Mapleshade tweaks

Zman, I have been away from this thread for a few days. I am not bothered in the least by what Rccc said. I want to make it clear that in this game of audio, our ears are the most important tools to make judgements and develop opinions. Facts have less to do with. I do not use any Mapleshade products, but I have met Pierre and have spoken with him on several occasions. I like his recordings and have shared some tweeking techniques with him. Facts . If one says ss is better than tubes (or vis a versa), are there facts to back this up. Not in my experience. I just wonder if people speak with out the use of their ears. Should not be in this game. I am sorry if I have offended anyone. That is all....Enjoy

I've had mixed results as well. I could never warm up to the brass cones under various components. The brass jumper cable strips are a joke and I ended up tossing them. On the other hand I'm using isopads under my TT right now and they seem to provide good isolation and improve the sound. I use the golden helix speaker wire, very natural sounding to my ears. All of these things are very reasonably priced. I do agree that some of the writing in the catalog is over the top, takes some chutzpah to write that stuff.

I just set up a modest Mapleshade vibration control system under my Thorens TD150mkII with Audio-Technica AT150Sa cartidge. I added low triple point brass footers, 2” unfinished maple platform and cork/rubber footers. All in less than $300 shipped. It replaces small steel cones, laminated 1 3/4” large cutting board and sorbothane dots. This is all on a modest MDF shelf.

My DIY arrangement cleared up the turntable’s sound to some degree over the stock rubber footers, but shifted the tone balance up. Swaping in the Mapleshade products was a revelation. Especially the brass footers cleaned up the upper midrange and treble, offering both detail, air and smoothness in equal measure. Bass decay is now evident that was just not audible previously. Mysteriously, timing seems to have improved too, perhaps a function of not fighting with distortion to get essence of the performance.

The improvement offered for my analog front end by these Mapleshade products is shocking. Best non-equipment investment I have made since my first aftermarket power cable.