Do stands make a difference for equipment?

I have not owned every rack on the market so I can't make a definitive statement on the subject like Elizabeth and it would be nice to know her experience with racks to judge the validity of her opinion. I wish her statement was true...It's not. It's an opinion based on incomplete experience unless she's owned every rack. The effect of proper vibration management and resonance energy transfer was a "slap you in the face" upgrade in my system. I can't make a judgement for anyone else, but I have Agear to thank for helping me understand it's importance. There is no going back for me.

A stand is at the 0.1% difference level.

Empirical evidence to support that statement? Current system or systems in which you have experimented with stands? That philosophy is a vestige of yesteryear when everyone had their gear sitting on the carpet.

I found this old article from 1992 documenting the speaker stand "debate." An interesting read. I do wish there was a little more data to substantiate the claims of current isolation technologies.. This is a little surprising since several companies have engineers involved.

Stands can make a significant difference in my experience. My non-audiophile wife could hear the difference in blinded tests. It is readily discernible and obvious. The degree of change can vary based on equipment type and design elements and degree of system resolution.

Start with your speakers and work backwards. I am a Sistrum fan and they offer a trial period. Stillpoints and Equarack are also good products that I have used. Try them and see for yourself. Don't be swayed by vague, prosaic statements by "Elizabeth" or me or anyone else.

The guys who say I put XyX stand under my amp and it was amazing improvement.. are magnifying the change all out of proportion.

Rather, the people who say I can hear what another person hears .. are magnifying their aural/psychic abilities all out of proportion.

It is one thing to offer one's opinion on what they themselves have or have not heard, but to claim to know what all others have heard is preposterous.

The British and American approach to audio stands is very different. The Brits favour a "lighter is better" approach to manage and channel away vibration and jitter. The US approach is a "heavier mass" isolation approach.

Not true. Sistrum, a US company, favors the former approach as does Stillpoints. I guess it may depend on how you define "stand."

Interestingly, the article which I forgot to post (http://www.stereophile.com/features/806/index.html) references some of these issues.... Enjoy.

My general impression of them is that on the whole they probably make a worthwhile difference, although I myself have only owned a pair of isolation platforms from Alan Maher that I finally pulled the trigger on only recently. But they've been some kind of wonderful. These are of the newer kind that offer electrical noise reduction and isolation in one product. My rig is a $5k, CD-only, preampless system and I started by placing one stand under the Oppo 103 transport and the other under a Ric-Schultz-modified DEQ2496 DAC...no contest, a night-and-day difference for me. I will be buying 2 more stands for my monoblocks. For me too, there's no going back.