As a mostly-lurker who grew weary of Sistrum's explanations long ago, I've got to say the more I read these explanations the more self-contradictory and less credible they seem. There is such a lack of rigor in Sistrum's efforts to explain the science of their product, you wonder why they don't just give it up and let the product stand on its performance, which after all many have said is very good.
It was interesting to have Robert of Starsound come on board to straighten things out and then say things like, a Sistrum platform is an active device because it vibrates. Starsound seems to take a lot of these kinds of marketing liberties in its technical explanations.
More surprising is the admission itself that Sistrum stuff vibrates a lot. We've read a lot of claims tantamount to saying that Sistrum racks are near-perfect conductors of vibrational energy, channeling all the energy to ground. We've been told Sistrum drains energy away, avoiding the futile sins of trying to absorb and damp energy. Now, Robert says that Sistrum racks vibrate "continuously and simultaneously [sic]," that the noisy Sistrum "rattle triangle" creates a multitude of freqencies, both above and below the audible range. Which is it going to be -- coolly conducting the energy to ground, or continuously and excitedly vibrating it off?
There's nothing new about the latter approach. One could argue that based on this explanation, Sistrum racks are damping devices, something that the more vocal Sistrum backers seem to think is the original sin. Damping devices absorb potentially harmful vibrations and throw off the energy at frequencies that will do much less harm (they certainly don't just absorb and absorb until they explode). That appears to be what Sistrum does.
Part of the problem with these discussions is that isolation vs. coupling and damping vs. conducting are fine dichotomies at the theoretical level but are not very useful labels at the practical level. I think any structure that's sturdy enough to risk putting your equipment on and practical enough so that you could take your equipment off of it without having to unweld it or something equally extreme is going to be doing some isolating and some coupling. Arguing about equipment as if they are embodiments of theoretical ideals is pretty useless, but it does reveal a tendency of audiophiles to want simple and elegant-sounding explanations that audio equipment marketers can and do take ready advantage of.
Lastly, in the face of criticism, Sistrum defenders often resort to saying something like, "Why don't you try it and see if you don't think it's great?" Finally, a half-way sound argument. But my and others' objections are not about Sistrum's performance. They're about the very questionable, science-like claims and explanations that, for some reason, Sistrum backers seem more devoted to forcing upon the rest of us than supporters of just about any other product. Their question seems to imply that if you were to try and enjoy a Sistrum product, than somehow that would prove that the line of science-like verbiage that Starsound puts out is valid.
I've been reading these pages long enough to know first-hand that Starsound came on the AudiogoN scene in a less-than-honorable way. There are at least a few calm Audiogon voices who speak highly of Sistrum equipment and don't indulge in the marketing nonsense, so I do think these products have merit. But to some of us, their marketing creates a very different image than I'm sure they'd like their product line to have. Robert provided an interesting explanation of the origin of the name, Sistrum, saying that the musical instrument called the sistrum was used ritually by temple chantresses to ward off the forces of chaos. Starsound's marketing definitely recreates the mood of this origin story. Please, I don't want to see a white paper, if it's more of the same. Let the product speak for itself.
