WHAT HAS WORKED FOR YOU? ISOLATION PLATFORMS, FOOTERS, ETC. for a DAC?

The need for isolation is entirely dependent on the design of your DAC. It is possible to design both an excellent power supply and a non-microphonic DAC - in this case any treatment is pointless: it won’t do harm but certainly won’t do any good.

Unfortunately not all DACs are designed in a holistic sense that the power supply and microphonic immunity need to be as outstanding as the digital to audio conversion and analog section - and thus is why so many have to resort to band-aids.

Benchmark have written about these subjects and appear to take a holistic approach in design - all aspects need to be top notch.

Hi David,

You are moving in the right direction IMO.

"Soft" footers "cushion" the component from external vibration from the floor/rack but also trap internal vibrations inside the component (isolators vs conductors).

Symposium Acoustics system of combining Rollerblocks with their Svelte shelves (conduct then isolate) drains the vibrations from both the component (on top) and from external vibrations from the floor/rack (from below) into the vibration-absorbing membrane sandwiched between SS plates. Detail and coherence are improved over soft (and hard) footers, cones, and Rollerblocks without the shelves IME

Adding spring devices underneath the Svelte shelves (I use Solid Tech) can improve the sound further for extremely sensitive gear.  

Dave

Unfortunately it’s not really a question of "microphonic immunity." There is nothing you can do to make a component - any component - immune to low frequency seismic type vibration, I mean other than isolate it from those vibrations using some type of low pass mechanical filter. That’s because the entire building is shaking, so anything connected to it is shaking right along with it.

Obviously some steps can be talken (but usually aren’t) inside the component to guard against vibration with higher frequencies, you know, using damping techniques,including those produced by the component itself such as transformer hum, CD transport mechanical noise, motor noise, etc.

Right Geoff. I use vibration damping material inside the chassis and stick-on wheel weights on transports/CD players to good effect.

There seems to always be room for improvement in this area.

Dave

Interview discussing microphony and other design choices. The important takeaway is that some designers choose to tackle power supply and microphony issues and others ignore them. If you buy a DAC that is not designed to eliminate these issues then of course you can spend far more than you spent on the DAC itself trying to fix power supply and microphony issues.

http://www.stereo-now.co.uk/interviews-Benchmark.html

"In a well-designed system the DAC chip is the limitation. Anyone who is building “high-end” products that are limited by power supply performance should find a different “d**n” business."

"Before any product is released to market, we subject it to very high levels of vibration while listening to the noise floor and while viewing the noise spectrum on a high-resolution audio analyser. Any disturbance in the noise floor is an indication that a microphony problem exists. We also tap each component with a ceramic probe while listening to the noise floor. Benchmark products are not microphonic and can be used in high sound pressure and/or high vibration environments without isolation accessories."

On the DAC2 and DAC3 the power supply is switched Mode and this new form of power supply running at very high frequency has eliminated all the 60Hz hiss and hum issues that come with a linear power supply.

Benchmark is not the only maker of excellent sounding DACs but I present their design philosophy here to show that not all designers ignore the problems of power supply and microphony - so choose your products wisely or else you face the challenge of trying to get them to work properly through the use of band-aids!