Isolation vs. Absorbtion

Dan, I have no experience with Sinks as I am too frugal. I also feel that the use of isolation devices (like many things in this hobby) will vary greatly with each individual's application as there are many variables involved. For example we all have different bases (floors) and the sound of your floor should even vary if you were to move your setup to different locations. We are also (most of us) using different components as well. For example I have two different amps that I have played around with (one tube and one solid state) and they both react differently to the same isoaltion devices as far as how they change the sound and overall balance. I even hear differences in different pieces of Maple as one piece that I use is relatively new and two others are at least 60 years old I would guess (they are folk art cutting boards). There are also different types of maple and different cuts from the tree. The Nuance shelves I find interesting in that they should be uniform, however I would guess that they would affect different components differently. I am not going to get a headache over this (today anyway), but this is just to say that I am leaning to starting from scratch with each individual component using the two basic principals as noted above in my first post, but without any pre conceived (this does that and that does this) and just playing it by ear with each piece. For example I tried setting up my DAC in the same manner as my player and I do not like the sound with all of the layers, so far it sounds better with just three cones elevating it from my cabinet shelf (the shelf itself is dove tailed Persimmon wood and is integral to my approx. 400-500 lb storage and hifi cabinet), which makes it quite a unique shelf.

Ps: Though on the bright side basic isolation devices such as the pods have always shown an improvement to my CD players performance over the stock feet just resting on a shelf. Any improvement or fine tuning beyond that though seem to be of a highly individual nature.

I cannot really disagree Dekay. Regardless of what you do there will be some vibration that gets through. The spectrum of this vibration may be sympathetic to one component and detrimental to the sound of another. This depends, I believe, on the natural resonance of the box used for the component and the internal methods of isolating boards etc. But I could be wrong, it may be that different brands of capacitors behave differently to different vibrations. But, I would add that vibration control is a mixture of minimising vibrations and making sure they are synergistic to your components. Therefore I don't see it as being a matter of only tuning the vibrations to a component - you may get a neutral result, but you will cause a lot of smearing of detail (I am not implying that that is your point Dekay, just setting up the extremes in order to make my point). I have always felt that there is a lot of validity to the light and rigid idea, but have never found the right shelf for the application. What I am saying is that if you use a light rigid welded steel rack (spiked up and down) and the Neuance shelf you will find you remove a lot of vibration and that you will also get a pretty neutral sound. To finally get this kind of result from the light/rigid concept makes the Neuance shelf a breakthrough product for me. From there you can tailor the sound to individual components by choice of footer and get a wide variety of results. But I have so far had excellent results with the rack/Neuance/E-A-R in three different systems. One has a carpeted suspended wooden floor, another has a carpeted concrete pad floor, and the other has a terracotta tiled floor. One has tubes/electrostatics, the other two have large mosfet amps driving conventional box speakers. One has a tube preamp, and the other two have solid state. Two have turntables and CD players, the other just CD player. One has a CD transport that has a soft internal suspension of the transport, the others are more conventionally mounted. Inside the boxes, some rubber mount the boards, some use more expensive elastomer... on it goes. In each case the reduction in peakiness, the reduction in smear and hence the increase in resolution has been impressive. In one case we were replacing bladders, in another we were replacing massively heavy sand-filled stands and in another were replacing light rigid stands with damped Corian shelves. In each case we found that whereas before there had been advantages to using Vibrapods or cones, that now they sounded gross and simple elastomer or rubber feet sounded best. I am not trying to win an argument here because I have no doubt that there are other ways that might sound better and maybe better shelves, and you may very well not like the sound of the light/rigid approach. But for me the sucessful execution of the light/rigid approach is the Holy Grail because I find the others (such as the bladder or massive approaches) can be successful in obtaining neutrality (and reduce peakiness), and can even do quite well in reducing smear, but they fail badly at being true to the rhythm and pace of the music. That is, they can make nice sounds but not engaging music. I am delighted to be getting both right now.

RedKiwi: I have yet to try an audiophile rack and until a recent idea that my wife had (placing the electronics in a hall closet that is located just behind the speaker wall) I could think of no way to incorporate one into our living room. I know that your rack is welded steel, but is it custom or is it readily available from a manufacturer? If custom would you be kind enough to mail me the details/specs on it when you have the time? I could take it from there and either have it made or possibly modify an existing design. I would love to try a "base" that adds a sense of consistency to this matter and since the installation would be in a closet, aesthetics is not an issue. Thanks, David.

I second Dekay's last post. If it is a custom shelf then please post the details for the benefit of all. I have a MGD (metal threaded rods with the MDF Shelves) and maybe I could replace the MDF shelves with the Neuance Shelves with a little tweaking. Do you think that would be light a rigid enough?