Improving a stone rack

I'm not a physicist or engineer however, I do read what those experts have to say about things. One of the major keys to damping vibrations is dissimilar materials. If you GTFS "vibration damping material" and check out the images returned you'll see what I mean.

Your stone rack surface, while rock steady (sorry!), also serves as an almost ideal coupler for vibration. By introducing a dissimilar, flexible, material you should be able to ameliorate the vibration/ringing situation.

Happy listening.

@jallan 

I wonder which gabbro complex they got it from, Skaergaard, Bushveld, Muskox, Duluth?

Townshend can fix it for you. Whether it’s pods or platforms it’s one and done. Most recommend isolating each component which is expensive. Maybe start with a source and see if you get good results and continue if it works for you. Townsends isolation platforms and pods have been my best solution. 

@o_holter Are you assuming the shelves are ringing or reflecting the sound waves coming from the speakers, and adding a hardness? While that is valid, it’s not a major contributing factor. I’ve always thought of the challenge being more to do with the relationship between the supporting material and the component itself. It’s at that interface where the support-related sound quality is generated. Vibrations generated by an undamped extremely stiff material coupled by spikes, cones, or footers to the component causes that hardness. The corollary is that soft materials like cork or pine damp the vibrations and soften the sound. I’m not sure why exactly this is the case. However, assuming it is the case, the best way to ameliorate the effect is to decouple the component from the surface. I use Nobsound springs ($29 for set of 4 on Amazon) Not only does it fix the hardness, it adds dimension and speed to the music with blacker backgrounds.

Edit: It's worth an experiment and a lot less expensive than the Townshend solution mentioned above in the time I took to write this!

@ghdprentice 

I don’t think it’s quarried from those bodies, but sounds like you are a geologist!

This might be a good guess:

https://wap.stonecontact.com/africa-black-granite/s2563

South African Precambrian gabbro, it certainly looks like the rock of his speakers