Anyone looking for rubbery damping materials has a couple more to choose from: EAR Isodamp (used in industry) and Navcom (used in the gun business). One form of Isodamp is made expressly for constrained-layer damping, another for damping of metal parts such as electronic enclosures. Michael Percy Audio sells both.
DIY speaker isolation base for a wood floor
A definite sonic improvement in tightening up the bass.
1. Start with 4 aluminum cones. I used some old Mod Squad Tip Toes.
2. 16x16 slab of granite.
3. 1/8 cork.
4. 1/2 inch neoprene rubber.
5. 1/8 cork.
6. Top with another 16x16 slab of granite.
7. Enclosed with a wood cradle to hide the mechanism.
The granite is from scraps from a shop and was cheap. The added 1/4 inch of neoprene to 1/2 inch thickness did help. Let me hear your thoughts.
1. Start with 4 aluminum cones. I used some old Mod Squad Tip Toes.
2. 16x16 slab of granite.
3. 1/8 cork.
4. 1/2 inch neoprene rubber.
5. 1/8 cork.
6. Top with another 16x16 slab of granite.
7. Enclosed with a wood cradle to hide the mechanism.
The granite is from scraps from a shop and was cheap. The added 1/4 inch of neoprene to 1/2 inch thickness did help. Let me hear your thoughts.
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I mean no disrespect but I put that horrid blue EAR stuff almost as low on the totem pole as Sorbothane. EAR rubber grommets, sheets and feet look so darn cool, too. Oh,well, onwards and upwards, guys. Anybody actually listen to this stuff or is the March of the Lemmings to the sea? Marigo VTS Dots constrained layer dampers are a no brained. Marigo has various sizes for a multitude of applications, including but not limited to, bottom of glass of vacuum tubes, speaker diaphragm cage, tonearm base, turntable platter, speaker drivers themselves, power plugs, glass windows and sliding doors, walls, printed circuit boards, speaker cabinets. |
blueranger, I am assuming each granite slab is about 25lbs, and the sorbathane is between them, so assume a 100lb total load. georgehifi posted a link above to an Ebay seller. They sell 2.5" diameter disks of 70, 50 and 30 hardness. My rough calcs say that if you cut those in half (so half circle), and use 4 of them, they should depress about 25%. That is not going to isolate the lowest bass frequencies, but will be a good improvement over what you have now. One area I agree with geoffkait on is that springs are best for low low frequency isolation. I expect you have lots of cork around, so you can start experimenting. As opposed to single large sheets of cork, cut them into say 2" squares and stack them say 1/2" high, and use 4 stacks for stability. You want the cork supports small enough (and not too small) that the cork is compressing say 10-20%. |
Hey bdp24, Do you have experience with ISODAMP. We used some for a project a while back, but my colleague was working on that and I did not have enough time for "info-osmosis". I think the foams are quite interesting, and the availability is good. Thanks for the reminder. I will probably get some in the next week or two to try out. I have more experience with Sorbothane so it becomes a go to. I like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HRbjfZUbe8 After the first simultaneous ball drop, listen to how loud the next bounces are from the regular rubber material. The foam absorbs the energy and releases as heat, not sound. |
@audiozenology, the only rubber I use for isolation is a set of Sims Navcom Silencers in place of the stock springs in my VPI HW-19 Mk.3 turntable, a favorite mod amongst HW-19 owners. While the stock springs provide the well-known isolation inherent in suspended subchassis tables, they allow a fair amount of relative motion between the subchassis (containing the platter and arm/cartridge) and the base-mounted motor. The EAR Isodamp I use is not the constrained-layer damping model (C-1002), but the version made for the damping of vibrating/ringing metal panels and chassis (SD125). It is a heavy (about 1lb. per square foot), dense, stiff, 1/8" thick material with adhesive on one side. Applied to the metal chassis of hi-fi electronics, it is very effective at absorbing and dissipating their ringing resonances. Unless you consider electronics to be musical instruments---a silly notion imo---and should therefore be allowed to ring away, a very effective solution for eliminating unwanted resonances. While my phono amp, linestage, and power amps benefit from SD125, my very robustly built Esoteric digital player has no need for it---that 47 lb. box is very well self-damped. I guess I can't be a card-carrying member of the low-mass-is-a-gas gang, ay? ;-) |
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