This is an interesting read, The theory of more stuff.
Vibration isolation in audio is a subject surrounded in mystery half truths and any number of wild theories. As an engineering exercise, the explanation is quite straight foreword and may be explained by the“Theoryof more stuff”.
Take a surface, be it the floor or a table, on which your hi fi component is placed and it is desired to reduce the vibration from thesupport to the equipment. The way this is done is to put “some stuff” between theequipment and the supporting surface. There are three possible outcomes.
1 The vibration in the equipment is more than the vibration in the support. This is not possible as if it were; the energy crisis would be solved! More out than what is put in. Free power forever! Unfortunately, this scenario contradicts the first and second laws ofthermodynamics, so is not possible.
2 The vibration in the supported equipment will be the same as in the case of no stuff. Thechances of this are one in a million because something has been changed… it may be thesame, but that is extremely unlikely, therefore, the only possibility is,
3 The vibration will be attenuated, to a greater or lesser degree, and this is the case.
There are many products out there that do in fact attenuate vibration. Be it spikes on glass, wood and slate, aluminium spikes in cups, ball bearings in cups, solid plates separated by compliant sheets, lead, Bluetack, sand, marble, concrete, the list is endless. It is also known that multiple combinations of theabove produce better results because there is morestuff. E.g. multiple platforms stacked really high.