Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

Cleeeds wrote,

"Agreed! Mind you, I'm rather certain that I've heard the benefits of vibration control in my system and because this is just a hobby to me, I'm satisfied with that. But measuring the results of isolation and correlating that to listening tests shouldn't be that big a deal for manufacturers. The absence of that documentation is what helps fuel the skeptics."

We've been through this already. Manufacturers actually shouldn't be the ones making measurements for vibration control/vibration isolation, it should be some third party independent agency. Furthermore, even under ideal conditions, and with competent testers, because of the obvious variations and vagaries in vibration environments from town to town and city to city and system to system, the results of such tests would not necessarily be that helpful. As we have seen ever since the dawn of audiophiles, listening tests are not particularly reliable for anything. Besides, nobody measures cables, room treatments, CD treatments, tweaks of any kind, so why should vibration control/vibration isolation be any different?

erik_squires
1,260 posts
11-25-2016 1:04pm
Erik -- I have nothing to add to your comments, best take them up with Shunyata directly.

That’s far beyond the level of attention this deserves. :)

Best,

Erik

Actually the Shunyata data, it's inaccuracy or lack thereof is somewhat irrelevant to this thread. 

geoffkait

Manufacturers actually shouldn't be the ones making measurements for vibration control/vibration isolation, it should be some third party independent agency.

Why? Aren't you making measurements as part of your design and manufacturing efforts? If so, why not share the results? If not, are you simply relying on trial and error?

Furthermore, even under ideal conditions, and with competent testers, because of the obvious variations and vagaries in vibration environments from town to town and city to city and system to system, the results of such tests would not necessarily be that helpful.

Yes, perhaps. But without initial measurements to use as a benchmark, we'll never know if there's any truth to your speculation.

Erik -- from your lack of critique of my third link (the discussion of jitter) do you thereby accept that this is a meaningful, and meaningfully measured, effect?

Agear -- If so perhaps this is enough to put your original question to rest, to whit

The question is does it  [i.e. vibration effects] have merit when it comes to electronics and if so why?  Are there plausible explanations for their effect on electronics or suggested measurement paradigms to document such an effect?

i.e. we have a demonstration that vibration matters in regard to electronics, and that this effect can be measured (at least for disc players)

Maybe then we can all go back to sleep 

ps I would be listening to my hi-fi but unfortunately I accidentally pulled the power on it and it takes 48-72 hours to settle after that which stinks, maybe we can have a new thread on why it takes a system such a long time to settle electrically 😉

Hi @folkfreak

Anything mechanical and spinning has known susceptibility to vibration noise, including CD’s, DVD’s and of course phonograph players. I wouldn’t be surprised if CD players were susceptible to jitter or even flat-out read errors with enough vibration. Very few CD players have buffered, asynchronous outputs. The Sonic Frontiers, and Parasound players were some of the very few. As you probably know, some other boutique players use large memory buffers to play from.

However, with good clocks and buffers, this effect should be completely eliminated. So, I am completely skeptical of hard disk / USB 2.0 players having any such issues at all.

I’m also leaving the door open to electronics or even cables having vibrational susceptibility, but again, it’s so freaking easy to begin to measure this, and I’ve seen zero. Invariably some one points out to vibration isolation for laser measurements of gravity waves, or earthquake damping .... yes, they have problems... and you know what? They are freaking measurable!! That’s how they arrive at the optimal solution. If vibration control is a real issue then magazines should be testing preamps and platforms for it. Nada.


Best,


Erik