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Footers/Shelf Material

I am still on the shelf quest, trying Corian, Neuance and Maple Butchers Block (the latter is still to arrive, but is coming). The Neuance is still the best - the Corian less dynamic, slower and a little warmer. But I have also been trying lots of footers with these shelves, hoping for a magical combination. And I found one.. With hard shelves like Corian, glass, perspex, marble etc (including the Neuance) - (but definitely not for MDF), the best I have found is the E-A-R Large Isolation Feet, $3.25 each at the Parts Connection. With hard shelves all of the cones I have tried are way too peaky. Plain old hard rubber feet are muddy and smeered. Vynil feet in general are "zingy" and tend to hardness from the middle of the mid-range on up, and a bit smeered on down - and this includes Vibrapods. The Vibrapods are a bit too lively in the upper mids and not great with string tone, but are also not coherent from top to bottom (but are otherwise second-best to the E-A-R feet. But the E-A-R feet give you all the detail of the best of the other footers (cones, squishy feet etc) with NO peakiness, and fantastic solidity to images. They are an unfortunate shade of blue and look like a hard synthetic rubber, but do not have any of the fuzz and smeer that you get with hard rubber footers. More neutral overall than anything else, all the detail as you get with cones but with none of the peakiness, none of the smeer you get with rubber, vynil, or sorbothane. I like them. There are also small feet at $1 each, but my components are too heavy for them and they sound muddy and grey - but they might work with light components - they are used by Sonic Frontiers on all their better gear. Please note I do NOT recommend them if you use MDF shelves.
redkiwi
redkiwi OP
1,092 posts
 
To add to my previous point - ie. improving versus merely changing the sound. I perceive a problem in this vibration control area in that most of the products on the market are designed to the wrong criteria. Instead of trying to be heard less, they are trying to be heard more. One can understand this because people will want to hear a significant change in the sound when they invest in a footer. But what this leads to is footers that hype some part of the sound. This can obviously lead to the symptoms Garfish and Brulee refer to. Yet products like the E-A-R feet would be hard to sell for $50 each because they do so little to the sound.
dan2112
144 posts
 
Redkiwi, I have been following this thread for a while now and this is a most excellent discussion. So if I understand you correctly you have your front end on EAR feet sitting on top of a Neuance shelf and the monoblocks on butcher block with out the EARs? - Dan
redkiwi OP
1,092 posts
 
Dan2112 - I am only just getting to grips with the Butchers Block and perceive some small problems, but they are small. I have stated above that the E-A-R feet are great with hard shelves and still hold to that. But I don't call the Butchers Block or MDF hard. With these softer shelves I tend to prefer cones. With softer shelves I also like supporting them with up-turned spikes (like most steel shelves have), but with hard shelves a thin piece of hard synthetic rubber between rack and shelf seems best (Note that Mana racks do not hold to this last rule - always use spikes). So far the Neuance seems to work more like a hard shelf and the Butchers Block more like a soft shelf. So it is E-A-Rs between components and the Neuance and cones between components and the Butchers Block (I think). So far with the Butchers Block the sound is wonderfully open, detailed, extended at the extremes, dynamic and with a realistically large soundstage - but just a tad slow (only very slightly) and there is a very fine grain (that I am working on reducing). Hope this clarifies. I have ordered more Neuance shelves and will probably only really know how good they are when I have more than just the one - but it is very very fast, with no significant resonant peaks.
redkiwi OP
1,092 posts
 
I hate it when I speak too soon. I am probably doing it again but want to correct my last post. I have gone back to the E-A-R feet between the monoblocks and the Maple Butchers Block, but am supporting the Maple with Mana sound frames - thick rigid steel, spiked up and down. And it sounds good. The cones didn't quite work on more extended listening. I will probably shut up now until I have tried this out for longer as well as in the other systems I am using.
sol322
426 posts
 
Dekay Kimber Powerkord is very light and has been recommended for front end components. I have one and I need to make a decision for where to install it either the preamp or the digital source unfortunately I have to hard wire it in place my first impression is to go with the digital, what do you think?
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