WHAT HAS WORKED FOR YOU? ISOLATION PLATFORMS, FOOTERS, ETC. for a DAC?

David, my solution is extremely inelegant. I use a maple chopping block (I have a Finite Elemente Spider Rack) which sits on the rubber feet on the Spider, and I just use a magic marker, which I draw circles around the footers on the maple block, since I’ve found even extremely small movements change the sound. Any footers sit on the maple block board (as does the Townshend platform) It still disturbs me that if I jar a tube trap out of position - even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of an inch - I can hear that I’ve lost say, Janis Joplin’s raspiness when she sings "Summertime". And then I’ll spend 5 minutes ever so gently thumping the tube trap with the palm of my hand down towards the floor to get it back to where I hear that raspiness again. That happens because I brush up against them on my way in and out of the room on occasion. Also, I think the smaller the room, the more it matters on acoustic treatment, but also on isolation devices, such as footers or anything like that. In fact, back when Tom Miller and I were doing a review on the Audio Artistry Dvorak speakers (I think it was TAS issue 97 or so), he and I were discussing transient response and he said he thought it was a little ’blunted.’ I remember telling him to play with the tube traps a bit (because I’d had them longer than him - or anyone else, for that matter: I got mine in 1988. He got his in the mid 90s). He did and the next day I remember just, a propos of nothing, asking if he’d gotten any improvement out of the system and he replied that he’d moved the Tube Trap and the transient response improved noticeably. That was when I realized that even a slight movement could affect sonics. And while I’m remembering that, I also recall that when HP reviewed the Goldmund Reference, back in TAS 41, he mentioned in passing that the sound had been a bit darkish, and that Jeff Goggins, his then setup man had had to move the turntable out of the room and when he put it back in - and I remember PRECISELY what he said- he said Jeff gave the turntable a thorough cleaning and he returned it to the main room and that "maybe it wasn’t  precisely to the  micron replacement in the same spot it had occupied" - and he found it much less colored "much to this writer's utter consternation." So, he sold the seeds of insight even back then that WHERE you put something affects your end result. ( I have a rather startling photographic memory for anything written in a  review in early TAS, up to say, 1995 - but NO other magazine. However, I can never find the car keys, so clearly it's only with subjects I am focused on  to a laser-like intensity.)

Also, I use different color magic markers (sometimes I feel like I’m 5 years old and just learning how to draw when I see how many circles I’ve drawn around the location of the footers). But I then write it down on a piece of paper so that, if I ever have to disassemble anything, I don’t mistake the blue magic marker for the final - and best - result, for the red one, or black one. I have driven myself quite crazy at times, but for me, it’s all fun. It’s only a problem if I lose the paper I use to record changes in speaker location, or write observational notes to myself (the same thing I did as a reviewer).
In other words, keep notes...

@gbmcleod; out of curiosity whats the price tag on the Townshend Seismic Isolation Platform? I googled it but I want to know what I could expect to pay in USD and not the suggested manufactors suggest price?

Incidentally, in my last post, re: HP, I meant to say "he SOWED the seeds of insight even back then that WHERE you put something affects your end result." I’d suggest moving racks up and down the sidewall if you have the space to do it. Or anything else, for that matter, since the Tube Traps (at least in my 13’ x 20’ room) show an inordinate improvement when moved mere fractions of an inch. This seems to hold true no matter the room size. Even in my 24’ x 45’ basement, there were changes in the sonic landscape if I moved a trap fractions of inches. I’m sure that’s not the case in every single room, but in my apartments in San Francisco, that was the case and the house was more solid - and older - than the (East Coast) home I’m in now, which is an entirely different construction (drywall, instead of plaster, as my San Francisco Edwardian-era apartment was), so I have to believe that it holds true in most cases. I recall another time, when HP was reviewing a pair of Thiel speakers, he commented on the tube traps in an oblique way, saying they worked, but they required a certain amount of attention and he wasn’t sure he was getting the best out of them. So, it seems that ANYthing can be placed on a rack, floor, wall, wherever, with "great" results, but for exceptional results, one must put in the time. But the room I’m in now has ASC’s Wall Damp construction (resilient channels, two sheets of drywall [different thicknesses] and all the rest). Interestingly, the basement sounds more "real" than the 13 x 20 room - and the walls are concrete (back then, covered in some spots with boxes, tables, which could break up the 'arrival time' at the listening position). As I recall Robert E. Greene once saying in TAS, if you don’t think the room matters, try moving the equipment into a different room and listen. He’s got far more experience than I ever will...

LAK: the isolation platform is a little over $900.00... I know you can buy the footer "cells" on Audiogon without the platform itself for less. I actually thought of doing that, but decided that the turntable should be fully supported, so I opted for the platform.

Comments regarding the Townshend speaker pods and isolation theory in general that I posted this morning on the Lifting Cables off the Floor thread could have been posted here on this thread with equal relevance.

cheers, Geoff Kait

And now for an update...
The Townshend platform is impressive, but I thought the dynamics just to be squelched, and the soundstage just a little compressed... And then I looked one shelf lower at my Evans microgroove Plus phono stage. Given all the discussion about positioning, I noticed that the Evans was not centered on the middle of the Bright Star platform that it was sitting on. Thinking that I would get minor improvements but still happy with that, and moved the microgroove so that it was more centrally located on the Bright Star. Whoa! 
The Athena label Symphonic Dances - which I had been playing in the last 2 days - suddenly demonstrated a solidity and a dynamic increase that was far beyond what I expected. I mean, the system - still NAD-equipped- did not sound like an "NAD." It sounded quite "powerful." And Bernstein's "Mass", which I'd found lifeless and had left me bored in previous listenings, ROARED. The upper midrange, in particular, showed a dynamic "kick" just missing before
So the Townshend is showing itself to be well worth its cost.  But it also demonstrates the utter importance of placement (The Microgroove, which I just put on the Bright Star, with NO thought of positioning,  surprised me. I moved it several more times - again, fractions of an inch, and could immediately  discern whether or not the movement improved or detracted.
 This is exciting.