Science and hi-fi don't belong in the same room.

But despite your analogy, there are plenty of reasons vibration in electronics and cables effect sound. Liken it more to RFI or EMI than your car. It's just more interference that can cause audible effects.

I'm no scientist. But if you want an experienced audio technician to convince you, ask Steve about microphonics and isolation benefits.

Archie, I can understand the need to isolate a turntable and possibly a CD player, they are mechanical devices with moving parts. My stereo has no moving parts, solid state hard drives, DAC, amplifier. I suppose that the speaker's drivers are the only moving part.
I'm just trying to understand how vibration would affect those items?
I know that it works because so many people say so, but why?

It`s one of those `Your Life In Their Hands`thingies Donnie. You have to believe there`s a world of micro vibrations happening. It`s when you address them that you understand there must be something to it. Decwares silver in beeswax i/c`s and Jupiter caps with beeswax are using beeswax for micro vibration control....and you notice the difference before/after.
Lets say that the transformers are the main source, I`d go with that. So you feed the output transformers via the bees wax jupiters = smoother in smoother out.
We`d have to be like Tron to experience the turbulence that must be occuring.
It`s the fine tuning and each to their own on what they use to drain those pesky vibrations.
If your car didn`t have all manner of dampers and springs you`d have a bone shaker.

So, now I have a question.  I keep seeing "vibration draining" references and based on DB2's post I think I understand what is implied but I don't see the "how."  Using my Decware ZMA as an example, when I first got it and powered it up while sitting it directly on my solid and but very stable equipment counter top, I got bad feedback through the speakers at higher volumes.  With isolation under the ZMA the feedback was eliminated.  (Good isolation effectiveness example.)  But beyond tube damping rings, how do I "drain" other internal vibrations?  Even without music playing things will vibrate.  I'm sort of in Donnie's camp thinking it might be of such a low order as to not be an issue.

Ideally our equipment should all be sound and vibration isolated from the listening environment but that's not very practical.  (Or should we switch to headphones?)


Edit:  Referring to SYD's post, then are we dependent on the particular component design for the internal vibration aspect?  I have all the trick caps that Steve provides.  Beyond that, what can I do that's not voodoo?

DB2,

Besides having an amp or speakers on an isolation platform or feet, what can be done if a capacitor or wire is vibrating?  I've seen devices that attach to interconnects but I'm more thinking of what SYD said with respect to the internal components of an amplifier.

Maybe you could point me to a link since I don't have a clue as to what's out there.  I'm mostly just curious since I think with my current level of isolation I have other "weaker links" than component vibration.  (TT excepted since I think this is one component that always benefits from more and better vibration control.)

I used to think that internal vibrations would be of such small order that no action would be necessary. Reading Lons `Herbies` posts, and with Will chipping in, the idea of doing something fermented. No way was I going to the jewellery shop because I hadn`t decided which path to go down.
A sheet of sorbathane, cut into small squares and placed under all the feet was the cheapest way to tick the box and give me breathing space.
Sorbathane isn`t the best, nowhere near it. Placebo for a while, while I checked out options.
I`d read on that site years ago where they show you how to build sandboxes, use half tennis balls, baseballs, innertubes.
Anyway, after reading about how springs do it by dissipating the vibrations into a frequency below what we can hear chimed with me.
Springs oscillate, they`re sensitive.
I do have a bugbear about points going into solid wood. Tiny as they are the points still convey all the weight and attempt to drain vibrations
courtesy of your platform. The vibrs. are meant to travel though your platform till they are spent. Too stiff and more than a possibility of the vibrs. just going right back up in to the equipment. Dont want to ruin your lovely platform with points ? Use the cups supplied. Using the cups increases the effective area of the points to that of the cups, defeating the selling point of the points.  :)
I have 20 spring units, very cheap, from Asia. Easy to find.
4 under each amp, and 4 under the TT. Yes, I unscrewed the decks spikes`in`cups. You can remove springs from the units and I have 9 single springs under the ZMC1. The ZMC1 is light, sensitive, and vital.
So how do they sound, or should I say not sound ?
Lower noise floor. Music just appears. Yes it always does but there is something else. Recently, after placing the units under the deck, moreso under the ZMC1, I noticed on some records that my left speaker seemed very quiet. Centre and right was good but why is it quieter on the left. Next track it would all kick in accross the plane. It seems that if the engineer hadn`t used the left so much and grouped the musicians just to the right, the left speaker sounded like it wasn`t working. It`s that quiet.

In future, after I`ve settled in to a new home, I intend to remove all the  springs from their units and make platforms to attach them to. 140 springs. Similar to Archies system I think.

I put my ZMC1 on a spring platform that took about 20 minutes to build and now I'm sorry I didn't do it earlier.  It hadn't occurred to me that EVERY component matters when it come to isolation.  It's hard to say exactly what difference it made but I think the sound stage is spread out more and possibly I have more clarity/detail.  My isolation platforms use no damping and are tuned well below the audible frequency range.  They are simple, inexpensive and work great.

DB2,

That makes sense.  I guess there are the induced vibrations due to external stimuli and internal due to component ... something I don't understand.  I would use isolation for the former while I would think damping is the only answer to the latter.  I'm still not convinced that vibration "draining" is more than a meaningless buzz word though.  

Edit:  Or does, "vibration draining" = vibration damping ?

"Edit:  Or does, "vibration draining" = vibration damping ?"

I see them as different things. Damping is good, but one one has designed a unit the internal vibration is a given. You could go inside the equipment and make modifications -- something some of the mod-meisters do. If you're not doing that, it is certainly much easier to make outside changes to convert/divert that energy being continually produced.

"So what is vibrating inside a amp? There is nothing mechanical moving."

Well, for example, transformers vibrate as all that wire heats and cools depending upon the amount of current. One reason why some audio designers use a two-box design. Also, of course, there are vibrations induced inside by the very sound waves of one's speakers.

" Even if there is vibration, so what?"

Currents in wires and components inside the chassis produce magnetic fields, so the inside of your amplifier is a complex magnetic field environment. Moving any wire in a magnetic field induces currents in that wire which become noise in an audio system.

Definitely isolation and damping are an important part of the design process, and there are people/companies who go back inside and improve that side of things. But for those of us who do 'go inside' the vibrations that are generated inside are a given.

If one does nothing, then those continually created vibrations will reach some sort of steady state where creation equals the decay/dissipation. Resonances can build up. If one can increase the dissipation side then the steady state level will be lower.

I imagine how vibrations contribute to distortions something like this.

Our standard view of "audible" is read as different frequency waves - 20Hz to 20,000 Hz give or take. These waves are vibratory. Electrical flow is also read as waves or lines before our speakers transform them into molecule vibrating audible waves. These "lines" of current are made up of sub atomic particles traveling through component parts.

Since gear vibration is clearly a factor, as heard by those of us who have explored vibration mitigation, I assume this is from transformers, wires, resistors, caps, tubes, fuses, etc vibrating. As these convey flows of particles of energy, if agitated by resonance/vibration, subtle distortions show up. Seems distortions are generally read as little spikes emerging from the edges of the line of energy flow...the lines and spikes made up of the same energetic particles. If the power can travel freely, it is smooth, but if there are disturbances from less than ideal (distorted) transmission, from RF or EMF infiltration, or from vibration, little jaggies emerge from a smooth line. The more divergence from smooth, the worse the distortions and unless mitigated, the distortions effect the signal from wherever they begin all along the path to the speakers.

I imagine those little particles ideally vibrating as a smooth line of current, and then if we introduce resonance (whether electronically induced, airborne, or other physical vibration...mechanical or that coming from the rack or cabinet) by “shaking those particles up,” the smoothness is disturbed.

And it does seem it can go both ways...electronically induced distortions can cause vibration in the gear, and physical vibration can cause electronic distortions. So when we say “smooth” to describe a clean signal, it seems pretty literal, and  “distorted” also literal.

I have not studied this, but this is how I imagine it.

Yes springs conceptually make sense to me also. I need to get myself some and try though what I have works really well so have not gotten around to it. Conceptually for me, the way I think of your system Archie, two boards with springs between creating the platform the gear sits on...since you were focused on isolating floor vibrations, it makes some good sense. But for power, gear and airborne induced noise, a potential issue is likely the resonance of the board the gear sits on interacting with the room sound waves and gear before the springs dissipate the vibrations. I suppose this is why most vibration reducing feet seem designed to dissipate/absorb in both directions and with relatively minimal contact.

With a variety of more typical types of feet, I find that in most cases, they sound different enough, some warmer or brighter, some more clarifying in some areas than others...it is pretty handy to mix and match by component for sound preferences. I don't have any feet that sound the same and I suspect, spring systems would be similar.

I wonder what springs might sound like with and without platforms...playing with putting them directly in contact with the gear and shelf using minimal, vibrationally transparent materials particularly on top, but probably top and bottom to seat the springs to gear and shelf minimally. And unless they are totally efficient in dissipation, it would seem that the metal, tension, height, thickness, etc would have sound impact.

I wonder if you Syd or Archie have explored these areas?

Didn't someone here come up with some Ebay spring feet?

Just brain storming...One thing is for sure here...vibration mitigation/dissipation is a big deal in terms of system sound.

Hey Archie. Guess we were thinking on similar tracks. Sorry to have more-or-less crossed posts. Anyway, Any more thoughts?

 I like this subject. It is intriguing in the way that vibration can be a problem to chase, somewhat like trying to discover the best way to eliminate hum in a system. Perhaps not related, but the most fascinating demons that I discovered over time standout. One of them arose when I couldn't figure out what that 'one occasional noise' was. In short, it was the Lampshade vibrating to only a certain frequency on some songs! Another problem was a picture hanging on the wall doing the same thing. I guess my observation here is that this problem can pop up outside of the system in question.
The vacuum/isolation suggestion makes me wish that it was possible.

I think you guys might find the http://vertexaq.com/ site interesting. They have a rather different perspective the subject of acoustic vibration.

Quote:


First, I really think that listening is a skill and might be improved with practice and a good teacher but just as there is a difference between a professional and amateur that can never be breached, some of us have to be content with grosser discrimination than others.

I do not readily hear differences in things that some on this Forum claim are glaringly obvious.  This debate about isolation is of course an extremely subjective one and I think the effects of isolation and damping get mixed up with the "tuning" of room and equipment to give a particular sound.  I once asked if all we really do is approximate Steve's environment when he tunes the amps in the design process.  Short of having true isolation I think we make trade-offs until we find the sound we want.

Will's set up seems to have some obviously good isolation -- brick-on-sand floor -- and some components that to me look like quasi-isolation/damping -- let some vibrations pass while filtering others.  This latter situation would lead to "tuning" the sound by changing things around, such as footer location and materials.  In my mind I cannot see how different footers can make a difference so long as they are on the other side of really effective isolation.

It's all an evolution and I think the only real mistake that one can make would be to ignore the subject entirely.  (Or use spikes thinking they isolate from vibration!    )


Edit:  Will, I think we are saying about the same thing.  For me I don't see going much further with isolation/footers etc, since my room is untreated and is really untreatable.  I think that would be the area that I would hear real gains at this point.

I've found the easiest way to listen for the effectiveness of a power cord or isolation device is to use it with a good headphone amp.

I made a vibration platter a few years ago. It is just a couple of oak boards with dollar store rubber balls cut in half as my damping "springs. I also put felt floor gliders on the bottom to further isolate the amp.
I took it out when I changed over to my 6" thick maple table.
It really didn't sound different to me either way. Maybe my ears are defective?
A pretty picture of it...

Will,

That's a great idea and I'll be glad to do it.  The weight distribution is different for each amp but I have one for the CSP3 and it should work to just replicate it.  I'm guessing that my biggest cost would be shipping.  PM me your address and I'll see if I can get it in the mail early next week.  A-B testing is always hard for me since my sonic memory seems to be near zero but my two biggest isolation changes came with the ZMA (eliminated feedback) and my TT (tightened resolution).

Donnie, replace those balls with springs and you'll have essentially what I make.  Those balls let all kinds of frequencies through and do not, in my opinion, constitute isolation at all.  My first platform used spikes on half tennis balls and didn't work for me.

So I've been reading this thread and I have a fairly simple question. What exactly is causing the vibration, the music itself? And also are we trying to keep it out of our components?  I just bought and received a 3 pack of Voodoo Isopods today and did some listening tests with and without them under my Rega P3 TT.  Keep in mind my Tori Jr and ERRX speakers are less than a week into breakin. My wife said she could actually hear more sound around the room like coming off the back wall. I would have to say that I heard a subtle difference like it seemed a bit "bigger" or more alive or maybe even wider but it wasn't a huge difference from what I can tell so far. Now maybe if I isolated my Tori Jr it may also help. Oh and I also have a cheap Artcessories pre that seems to introduce hum when the TT is plugged in so that needs to be addressed because I'm sure that's a little hinder of the sound. I'm hoping the hum is coming from the pre and not the TT and it goes away when I get the ZP3 in a couple of months. Anyway, I'm just not sure if the Isopods are justifiable unless they turn out to be more noticeable when my other issues are resolved. Thoughts?
Thanks,
Rick

Will,

I'm excited.  I already made you a platform for a CSP3 which would probably also work for the ZP3.  I've exhausted the supply of appropriate springs in my little local True Value so I couldn't make this one identical to the one I use.  This one has only four relatively stiff springs instead of the 10 softer springs on mine.  It seems to react about the same under my CSP3 though.  It's a bit stiffer but I think the resonant frequency is still in the single digit Hz.

Since you hear such subtle changes in your system, I expect that you will hear something with this.  I am getting short of raw materials but in the future we can explore other platforms if this one works well for you.

Quote:


Hey Rick,

There are number of posts in this thread and a link that discuss your areas of question.

Quote:


Funny that they say a negative with passive systems is the amplification of 1 to 4 Hz frequencies.  I mean, who cares?  my music doesn't live there!  

I also wonder what happens above 100 Hz?  They don't show data past that.

I also wonder why no record clamp?  I think I'd invest in one if I had a $10,000 isolation device under my TT.

It really looks like it is an active DAMPING system as opposed to isolation.  It still lets the vibration through, even if only for a few milliseconds.  It might always be playing catch-up?  I think I'll go with the "Cone of Silence" instead.  

Quite a while ago Archie kindly sent me a springed isolation platform he had made to experiment with under my CSP3. I have been busy, so have not tried all the things I would like to, but I like the platform. As it is, with some initial adjustments, it is good enough for me to not to be in a hurry about more experiements.

Replacing Herbie's Isocups with the platform and Decware feet, the sound was more articulate/defined and a little more spacious than the isocups. Though less smooth, the hallmarks of good vibration control were clearly there.... It was better to me than the Decware feet by a fair bit...nicely spacious, articulate and extended but it had a bit of a sound of its own, a mild resonance at certain low frequencies, and probably from the materials used, including Decware rubber feet. I liked it, but could hear how it could get better, perhaps better than the Isocups.

To replace the Decware rubber feet and see if I could arrive at “no sound” from the platform, I started playing with feet. In the theme of inexpensive, DIY, I started making simple damping feet rather than putting the isocups between the platform and CSP3.

The feet I ended up liking solved any sound I could notice from the MDF and springs. It is made up of 1/2" squares of Soundcoat damping material with sticky stuff on one side, and 1/2" squares of Herbie's 1/8" Grungebuster material, both cut from sheets. I started with these having established in the past that I liked the two materials together better than either one alone for what sounded like neutral, transparent damping without masking.

In my experience, the benefit of vibration reduction is reduced noise, noise that causes hardness mids up, reduced articulation, reduced micro information... With less noise/distortions, there is a better sense of resolution, articulation and definition, smoothness, extension, micro detail, micro dynamics...together allowing more subtle aspects of the music, the little things that refine edges, space, trails, etc...all critical to making recordings sound like music. Part of this is the emptier background, a quieter beginning leaving room to hear more...nuance, timbre, spaciousness, ambience…... For all this to be at its best, a sense of no signature from the materials or design are important. I tried a lot of configurations and liked the following best.

The platforms are MDF boards with springs set in between. I could not use the little silicone feet Archie had put on bottom because my shelf is too narrow, so can't compare what I ended up with to his. Under the bottom board I put four feet that have 2 layers, Soundcoat on the bottom and Grungbuster on top.

Separating the CSP3 from the top platform board I needed more height to clear the Decware rubber feet. Bottom to top are - 2 Soundcoat, 1 grundgbuster, 1 Soundcoat, 1 grundgbuster. I used a smear of Weldbond glue where needed to glue the non-sticky side of the Soundcoat to Grundbuster materail.

This rounded out the sound, becoming more “transparent” and "neutral" to me. Micro information was better as well as bass depth and definition. Hard edges smoothed, and subtler textures and liveness were enhanced within a resolving and smooth foundation. It feels like a natural sound to me. Apparently it is good enough that I stopped exploring my other ideas to potentially refine Archies platform, for now anyway. I will experiment more when I can give it some time, as well as directly comparing the isocups. I want to try this setup under the Torii also, likely a more challenging test. But for now, I really like Archie's platform.