Why No Testing of Isolation Products?


I have been reading up on isolation products like vibrapods, Brightstar platforms, cones, tips, et cetera....
Why doesn't anyone actually test these products and publish the test results? It would seem to be very easy to put a vibration detector (accelerometer for example) on a CD player or amp, measure the vibes, then put the CD player or amp on the isolation device and remeasure the vibes. It would be easy to test the reduction in vibrations between different products or combinations of products, right? I always wondered what happens with the isolation devices at high volumes, if my couch is moving, is the CD player and amp moving? So it would seem easy to test this too, turn up the volume and check the vibes on the CD or amp. You could check everything, shelves, circuitboards on the inside of devices, and so on if you wanted to, couldn't you? So I guess this thread is about why doesn't anyone measure and publish measurements of isolation products, or if they do where can we see the results? It would be nice to see measured tests of isolation devices and how they worked on a certain amp or cd player.
south_park
Yes, and even the weight and drag of specific PC's and IC's connected to the components will create a variable.
While i would agree with the basic concept behind your post, variables such as physical size and differences in weight / loading on the devices could make MEASURABLE differences. As such, very thorough or in-depth testing would be necessary.

For instance, an isolation device might work like gangbusters with 10-15 lbs on it but actually be WORSE than direct coupling if that weight range was drastically exceeded. In other words, each device will have an optimum range and it would be up to the reviewer to find the "sweet spot" and report such information.

Keep in mind that even though several components might weigh very close to each other ( within a few lbs, etc..), their physical make-up might be quite different. This can also have a drastic effect on picking up airborne vibrations. As such, the devices used to uncouple, isolated, damp, etc... the component at the BASE might not have ANY effect on resonances picked up through chassis excitation. As such, one "isolator" might measure far worse with some specific component but do better with a different component on it. Unless EVERYTHING was mass loaded ( which might or might not work best with specific gear / devices ), doing tests like this would be extremely tough to achieve ANY type of accuracy with.

Since results might vary from system to system and component to component, i think that THIS is why nobody has tried to go the "scientific approach" for testing such devices. While some reviews have both a sonic viewpoint AND technical measurements, doing something like this with "tweaks" and coming out with meaningful data would be next to impossible due to all of the variables involved. That's whay a lot of these are strictly "trial and error" and done on a system by system basis. Sean
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