Does anyone use wood for vibration control?


What kind of wood have you found to be best?
bksherm

"At the same time, many people, if not most of those, who watch basketball do not have basketball courts at home."

Absolutely positively correct!

However there are more people who explore the "whole" of playback than you would think. Keep in mind that most who tune have no need or desire to be part of an audiophile forum. My clients over the years learn the art and technology of tuning and then move beyond the stereophiles of the world. If you read the members threads on TuneLand you will see that they get to a certain place in their abilities and move on to the rest of their listening years with the knowledge that they can do anything they wish. Some do stick around to help others get started but the vast majority send me Christmas emails and good greetings usually with the title "I'm still tuning and love it".

Once you learn how to tune this becomes a different type of adventurous lifestyle for you. Most of the guys and gals who tune keep in touch with me through PMs to let me know they want to try something I have developed or share with me, and sometimes the forum, things that they have been doing that works within their own world. These folks have stepped way past the sales world of Stereophile and HEA tradeshows and have developed their own version of the Tune that they have fine tuned just for them. It's like a family of the worlds most explorative listening members. Folks who have traveled so far beyond plug & play you wouldn't even recognize they were from the same hobby as the ones still looking at component collectables.

MG

Michael, obviously my Sony Walkman and Sony Ultralight headphones system is not the same as “room listening.” However, I should point out that headphone listening, or “direct ear” listening as you call it, does have some very important advantages over in room systems. Let me list them for you here. I won’t dwell on COST SAVINGS, which is obviously enormous. I also won’t dwell on SPACE SAVINGS, either. Or even TIME SAVINGS. The primary advantage of my current system is SOUND QUALITY - purity, air, dynamics, coherency, and extremely low noise and distortion.

1. My headphone system is completely independent of room acoustic anomalies that plague room systems - echos, standing waves, comb filter effects, early reflections, phase issues,. I do not have to constantly tune my room, I.e., playing around with room treatments and adding/moving/removing them, as well as moving speakers to keep up with all the changes and tweaks. It can be an endless cycle, I don’t have to tell you.

2. I have no AC issues, or AC ground issues, since my system is battery powered.

3. I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies power cords, speaker cables, interconnects, and digital cable.

4. I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses.

5. I avoid distortion produced by speaker crossovers as my Sony Ultralight headphones are crossover-less.

6. I have greatly reduced the number of variables that affect my sound by going to a small, battery powered system. This makes things much easier to CONTROL.

7. Immunity to RFI/EMI.

8. Immunity to vibration.

Quick Summary - More music, better sound, less audio nervousa.


Yep, two different worlds! I prefer the in-room system obviously, and the in-room listening experience. Audiogon looks to me like a mostly in-room system forum, at least most of the threads I see you on, which is why I question some of your input as being up to date or relevant. It’s ok, I just think the reminder to folks needs to be often that you are not basing your comments about in-room system listening as actually something you practice yourself.

For example with the OP

"What kind of wood have you found to be best?"

It doesn’t appear to me that you use any wood with your Walkman so for the guy using an in-room system with many different materials how does your Walkman fit in.

I also disagree by a long shot with your Quick Summary - More music, better sound. It might be better than Michael Fremer’s clutter but not a well tuned in-room setup, not even close to the full body listening experience. But I say this having all of the above to base that on.

MG

I wood be remiss in not mentioning some other audiophile icons made of wood. The Shakti Halographs, Room Tuning devices, a classic. Shun Mook Spatial Control Kit (3 Mpingo discs on a wooden bracket. An awesome device. Shun Mook record weight, stack of dried ebony briar discs, very high on my wish list when my rich uncle gets out of the poor house. Shun Mook Diamond Resonators, audio footers comprised of a stack of ebony discs with a diamond tip, you know, for “instantaneous evacuation” of vibration. Me want.