Lifters ForGetting Cables Off The Floor, Worth It Or Snake Oil

Hello Folkfreak,

If you examine the entirety of my statement I never state seismic interference does not exist. I am referring to the effects generated from seismic activities within a mechanically grounded sound room with the equipment mechanically grounded as well. The effects from seismic interference are minimalist and do not change a thing or at the very least ours and others who have trained ears in music could not hear or detect any traffic, trains or planes or any seismic related interference within this engineered environment.

We are in the completion stage of another sound room where the structure, all electrical feeds from the main panel including the AC panel along with all the equipment is mechanically grounded. Our previous design stunned everyone from highly experienced audiophiles, studio sound engineers and musicians alike. I would like to invite you in for a listen upon completion.  

Please do not take this as anything but positive. You have a very good system and obviously labored and spent a great deal of time listening and working through the sonic of each product you own in order to gain success in your listening enjoyment and I am sure we can learn from each other’s experience and our people would like to learn more ‘hands on’ about active isolation.

Questions on the Herzan:

Are you sure the noise showing on the Herzan meter with TT in the off position was traffic, construction or a form of seismic interference?

The Herzan relies on AC power for operation therefore it has a power supply (remote as an option however the main body still reacts to friction formed from vibration), AC noise and of course additional resonance formed from vibration on all surfaces and electronic parts including the chassis, the spring system, the electronic parts and circuits, etc., per Coulomb's Law. Since the Herzan is extremely sensitive, could some of the interference being displayed on the meter possibly come from those parts reacting to AC flows?

I am not aware of what this device brings to the table in sonic as we have no experience owning one. Most of our practical knowledge comes to us from Norm (tbg on Audiogon) who reviewed and is very familiar with our products and has also owned multiple Herzan units.

The Herzan appears to be designed for science applications other than audio reproduction.

According to manufacturer’s spec, this isolation system takes approximately 5 to 20ms to receive and process vibrations whereas the human ear responds to auditory stimulus on an average of 0.17ms. The sonic characteristics involving attack, sustain and decay of instruments along with response to listening reaction times are extremely fast. Music is fast hence we rely heavily on the need for speed.

Our engineering is extremely confident that our technology will improve the function and performance of the Herzan. If you are open for an experiment, please contact me. We are always looking for new ways to expand our technology.

We positioned and built it inside of speakers and electronic components, equipment racking, adapted it to musical instruments, placed it inside structural surroundings and it will also improve the function and effectiveness of all those acoustic panels currently mounted to your walls as well.

If you really enjoy the results from the Herzan, then let’s see if we can speed things up a bit and get more out of active isolation.

I am looking forward to some day meeting you.

Robert - Star Sound

To the Grandstanding Kait,

Typical approaches towards others whereas you are mentally... (oops wrong choice of words) because you are already there; so let’s just say if you are required to reach beyond your current threshold of hands on experience and attempting to understand any new concepts while continuing to refuse hands on experimentation with new products built after 2001, your mental reactions to anything beyond the scope of your current day brain trust is matched to the same old, same old repetitive monkey slang.

As you have stated and restated above, you can beat other highly successful manufacturers’ products with your own versions so when can we expect availability on them?

Come on Geoff, you are bragging and shilling all over the place with zero “spring” in your bounce. Put up or shut up duder! Let’s see what’s under that new bag of rocks...

After all, LIGO having absolutely nothing to do with sound reproduction whatsoever, would NOT EXIST if the framework were not “mechanically grounded”. How about that - even the big boys must rely on mechanical grounding for function - imagine that?

You are indeed a “Grandstander”.

Angry monkey alert!

I said it would be fun but I didn’t say for who.

Duck, everybody! Here comes some more!! 💩 💩 💩

@audiopoint the time base on the scans I posted is 160mS hence the frequency of the main signal visible in the first scan is 10-12hz (depending on whether you think there are 1.5 or 2 cycles displayed) so I suspect this is not a power supply issue. Nevertheless cognizant of the issue you raise the manufacturer does offer an external power supply in order to eliminate this possible source of additional interference - or as Herzan put it "EMI noise and heat"

my room unfortunately is of typical domestic construction (frame on slab) and my wife and I can feel the whole house shake with passing traffic and other subsonic activity. Perhaps other situations would not be as sensitive but I have found all of my equipment benefited from some form of isolation from the floor (be it via springs, roller balls or active isolation).

in terms of where the cognoscenti are at the platform of the moment is the Stacore combining pneumatic isolation and rollerballs. You may find this thread of interest
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?23315-A-world-first-Passive-v-active-isolation-platform...

Someone would have to be living in a cave to suggest that real isolation and effective isolation - such as exemplified by the LIGO project - is not applicable to audio and to suggest that all you need is mechanical grounding. I’m afraid this is just a sad case of being almost entirely ignorant of what’s been going on in the industry outside the confines of one’s own narrow little developments. A perfect example of what I call Stove Piping, which is working in one’s own narrow little chimney, or stove pipe, and frequently arriving at some bizarre conclusion, not (rpt not) having the benefit of all the other developments that have been occuring outside that narrow chimney. It’s a crisis of Intelligence, information.

Real and effective vibration isolation has fortunately been available to audiophiles for more than 20 years, starting with Townshend’s Sesimic Sink, Bright Star air bladder and sand boxes and Vibraplane air bladder stands. My own single air spring Nimbus more than twenty years ago set the standard for number of degrees of motion and resonant frequency. The guys from Audio Point can save a little face as I’ve always maintained that good mechanical grounding techniques are important, too, especially in terms of grounding the component to the isolation device and grounding the iso device to the floors or support structure. The reason why isolation is used in the construction of tall buildings is to make the buildings less vulnerable to the effects of Sesimic vibration, especially earthquakes obviously, but also the effects of wind. I’m afraid a program of mechanical grounding as theaudiotweak suggests would turn out quite badly for tall structures, just as it would if applied across the board for audio.

"Let the vibrations run free." - the wild chant of anti isolation Stove Pipers.

Stove, piper, stove piper, stove piper, stove!
Yes, you are, yes you are! 

Geoff Kait
machina dynamica