Best Isolation HRS? SRA? Zoethecus? Symposium?

Geoffkait - I can see where you are a little confused and having difficulty understanding seismic isolation.

"If what you said were actually true, the mass of the entite house (much more than 150 lb) would provide sufficient isolation."

We are talking about isolated mass here Geoff. The house like the Silent running is directly coupled to the earth, the source of the vibration. When you isolate and decouple an object properly it must have mass in order to stay put. So the earth vibrates away while the platform stays in place, partly because of the mass of the platform and partly due to the isolation. This is why they operate so well.

"Furthermore, "electron microscopes," as a class, are not the end all do-all devices you suggest; in the overall scheme of things their performance is good but not great. "

Alright, but if they are not isolated proper the performance is greatly diminished. It's not the resolution of the device I am talking about here it is increase in performance to enhance usability. Obviously the move sensitive the device the more important the isolation to obtain results. A great deal of the Vibraplanes are used in clinical, industrial and research applications where under normal consditions you will not yeild results.

Take a look at SOS's follow up response. It has a very clear indication of how the unit is designed.

j-badov - The heavy mass used in Vibraplane is employed to lower the resonant freq. of the "mass on spring" system and has nothing whatsoever to do with inertia, as you suggested. System resonant frequency is a (strict) function of the Sq. Root of spring rate over the mass.

Thus, if vibraplane employed an even heavier mass, all things being equal, it would be an even better isolator. But not because of the reason you gave.

~ cheers

Something to keep in mind here are self induced internal resonaces generated by the electronics themselves as well as airborne resonance generated by the speakers and regenerated by the room. How is that isolated? Tom

Years ago I tried many shelves and stands. The Manas proved superior to all others. I did later find the Neuance shelves on the Mana stands were superior to the glass top shelf provided. Later I found the Acapella shelves to be better yet. Then came the Halcyonic active isolators. Under the universal player and my turntable, there is nothing even close. They are too expensive for me to use elsewhere, however. I will not even try them under my amp as I am afraid I would go broke.

theaudiotweak: in the case of our Promethean & Nimbus, we use selective frequency damping of the top plate to remove residual vibration due to seismic type, component-induced or airborne type. We also prefer the extremely hard dh (diamond hardness) cones for lightning-fast energy transfer between component & plate/damper.

Geoff Kait, Machina Dynamica