Equipment Rack

Having read this entire thread as well as a somewhat similar thread on What's Best Forum I suspect most of us music lovers just want to get some good practical results from our efforts at racking our equipment. 
Regardless of the method used. and I suspect different methods can result in improvement of sound, I do think an overall consistent approach for each system has more merit than a hodgepodge method. 
I use the Star Sound platforms under my speakers and tube mono blocks to good effect. Across the room the on side wall area my components reside on a DIY rack of 3 3/4 in thick cutting boards with brass threaded rod through to the floor, resting on Herbies isolation footers. Addition of the footers after having acorn nuts ending the brass rods onto the floor increased resolution. The Herbies footers also erased the tendency of the turntable to howl at increased volumes. I would love to try a Star Sound rack for my components but that's not in the budget presently.
Carry on with your research, guys. All in all it's pretty interesting stuff. The Gary Koh discussion from What's Best Forum on isolation/decoupling focuses primarily on speakers but is in depth and informative. It introduces the makeup of the floor as a factor and ends up somewhat inconclusive. 

I've sat back and watched this thread roll along..I feel a need to respond to the conversation.I have a hard time understanding the constant banter and nit picking of everyones choices here on the gon .People come here to converse and share ideas and there experiences with products or music.I play a Paul Reed Smith guitar. We could argue all day as to why I prefer a specific pickup.I could have someone explain till the cows come how why the winding is better,This I know I prefer my McCarty pickups,because I have tried hundreds of guitars.My point is "What does it do in MY system"?. One guy raves over blue jean cables "oh there great" ..well dam sure not in my system, tried them and many others.I use Acoustic Zen because they sound good in my setup( and were not 25k) the difference is clearly noticable .I can say I have had atleast an hour long conversation with Robert at Starsound .I emailed him and he called me at home to answer my questions.We talked at great length about Star sound,music and being musicians.Never did he pressure me, actually he offered me a chance to try his products for my guitar amps and home audio.I find it interesting that he has offered a plane ticket or open ended chance to try his gear to a few here.Even a in house visit but that is snake oil ?  To try it in your own system with the product owner there?.He was very respectful and offered alot of options from less expensive to thru the roof money.I am in the process of trying some of his products.Proof is in the pudding to this guy, will it make a difference? There are many who say it does and also many who say geoffs springs do too!.Whatever works for you and your budget.

I have nothing personal against Robert and indeed he appears to be a nice guy...and maybe even a 'good' guy.
What I object to, is the use of 'voodoo' science to prop up some ill-defined theory in audio.
There is so much in this hobby of ours that is unable to be currently explained by science...not that there's anything wrong with that.
You don't see or hear Ted Denney of Synergistic Research trying to explain his weird and wonderful contraptions with 'voodoo' science.
He can't and doesn't even attempt it. He says...."try it free of obligation and if it doesn't work for you, we'll refund your money in its entirety".

Put me behind a concert reinforcement system (FOH or monitor mix) or sit me down in any recording studio and I will show you and teach you what good sound is and what all that mumbo jumbo is all about. Invite me to your house and I will help show you where your system might be lacking and physically demonstrate how to improve upon it. I will also point out your system’s strengths and am also fairly accomplished with the acoustic sciences and applications as well. That is my science - the science of sound.

This is what you should have been saying from the start Robert.
Please stay away from the perceived pressure to justify yourself 'scientifically'..🤓  
Good luck....

Just to be clear I never said Robert’s product(s) doesn’t work or is/are ineffective or any such thing. My argument has to do with explanations of what vibration isolation is and what can be done to ameliorate it. It would certainly be a BIG MISTAKE to take the view, as Robert does, that because seismic vibrations, because their frequencies being generally below 20 Hz, I.e., BELOW the audible frequency range, that they can be dismissed as UNIMPORTANT. I am a physicist (theoretical propulsion and fluid dynamics a + ) with 20 years developing vibration isolation devices for audiophiles, including my erstwhile 6 degree of freedom 0.5 Hz resonant frequency Nimbus Unipivot which, if you can believe it, employs a single narrow air spring with very high internal pressure, technically almost impossible to construct. A little like trying to balance a large cinder block on a rubber pencil. But I can get 0.5 Hz performance. "What does LIGO have to do with audiophiles?" Best line of the thread.

As I have maintained over the course of this thread BOTH the vibrations on the top plate from various sources AND the seismic forces from various sources - Earth motion, traffic, etc. MUST BE ADDRESSED for optimum results. Of course, one can acheive good - though not optimal - results by choosing only ONE SOLUTION. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve and where you get off. Even for seismic isolation there is no perfect solution since almost all such devices are mechanical low pass filters and because most do not address all 6 directions of isolation. I have always addressed both solutions and still do, by the way. Even the Nimbus incorporated dual symmetrical damping of the top plate.

As Shannon Dickson opined in his watershed article Bad Vibes, the first and one of the best tutorials on vibration isolation, in particular the details of the just introduced Vibraplane iso stand, published in Stereophile Magazine twenty years ago, "the only good vibration is a dead vibration."

cheers,

geoff kait
machina dynamica