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What's the best isolation system?

Let's hear your ideas on isolation. I'm hoping this will be a survey of systems featuring the different cone products including Mapleshade Triplepoints and heavy hats, Audiopoints various sizes and their footers, Black Diamond, DB Systems etc; through products like Vibrapod and the sorbathane gel feet,include the bearing type products like Aurios, and how you implemeneted or combined systems for the best sound.

If anyone has tried the Van Slyke Engineering Tri Orbs that have been heavily advertised I'd like to know also.

For instance I'm now using a hybrid Vibrapod sandwich which includes a set of Vibrapods (tumed for each component) a quarter inch piece of plate glass, and then Audiopoint or Mapleshade cones (I'm trying to decide between the two.) I have arrived at this combo by a couple of years of listening in a friends and my system by carefully substituting one product at a time.

Hope to hear from you all.
Steve
128x128sgr
mikelavigne
2,148 posts
 
there is passive, that in essence is a spring. it floats, settles, overshoots, and is soft. even the best possible passive isolation works like this.

then there is active which reacts to perceived resonance; it’s stiff since is can start and stop. passive cannot start and stop. at it’s best it can only self level.

active is very effective at low frequencies, but over 200hz it’s benefit diminishes.

passive struggles to attenuate at really low ’ground noise’ frequencies (under 5hz). it get’s down there but it’s level of attenuation is marginal. that is where active is ideal. OTOH passive is much better than active at higher frequencies (over 200 hz).
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geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Active might be nice for millionaires and LIGO. Passive is good enough for everyone else. 🤗 By the way, active also floats, settles, overshoots, is corrected, floats, settles, overshoots, etc. Also, if you train a camera on a passive iso device whilst music is playing the camera will not detect any motion. 
mikelavigne
2,148 posts
 
in a micro-nano particle context i agree active has the same weaknesses, simply much much less than passive.

but science and industry accept the precision of active isolation to help them accomplish appropriate tasks effectively.

agree it’s expense is prohibitive. i got a little carried away. i do appreciate having it though. someone has to be at that end of the music reproduction resonance isolation bell curve.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Most people don’t know isolation is an art as much as a science. There is a wrong way and a right way to implement isolation, even passive isolation. If you could hear what I’ve heard with your ears. 🤗 Look at the sentence I added to my previous post regarding the non- movement of passive iso devices. It’s not as if they - the passive devices - are moving up and down as you intimated. They are also micro nano movements.
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