Please read the review below from Positive Feedback: Attack of the PODs!
No,
they are not from Mars! They are from London: Designed, constructed,
and shipped from London, England by the brilliant Max Townshend to
American audiophiles like us, for the best replacement of the air-filled
bladder sinks of old. The PODs isolate your gear like it was suspended
in outer space. They allow both tube and solid-state gear to bloom in
extraordinary ways. At $675 for a set of 4 Seismic Pods, tailored in
weight to your specific piece weighing from 4-500 pounds, you will
achieve resonance control you only dreamed of in the past! You can
adjust the level as well! The Pods are a sonic miracle, and the best
footers I know of in the here-and-now for maximizing the sound of
valuable audio gear.
The
biggest improvement I heard was with phono, specifically the E.A.R. 324
Solid State Phono Stage. I have tried numerous expensive tweaks under
this mainly transformer coupled unit to enhance its sound, with only
negative effect. With the Pods, it blooms and breathes like protoplasm
itself has been infused into the unit. If you own a 324 and are reading
this review, run, do not walk, to your nearest Townshend dealer and buy a
set of Type A Seismic Pods!! You will achieve nirvana, and then some.
The
Seismic Pods come in individual weight capacities of as little as 1-2
pounds per Pod, to as much as 64-140 pounds per Pod, in boxes of 4 Pods.
Use 3 or 4 Pods anywhere under your gear... it is not critical at all.
You just want the gear level and the Pods depressed about 30-70% of
travel. This is easy to achieve. It took me seconds to do under each
piece of gear I tried.
The
Seismic Pods are more neutral than the bladder sinks of old, with less
darkness and richness injected into the sound. The Seismic Pods sound
like nothing at all! You may need to tweak your cables or tube-roll a
bit, but it is worth the adventure. An entire layer of grunge is removed
with the Seismic Pods, as easily as opening a cardboard box. The build
quality is first-rate, and they look sharp under anything silver or
black. Each Pod even has soft ends to prevent scratching of the gear or
table.
From the Townshend Website:
- Eliminates structure-borne feedback between speaker and vibration sensitive equipment.
- Enhances clarity throughout the whole frequency range.
- Improves bass definition.
- Produces a wider and deeper sound stage.
- Neighbour friendly high level listening.
I
agree wholeheartedly with these claims from Townshend, and find that
they understate dramatically the clarity the Pods bring to the mids and
highs! The Pods are a combination of air- and spring-loaded valves that
are most ingenious. They are the better of two worlds of thought and
practice, and a break-through indeed in support engineering in my
opinion.
Summary
Townshend
Seismic Isolation Pods are now available and are a true masterpiece of
isolation technology and tremendous enhancement of sonic neutrality
preventing floor born feedback. I think that they are amazing. They are
priced right, and perform at many times their cost! Fabulous under solid
state and tube gear, they are the best individual support devices I
have heard to date. Like all devices of this nature, your results may
vary from mine, but I sincerely doubt it!
A keeper! My highest BUY recommendation.
MSRP $675 for set of 4 Seismic Pods
Please
note: Different spring types are required depending on the weight of
the unit being isolated. Please see the table in the image gallery. You
will need to divide the max weight of the unit being isolated by the
number of pods you wish to use, to determine the 'Spring Type' required.
For example, if your amplifier weighs 8KG and you intend to use four
pods, then you will require Spring 'Type A' as each spring type A pod
can handle between 2 to 4 KG of weight.
Positioned
under any piece of equipment, Seismic Isolation Pods will dramatically
improve the sound by breaking the acoustic connection between the audio
system and structural vibrations in the room.
The Importance of Vibration Isolation
Vibrations
affect the reproduction of sound through hi-fi systems. Although many
of these are small and may go largely unnoticed, vibrations have a
negative impact on the quality of sound in virtually all hi-fi
components.
Turntables
are highly sensitive to vibration, which raises the noise floor,
degrading the sound not to mention stylus jump due to footfall.
With
silver-disc players, vibration affects the laser mechanism and the
crystal oscillators introducing severe sound-degrading jitter.
With tube or valve amplifiers vibration rattles the microphonic electrodes, especially the grids.
Transistor
amplifiers have microphonic components, including capacitors and
connecting wires which move relative to one and another generating rogue
voltages. All of these mechanisms will degrade the delicate audio
signal.
Computers,
streamers and DACs are highly susceptible to mechanical noise as they
all contain vibration sensitive crystal oscillators.
Rigidly
spike or cone mounted speakers transmit energy into the floor radiating
vibration throughout the room and ultimately, through your rack and
into your equipment. This seriously degrades performance as described
above. Spike and cone mounted speakers cause the whole room structure to
vibrate, often resulting in an unrealistic boomy bass whilst masking
subtle detail. Further, this unwanted structural vibration can seriously
irritate your neighbours.
The
Seismic Isolation Pod is a Seismic Load Cell™ with a circular foot
attached to the lower end cap for stability. The length may be adjusted
by turning the top end cap, which allows easy levelling of audio
equipment placed on a set of Pods. There is a soft felt protective piece
on the top and bottom faces of the end caps to allow for easy
positioning and to prevent scratching.
The
secret is to fully float your whole Hi Fi System independently from the
speakers and the floor. Townshend have devised a complete solution that
to allow this to be done in an optimum way.
Seismic Load Cell™
The
key component is the Townshend Seismic Load Cell™. The Seismic Load
Cell™ consists of a high quality alloy steel compression spring
surrounded by a flexible synthetic rubber jacket with two end plates.
Screw threads in each plate facilitate height adjustment and provide
attachment points. A movement-sensitive, air-resistance damper rapidly
dissipates low frequency oscillation caused by disturbing the suspended
equipment. Seismic Load Cells™ are very ‘soft’ and allow free movement
in all three dimensions; up/down, left/right and back/forth. This unique
solution blocks all deleterious vibration from 3Hz upwards and from all
directions. As the frequency increases, the isolation gets
progressively greater, ensuring that virtually no vibration can pass
from and to the suspended equipment. As each hi-fi component is
isolated, the sound progressively improves.
The
singular Seismic Isolation Pod is available with seven different weight
capacities, ranging progressively from 1kg up to 64kg. Depending on the
weight of the device they can be used in sets of four, eight or more to
isolate any piece of equipment, of any weight from any vibration. The
simplest implementation is to utilise the Seismic Pods in sets of four.
It is possible to utilise three pods, but this arrangement is difficult
to level satisfactorily and the effect of the weight of the cabling may
also complicate matters.
