Tweak worth 100X It's price - Vibrapods


While I WAS not a big beleiver in the "tweaks" of audio to a any appreciable extent, I must rave about the performance recieved form these littel rubber pods. I purchase a few a couple months ago to place under my electronics and I was extremely happy with the result from the pods in combination with soem MDF particle board placed under the equipment pods combination. Rather than go into extreme use of adjectives regarding the improvement that was expereinced, just let me say that EVERYTHING opend up and became better. I thought my system sounded good but this little, cheap tweak was eye (ear?) opening.

I was extrememly happy with the imrovement to my electronics and then I thought - Why not the speakers also? I bought and installed pods for each speaker and
installed them. This was "as big" if not a bigger improvememnt to overall sound. I was experiencing some bass control problems around the real low end. These problems were now gone along with all the other distortion that I was experiencing and really not even knowing it or knowing it and blaming it on "room colorations".

You have just got to try these things. At $6.00 a pop you can't go wrong. Plus you can get a discount for quantity purchases usually. You will need a minimum of 4 per compopnent. $24.00 bucks that will make your system sound like you just put $2,400.00 into it.

I am a personal user and this is not an ad but I got my pods, along with a plethora of help from CJAudio/Video through this (AudiogoN) site. (www.cjsaudvid.com) Craig will take good care of you.

Feel free to email me (mackpat@apk.net) if you have any questions / comments.

I can also send you a picture of the stands i built for the speakers to incorporate the pods / and the Legacy supplied spikes if interested.

Relevant System Info:

Processor: Aragon Soundstage
Amp: Aragon 8008BB
Speakers: Legacy Classics.
CD: Denon 5 disc carousel.
Interconnects: HT ProSilway II (Pre - Amp)
Monster Coax Digital (II) (CD- Pre)
mackpat
Sean, Hdm, My Parsifal Encores were carefully voiced using proprietary large brass spikes for the woofer base, and then
a 1" granite slab between 8 thin corner discs of sorbothane as a sandwich between this woofer base and the upper monitor.
Makes me wonder if something like this could do the trick under your speaker: i.e., two marble or granite or maple shelves with this sorbo between?
Thanks for the experimental procedure, Hdm, but the last thing I want to do is upset the phenomenally tight and clean presentation the Encores deliver as tuned by Julian Pelchat at Verity.
Neuances do a great job isolating my CDP and pre...far better coherence than air bladders or sorbo or cones alone.
Tweaking the support for Neuance is not so critical.
Upturned cones on your shelf will do if you can't screw upturned spikes or screws through your shelf.
Screwing the four spike/screws into the shelf is satisfying at completion, however, as after getting three of the corners reasonably flat you carefully nudge the fourth crew up until the Neuance stabilizes (no jiggle) as you push on it with your hand. If it's then reasonably flat (for front ends) you're done.
pods work! just got'em and i'm pretty happy. deeper and tighter bass, better dynamics, slightly better resolution. nice for the price.
Ernie: I tap the Neuance shelf in the center (the component is not on it @ the time) and can tell by the tone whether the shelf is stable or not. The noise becomes very tight and short in duration when things are right. If I do not do this the overall sound is not very good in my setup as the LF's become subdued. My equipment is also on the light side (under 20 pounds) which may be why this special care is required. Maybe Ken has something to add to this, but I feel that proper support and setup is key in getting the "best" out of this shelving.
I don't currently own any nueance shelves (had some symposium shelves), but I got a good idea for cheap tweak from one of Ken's discussions. In stead of using upturned cones under shelves in audio rack (which can be expensive for 16 or more and may raise shelf too high) go to hardware plumbing section of home improvement store. There you will find nuts with round dome top, they have an italian name, just buy several large ones for @25 cents each and use in place of cones. Very stable and raise shelf height 1/2" or less.

Components can then be vibrapodded on these isolated shelves in rack.
Sam: I don't know the technical name for the nuts that you are talking about, but i have called them / heard them referred to as "Castle" nuts. This may / may not be correct.

Dekay: I think that those racks are still available but Audio Advisor stopped selling them for some reason. Last time i checked, they were still available on the manufacturers website. That was quite a while ago, but it was WELL after AA stopped selling them. I checked into going the same route that you did but found something that tickled my fancy a little more.

Ernie: I think that the added weight of the marble or granite on the suspended floor would tend to muddy the bass further. I ran into a similar situation when i changed racks a while back. I went from a lightweight rack to one that weighed about 175 lbs and the bass went to mud. I now have a rack of similar design but much lighter and the bass is back to normal.

I think that varying weight in different locations on a suspended floor alters both the resonant frequency of the floor itself AND the amplitude of the signal that it contributes when excited. This is probably why some people notice drastic differences with various tweaks such as racks, different speaker stands, various isolation components, etc.. What may work phenomenally in a system with a "loose & saggy" suspended floor with very audible improvements may make no difference at all for someone with a solid foundation under their system. Just a guess though... Sean
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