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Millercarbon's Mega Vibration Control Journey

Vibration control is such a huge, and hugely important, topic it deserves a thread of its own. There was a time I thought it nuts to say such a thing. In fact I wrote a letter to the editor excoriating them for wasting my time on the goofy idea that clamping components between shelves could have any effect on sound at all, let alone be worth spending good money on a rack designed to do just that. This was the Michael Green rack, and thanks to my closed mind and dismissive attitude I never did bother to try and find out for myself if there was anything to it.  

Important Lesson Number One: Don't be so quick to dismiss things just because you can't understand how they could work. 

Couple years later unpacking a McCormack DNA1 amp the Owner's Manual says the included spike can be used to improve sound quality. Well now. As crazy as it still sounded this time its Steve McCormack, and he's already given me the spike, so what do I have to lose? Much to my surprise it did indeed improve the sound. Not a lot. But definitely more detail, clarity.  

This is very early 1990's. There is no internet. I know precisely zero audiophiles. Until stumbling upon this one guy at work who says oh yeah and put your CDP on a phone book, and another one on top. Which sounded even crazier but the guy was serious and this being the 90's we all had phone books laying around so I gave it a shot. This time it was only the most barely perceptible improvement, but it was there. If you really listened for it. So not much. Then again, free. Wrapped some fabric around it, ran the CDP like this for quite some time. 

Around this time I'm shopping for components for my new listening room when this guy is more excited about something called Black Diamond Racing Cones than the amp or whatever he was trying to sell me. So I get 3 of these things and they're so much better than the phone book its hard to believe! Well, okay, it was a phone book. Got to compare against something, right? 

These Cones are so good I take them to this Seattle audiophile club and show them around all excited and.... nobody cares. Except this one guy who goes on and on about how he has tried phone books, tennis balls, racquet balls, styrofoam, cones, spikes, on and on everything under the sun, he's tried it all there's just no way he's gonna be impressed- he makes this very clear to me- but okay you're the new guy let me borrow em why not. But they're not gonna work. No way. 

Next day this guy calls me up gushing going on and on how great these are what are they again where did you find em how many can I get? I actually wind up becoming the Washington State distributor for Black Diamond Racing selling Cones, Shelf, all of it. This guy winds up like me, pretty much everything on BDR.  https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367  

A lot of what I knew about vibration control back then was based on my own experience with BDR, and learning from owner DJ Casser. This resulted in what became my guiding principles of vibration control: Mass, Stiffness, and Damping.
128x128millercarbon
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
Limited time and money. So everyone knows the rack and everything else we're talking about here is a compromise of some kind.

I'm talking about the rack because that's when I really started thinking seriously about vibration control. Which is funny because even before the rack there was the turntable. Turntables are a study in vibration control! The whole thing is doing nothing but vibrating. Something that now seems almost self-evident, but to me back then (as with a lot of guys it seems) it seemed like all the vibration was coming from the floor, or rack, or whatever. There was almost no thought given to the cartridge, arm, the table itself. Oh well. Live and learn.  

My first table was a Basis 2001. At first it went right on the floor. Then it went on two sheets of 3/4" MDF glued together. With different things, eventually BDR Cones, under the MDF. With a Graham 2.0 arm and Benz Glider I thought this sounded really good!  

For some strange reason I can never quite understand turntables seem to be really mysterious. Maybe because I went with the Basis it never was quite so hard to understand. The Basis arrives disassembled. Its really nothing more than 1" acrylic with some holes drilled, into which you screw four footers, the bearing, and your arm. An awful lot of turntables are to this day nothing more than that: plinth, feet, holes. Okay, motor.

The trick it turns out is in how each of these controls vibration. The Basis used four pods or footers that were little cylinders filled with silicone fluid. Inside that were springs with little paddles that made the whole thing like a sort of shock absorber- spring and damper all in one.  

Looking back, why I did not experiment with different viscosities, or none, is beyond me. Oh well. Live and learn.

Because that was my first hands-on experience with springs, only it wasn't much experience, because I wasted the opportunity to try and learn. Been making up for lost time ever since....

bluemoodriver
193 posts
 
“Okay so here's how it works. You take a jab like that, turnbowm, boy do I hope you got your money's worth. Because congratulations, you made the list. This is the one and only response from me you will ever get.  I am my own moderator, and you are banned. I see your name, I stop reading. Got it? Good.”

I love all this!  Please, moderator, don’t turn this off. It’s like coming out of a pub at night and watching a Dad-fight. You know nobody is going to get hurt like in a real fight, so you enjoy it all the more!
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
I had just turned 12 years old. My father was just back from South East Asia. He had just retired. 3 guys and a female in a car, ran into the back of the car. we were in.. They were DRUNK... No biggie right... The three guys start swearing at my father, one hit him. It WAS all over in less than a min. 

I didn't see he had gotten out of the car with a small ball peen hammer.

3 men lay  there moaning and one female screaming at everyone, except me.. I stayed in the car and got the 38 out of the glove box. I new I wasn't gonna get hit by ANYONE.... A kid from the south (and all over the world by then), in California, and 4 people thought they were gonna beat someone, up... I know what I would have done. Exactly what I was trained to do...Stop them by ANY means necessary...12 years old....

Dad fight....  They were really lucky, I seen him do a lot worse, when he was drinking...

Number one reason I don't let the piano drink...Too much Irish in the wood and ivory.. :-)

Regards..
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon OP
12,531 posts
 
The early bird reads the good post. Got to be fast to beat the snowflakes and censors around here. oldhvymec triggered someone with his edifying and entertaining post, now removed, leaving us all the poorer. Such are the times these sad dark days.

Why don’t you just move along if it bothers you so much? Not like anyone is forcing you to read this. Far from it. If you’re not man enough to handle diverse points of view why bully your intolerant narrow mindedness on everyone else? Why not just move along? Please?



The prevailing wisdom back then was vibration flows, and you can "drain" vibrations with sharp spikes that are like diodes, allowing vibrations to flow out but not back in. Huge amount of guys bought into this.

This never made any sense to me. On the one hand we were supposed to believe the spikes had to be sharp to cut through carpet and stuff and go into the floor, the better to rigidly couple or anchor the speakers. But on the other hand these same spikes were supposed to somehow drain energy from other components, or prevent room vibrations from getting into the components. Or something like that. The story changes every telling, no one ever bothering to point out the logical inconsistencies.

To me it seemed most of the vibrations were coming from the components themselves. That would explain why a phone book or other mass placed on top affected the sound. It changed the vibrations of the component itself.

One totally unexpected experience seemed to prove this. Doing a Cone demo one time for a friend, instead of stopping and starting I lifted the CD player to remove the Cones with the music still playing. My friend said he heard the sound change- and become worse- the instant it was lifted off the Cones!

If isolation was so important then surely my hands are more isolation than Cones. It should have sounded better not worse. If sharp spikes was the answer then it should sound better on them instead of being better on the rounded off BDR Cones. Just one of many observations that had me pretty well convinced the key to vibration control was control. As in stopping it. With stiff and highly damped mass.
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 

millercarbon OP6,455 posts11-07-2020 11:35amThe early bird reads the good post. Got to be fast to beat the snowflakes and censors around here. oldhvymec triggered someone with his edifying and entertaining post, now removed, leaving us all the poorer. Such are the times these sad dark days.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I must apologize. LOL If you could have seen it it was pretty dramatic.
I guess it was not for everyone... Was off subject a bit.. But Dads vary.... LOL War Dogs are War dogs.. We get to enjoy EVEN the the right to delete..


Vibrate on good fellows, vibrate on... I'm good for one every now and then for sure... The dog is giving me the look...  She hates to give up.. LOL. terriers...

Regards..
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