Footers?

You forgot something. The acoustic energy that is flying around the room when the speakers are active. No footer, concrete floor etc will solve that, only an 'acoustic screen'.

Best after-market feet I've experienced for digital players are the brass mapleshade variety...the bigger the better. This over herbie's (various), Iso-nodes, brass tips, cork, wood, and some odds and ends laying around the house (weekend with lots of time on my hands..)

ymmv

Tpreaves, the answer I have answered for myself is that the footers I have used have not been very effective at changing anything notable, but perhaps they were not effective, or my player simply is not subject to much improvement through the use of footers. Buconero117, it is both that acoustic vibration and self induce motor vibration that I wonder about and why I think the type of footer that would help is one that couples the player to the surface and acts in some way to drain vibration from the player to the supporting surface. Now that is theory and I just don't know whether any kind of footer would actually work that way and result in better sound. I would think the Mapleshade is designed for that very purpose, to act as sink to direct vibration from the player to the supporting surface - I do believe my stand is fairly free from vibration given the thick 3", heavy wood and the isolation from the suspended wood floor which am sure vibrates like mad when music is playing. I suspect nobody can tell me if any type of footer will have a postive effect with my particular player as it is well built and does have some kind of "engineered" footer, but I'm interested in significant improvements that others may have has with the use of footers and a player or transport, got to believe that less vibration would help the laser reader...

Well, you could try some of the cheaper options that have 30-90 day trial periods. Herbie's Audio Labs for example has a 90 day trial period. You could e-mail or call to get their recommendations of what would work best and then try it out at the risk of only the cost of shipping...

Pubul57, since you are asking this question, I think I may have a solution for you, maybe. I have the same player. Before I purchased it I demoed the top of the line XDS1. It is a $24,000.00 one box player with an aluminum chassis. Ours is a standard metal box. Just as this review states the CDSA SE is very sensitive to vibration control. See http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue37/emm_cdsa.htm. It is on the money. I, like you already have my player on a maple shelf on my rack. Also my version has the new feet and transport. When I brought the player home what I heard was a hashy hardness that made the player unlistenable for long sessions. I have had this experience before with other players and this wasn’t close to the sound of the XDS1. So with luck and what I knew I tried a set of the Mapleshade Micropoint HeavyHats. They are 3 brass weights that sit on top of the player and they absolutely worked for me. I also tried Stillpoints and Isoblocks as footers. They both cleaned up the sound but they also reduced the energy and, more importantly, eliminated the holographic soundstage the player can produce. The HeavyHat kit retained the players’ energy and let the player shine. If you request I can email you a photo of my placement of the weights with some details. Now if what I heard is not your issue at all then “never mind”.