whatever we choose is not 100% effective?

You haven't even looked at the product mentioned, but that doesn't prevent you from condemning it, how is that possible???

The product is designed to isolate the componant from vibrations. The componant rests on a surface with a high damping coefficient designed to drain vibration from a componant. The stands are designed to have a natural frequency below the listening level of any componant, the best being at 3Hz. This is well below the resonant frequency of any piece of stereo gear.

I wish I knew more about this, but these facts are what I have been able to learn. My admittedly limited information though is more than some who have condemned the product without the first bit of knowledge about them.

I don't own one of these stands, but I do plan to buy one!

Tom aka Audiotweak: I'm holding my breath until you respond with your thoughts and comments. Please hurry up as it has already been over 24 hours and i'm well past turning blue in the face. My guess is that you didn't get the answer that you wanted or expected. None the less, i'm still waiting : )

Nrchy: I'm with you. When it comes to this kind of "undocumented" stuff, i'll give something a try before passing any form of judgment. I've learned the hard way too many times before and as such, have learned to "try" and keep an open mind. Then again, if your mind is completely open, your brain falls out when you bend over. As such, it is best to be open to new ideas but conservative enough not to lose your mind over them : ) Sean
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