Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

Maple shades brass footers made a difference for me

Had a few racks, homemade with nice wood and bought online, which held the equipment but offered little in sound quality improvements.  Then I bought a Star Sound Sistrum rack and SP-101 platforms for my speakers. Both the rack and the speakers improved the sound considerably so that I was able to remove some traps and get great increases in clarity, transparency, and dynamics with no drawbacks.

A Star Sound Rhythm RP5 rack and Starsound Apprentice amp platforms made a huge improvement for me. Underneath unsuspended turntables I’m into Stillpoints Ultra Fives on a heavy sandbox over soft springs (borrowed from Geoff Kait’s Machina Dynamica idea.) As a finishing touch, racks and platforms pull my chain much harder than expensive cables.

I used to have troubles with footfalls when I ran my turntable.

I got a Sound Anchors stand which helped quite a lot but did not solve it.

I used to have a Sota Cosmos; replaced it with a modified Empire 208 turntable (equipped with an SME5 arm). It sounded better than the Cosmos until you turned up the volume, then the Cosmos sounded better at volumes above that (the Cosmos had a fair amount of damping control; the Empire did not).

I solved that by going back to Sound Anchors and had them build a stand that was customized to accept an anti-vibration platform (Ultraresolution Technologies) for not just the turntable but also the preamp. Now I could play much higher volumes without strain using the 'Empire' (which was further customized with a new plinth machined of solid aluminum, damped  platter which was machined to accommodate a better platter pad and the arm was replaced with a Triplanar). I still got some footfalls. I added some Aurios Pro bearings beneath the footers of the stand and the footfalls were gone.

Now I can play the system to some really high volumes (+105db) and it always sounds relaxed with no hint of strain, and its really hard to tell how loud its playing unless you try to talk to someone beside you.

IMO/IME its really important that that the system have the ability to not sound loud even when it really is. An orchestra can play peaks of 115db; the stereo should not add anything of its own during playback. At high sound pressure levels vibration can affect turntables, CD players and all electronics whether tube or solid state (if you think transistors are immune to microphonics you've not spent time working with them!).

So a stand with vibration control for the front end of the system (sources and preamp) is not only in the signal chain but can be considered a component in its own right. 

I've always found that stands with speakers on them must have zero back and forward motion, as the drivers move this way.
Any back and forward motion of the stand will be lost energy being projected into the room, being waisted by the drivers instead trying to make the stand move back and forward, even in unmeasurable amounts.
You loose micro detail and screw up your imaging.

Hi George (of Lightspeed fame).  That is an interesting point.  I am a big fan of time/phase alignment of speakers.  It would be an interesting thing to measure.