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Cheap Vibration Control Discovery

What a pleasant surprise!I've been meaning to buy or build an aesthetically pleasing platform for my LTA MZ2.I am a fan of sand boxes under tubed equipment and was considering making a small one for under the  little pre.It definitely needed something more effective than the sorbothane balls-the blue light around the power button was flickering when music was playing.
So I placed it on an 8" x10" ceramic candle tray with three vibrapods underneath the tray,leaving the sorbothane balls under the chassis.Unbelievable!It has the same effect as a sand box damping vibration but without the mass.It was going to be temporary until the box was finished plus I was searching for a couple of heavy books to add to the weight I believed was needed.Breaking Silence (Janis Ian) was playing and I stopped my heavy book search and sat down to listen.
The only issue is the tray looks ridiculous,lol!Instead of mdf,paint,and sand I'm off to Home Depot to peruse ceramic and granite tile.
I'm not going to gush about the sound.Anyone who has used footers and platforms under their equipment knows how every aspect of performance is bettered when you find "the one".This post is for those who want to experiment inexpensively or like sand boxes and need a custom size.
128x128jtcf
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Reminds me of me 20+ years ago. Back when vibration control had to be hokum. A friend at work said he sandwiched his CD player between two phone books. Which can only sound even crazier today, seeing as nobody has seen a phone book in years. Back then though they were big and thick and everywhere. 

Well this will only take a minute and cost nothing to prove just how stupid and... wha.... it really does sound better??? Not much. Not hardly any. Truth be told, just barely enough to notice. But.... free!

Ugly? Not after wrapping in some nice fabric my wife had just sitting around. 

You start small. You experiment. You listen. Learn. Get better.

Well done. Carry on!
jtcf's avatar
jtcf OP
1,617 posts
 
ebm, yes it is horrendously ugly.A shame because it was free:( A more attractive tile is in it's future.

millercarbon,I was going to use a couple of thick hardcover Steven King novels under my ugly tray.From horrendous to grotesque:)
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

For an epiphany, try a set of Townshend Seismic Pods or a Seismic Platform under your table. I’ve had the Bright Star sandbox, SIMS Navcom Silencers, EAR Isodamp, Sorbothane, BDR/Mod Squad/Audio Selection/Golden Sound Cones (all cones are couplers, not isolators), roller bearings, and some homemade turntable platforms under mine.

The Townshend products are superior to all, but if you have serious money, get yourself a Herzan or Minus-K isolation table. Lotsa dough, though. Then there is the Symposium Acoustics Segue Iso, one of their Platforms on springs. Those springs are not nearly as sophisticated a design as the Townshend, so a Symposium Platform on top of Townshend Seismic Pods may be killer. The Townshend Platform is two pieces of steel with constrained layer damping between them (very non-resonant), with a set of the Seismic Pods attached to the bottom. The platform is very dead, but doesn’t have the layer of vibration-absorbing material the Symposium Platforms do. Your choice.

Art Dudley describes the effects of putting a set of the IsoAcoustic GAIA under his Garrard 301 in the current Stereophile, but a look at the diagram of the structure of the GAIA will reveal it to be nothing more than a rubber isolator installed within a stainless steel housing. The isolation properties of rubber is very limited. Sorbothane was long ago abandoned by audiophiles, but Navcom still has its' adherents. Perhaps that (or EAR Isodamp) is what's inside the GAIA. I myself am done with rubber. Books provide effective, linear isolation to a low frequency? If you say so!

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Cones are a little bit difficult to analyze in my opinion. They appear to act like mechanical diodes - they almost always sound better with the points down. It’s an easy experiment. Are they allowing residual vibration to exit DOWN out of the system or prevent seismic vibration from traveling up 🔝to the component? Or both? It’s worth mentioning that using cones with almost any vibration isolation device improves performance, both under the iso stand and under the component. 
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