How do you deal with vibration?

Nickway, If you've done the sandbox thing well the sand should be absorbing, and not passing, any vibrations in any direction. But, if I were to do something like that, I would probably use some medium soft rubber product and spread it over a broad enuf area that it doesn't compress much with the weight of the box and component. Adding mass is advocated by Bright Star who, I'm sure you are aware makes sandboxes. I sort of agree - as I indicated I think the mass of the component should exceed the mass/density of the materiel it sits on in order for the vibrations to be absorbed - I'm not on overload on the subject. What I do believe in though regarding mass loading, is putting non resonant weights on things that do resonate easily and can as easy be heard, that is transformer covers, metal cases etc (however, that is not a universal indorsement of putting "magic bricks" on every thing in sight). Again, experiment and do what you think sounds best to you. BTY I do not use metal, glass or stone of any type for two reasons, they all ring (hit one with a hammer and you hear it) and because of their density they are not capable of absorbing vibrations in any meaningful way.

Stehno, Just for fun, my answer to your penultimate sentence is floor borne and airborne. Vibrations produced within a component have always done their damage, and except for allowing vibrations at their resonsonce frequencies to pass out to an absobing substrate, there's not much you can do - I guess some mass loading might change the resonance frequencies but that could concievably make it worse or better. IMHO YMMV Etc Etc.

Pbb and Eldarford, both of you are dismissing the effect of vibration induced non-music. Eldarford goes further to suggest that it is inaudible. I have no concern whether you think it is inaudible. Nevertheless, at some level it is real and an explanation for why vibration control can influence what we hear.

Pbb, what was your reason for your commenting on this thread? You show me no knowledge and/or first hand experience on this topic, yet your more than willing to ridicule those who are trying to constructively answer the question at hand. Because of your “need” to irritate and ridicule the original poster needed to ask the question again to get the thread on track. If you have no experiences to share, please move on.

As I recommended in my original post I have given you access to years of experiences and experiments. The biggest problem I have found is DIY projects fall short on a grand scale to some of the products I have found actually work.

I will explain a couple avenues that will work with great success, and try to outline how you might be able to apply that knowledge in a DIY project. First you will need to determine which direction you believe you want to go, the weight and mass approach or the light and ridged approach. I have tried both, again look over the threads I have started.

Light and rigid is far and away the most natural and musical in my system. If however you are weak in the bass area, weight and mass will originally sound like it is providing the most impact, but at a cost to tempo, pace and ultimately musicality.

Light and rigid: this is the theory that vibration should be drained as quickly away from the component being isolated and not stored within the shelf or rack but rather drained through the light ridged rake to earth. Any mass, sandbox, wood, stone, lead will store vibration and counteract the process you’re trying to achieve by releasing this stored energy back to the point of contact with the component.

So, what should you do? The first issue to address is the frame/ rack. A thin steel frame is best for light and rigid. Mana racks (extremely expensive) could be a model to follow. (Check them both online) Apollo is a second rack system that uses this philosophy Light weight steel angles welded to create a rigid lightweight frame. (If you can weld, or have a friend who can, this should be your first project) Many racks use sand or lead shot to mass load them, again I believe this is the wrong direction to pursue.

Once the rack is addressed you need to look at shelves. Mana and Apollo racks support the shelf with upturned spikes that are in effect a sharpened to a point threaded bolt without the bolt head. Tempered glass makes a decent rigid lightweight shelf but is limited to lighter components. MDF is still a very reliable product and has less storage potential than solid wood. The best shelf product is Neuance shelves. Again this is a name brand, and would be difficult to reproduce, but if you’re into manufacturing or attempting to manufacture I’ll outline what the Neuance is made of, and maybe you know how to duplicate it yourself. The shelf is made from an insulation board, I’m not sure if it’s open cell or extruded, but my guess is open cell. Assuming your going to make a shelf capable of supporting 50 lbs, the thickness of the end product is maybe 1½ “ thick. You would need to start with a 3” thick foam board. The foam needs to be squashed down to 1¼” thickness. Neuance uses a thin ceramic laminate product as the shell. They glue a number of plies together on all six sides to create a strong rigid lightweight shell around the foam core. I guess some other product could be the shell. Plastic laminate, wood veneers, ceramic veneers, glass or who knows, you could experiment until the cows come home. The result of this product is a super thin lightweight skin to allow vibration to quickly be either drained or absorbed in a multi-frequency core. Multi-frequency because the outside of the insulation would be denser than the center, due to the compression process.

The next product I have found to be very useful are metal cones. Different metals have different sonic characteristics. Titanium is my favorite but extremely expensive, brass is also very good and quite affordable. The reason cones are so successful is that they receive vibration on the wide side (component) and drain the vibration to the shelf. Vibration that may want to travel from the shelf to the component is restricted in its effects because the point is the only contact. I have found some success with steel balls. These tend to be like a two sided cone. Both the shelf contact and component contact is limited to the single contact point. This is more of an isolation product than a draining product, but assuming the majority of vibration is from the floor and airborne, then absorbed by the rack then this can be a very useful cheap isolation product. Different materials produce different sonic characteristics. I bought a number of balls made of a vast amount of materials. (Easy to find manufacturers on line) I liked ceramic, high carbon steel, titanium and brass the best. Rubber, steel, aluminum and glass were less successful. The problem with balls as you might have guessed is rolling, and potentially off the shelf. It then requires a way to keep it in place. Glue or some rubber product could be used, but of course this alters the entire concept. If you had a Dremel or a drill and shaped a metal plate into a dish that the ball could loosely sit in, that could be the bottom “tray” for the ball. This would prevent the majority of component movement. It would still be possible for the component to move over time due to the ball vibrating (rolling) in place. Another thought would be to have a washer on the component side if the dish was to hard to build. This would react more like a cone in that the washer would be the contact point on the component and the ball bottom on the shelf.

This brings us to the biggest improvement product in my entire system. Bearings. The Aurios products are amazing, but could be duplicated if you have access to a metal shop. These products effect components as listed in a sequential order of effectiveness; first speakers, rack, source (CD), pre-amp, amp, power conditioner. If you want to make a marked improvement to your system, try these under your speakers. WOW.

Two additional issues you should work on if you want the most from each dollar you invest into your system, are room acoustics and power. These issues are beyond the scope of this thread, but must be considered.

To those who doubt the above rambling, fine, simply move on. Your comments are not necessary here, we know you exist and respect your opinion. If you have experiences that are not matching mine, great, post away. This is a DIY thread, but I assure you from my DIY projects, the products referred to above are the leaders in each area, and can take your system to a new level. Do you need to do these things? Of course not, but in my system they have added percentage wise far more than their cost. If I take three thousand dollars and buy tweaks, or buy more expensive equipment, the tweaks will out perform the components ten fold. Now my system is relatively expensive and it would be crazy to buy a $200 set of bearings for a $500 pair of speakers, but if you are looking at a $1500 pair of speakers and they seem almost as good as the $2500 speakers you heard, see if they will audition them with Aurios. I’ll bet you’ll walk out with eight hundred extra dollars in your pocket.

J.D.