What's the best isolation system?

Sgr- I stand with those who have had great success with the Sistrum stands. They are nothing short of amazing in my system on my amps and speakers. When funds permit, I'll be buying a couple of racks for my tt and front-end electronics. As for aesthetics, everyone has their own idea of beauty. Personally, I find the visually minimalist design and functionally effective Sistrum stands to be very appealing, but to each his own. Chelillingworth is certainly welcome to his opinion and no product will work equally well in every application, but with no other details describing his exhaustive experience with the Sistrum products, I would be inclined to give it little weight at this point. Good luck with your isolation/coupling search.

You guys all crak me up. wow did I go and hurt someones feelings did I possibly put down a product that a dealer is carrying. Yes I have heard the sistrum stands, I have heard a lot of products and will be happy tom comment them as I please without resorting to infantile personal remarks.
I don't think that it is really worth a lot of time hemming and hawing over these things. I am not afraid of new technology and hey buddy I like triangle just as much as the next guy... just look how many championships th Bulls won... oh yeah and those darn pyramids are pretty cool.
Truth is y'all I just told you what I think of these products and did so with out a bunch of pseaudospeak and audiotalk. I really believe sistrum to make sonically and aesthetically poor products. I find symposiums products to be outstanding and to be the only product that has been universall positive in all apllications. Draining the vibrations from the components withou reflecting them back and coloring the components.

.....an no please don't take what I say hear as fact...please don't find any value in dissenting opinions....just go buy what they all tell you to buy........

.... and above all just go ahead and assume that I don't know what I am talking about......

Oh and while we're at this silly business which on of you as "exhaustive" experience with symposium..

oh and sorry I don't like your stuff

"The Sistrum racks are really quite awful... bright and hashy and not mention UGLY."

You might want to try a different approach to realize credibility of your comments, just something to think about Chelillingworth. Something like "I tried the sistrum and neuance, etc and IN MY OPINION or IN MY SYSTEM the symposium worked better and this is what I heard. Providing more detail as to the specific results in your system would be more beneficial than your slam which tells us nothing other than you just might like to invite high handed controversy.

I have also listened to the symposium shelves under the tt and thought it did a very good job in providing greater image focus and placement of instruments and vocalist on the stage than without. I haven't used their isolation bearings. I am currently evaluating the Still Points but the verdict is not in yet, pluses and minuses but there appears to be a change in character at certain upper frequencies that I didn't note before, maybe a problem elsewhere or a resonant peak. These devices take time to get a handle on. I haven't heard everything out there and even if I did there are just too many considerations for one product to better all others in every application. I am much interested in the neuance and sistrum as well.

I will also vote for the Sistrum. I love mine. The science behind it makes sense to me. I think it's beautiful. Even my wife, who had no comment when I got the beautiful Audo Meca Mephisto II and the gorgeous Syrah Supratek, commented "Wow! Thats cool looking!" To each his own, as it should be.

there is no doubt that the best isolation system is a combination of mass and air suspension, tuned properly and in layers. the concept is the extreme example of a constrained layering. the mass keeps the air from influenceing the next layer.

my Rockport Sirius III turntable seems to be an excellent example of this concept. if you consider what a siesmograph does then it is easy to understand that to some degree a phono stylus acts as a siesmograph. in addition to earth movement you have low-frequency vibration thru the floor from the speakers. the Rockport starts with a 250 pound stand, has an self-leveling air suspension, then a 200 pound plinth, then an air bearing, then a 65 pound platter, then the stylus and arm, then an air bearing on the arm. only the platter, record, stylus and arm wand (not the arm assembly) have any contact during play.

the influence of air born vibration is minimized by the mass of the platter and the arm design. when you hear the result of this over the top approach it is clear that it surpasses any other approach. i think it safe to say that a turntable is the item most influenced by vibration.

is this approach practical?...maybe not....but it is the best isolation system.