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Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

Mechanical grounding or isolation from vibration has been a hot topic as of late.  Many know from experience that footers, stands and other vibration technologies impact things that vibrate a lot like speakers, subs or even listening rooms (my recent experience with an "Energy room").  The question is does it 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?
agear
ethan_winer
57 posts
 
Ralph, the only reason my post was deleted was because I told you know who to you know what himself. It had nothing to do with your post.

Digital systems do have aliasing, and that's like IMD except one of the source frequencies is the sample rate. So you can get aliasing with only a single pure tone. I guess you could call is inharmonic distortion but I'd rather call it what it is: aliasing. In all modern (competent) converters, all such distortions are too soft to hear anyway, even when listening carefully. But it can be measured, proving once again that test gear beats ears every time. Not for establishing preference! But for reliably and repeatably assessing fidelity.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 

atmasphere
Geoffkait: But isn’t AES actually an anti audiophile organization?

Seems to me Stanley Lipshitz first presented his formulae on creating RIAA EQ curves to the AES. They also have that File 48 (balanced line standard) I like to trot out. Baby and the bathwater...

ah, so it's a mix of science and anti audiophile conservative dogma? 

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,113 posts
 
Digital systems do have aliasing, and that's like IMD except one of the source frequencies is the sample rate. So you can get aliasing with only a single pure tone. I guess you could call is inharmonic distortion but I'd rather call it what it is: aliasing.
Thank-you. 

The problem is if you call it aliasing without acknowledging that its also distortion, it leads to confusion (if there is IMD or THD, they make artifacts not found in the original signal, why should aliasing catch a break?).  Distortion is really the more accurate term. And its so audible that in the old days it was criminal. No analog system ever had artifacts like that (unless is was badly malfunctioning)!

So I think you can see that I regard calling it 'aliasing' without also speccing it as a distortion is disingenuous. Its simply a way of hiding a rather serious artifact and hoping no-one will notice. But it did get noticed and is why the LP is still very much alive today!

So, if you **include** aliasing artifacts in with the THD spec of a typical digital system, what does that number look like?

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,113 posts
 
ah, so it's a mix of science and anti audiophile conservative dogma?
You take the good with the bad. Like any organization that has people in it, its going to have politics and outright flimflam. No-one's perfect. But their goal is good engineering, and often they succeed. But if you deal with them you have to expect to do some wading, just like you do here or anywhere else.
dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
bpt24: "You just don’t get it Ethan."

End of thread.

Best to you bpt24,
Dave
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