There is quite a lot of fluff in the audio equipment arena, because audiophiles pay top dollar for silly things. When it comes to dampening and isolation there are a few schools of thought surrounding how to isolate your equipment from floor-borne vibrations and shocks and how to drain the electrical vibration inherent to the component itself. One school of thought believes in coupling the component to the floor through the hardest, densest material possible, such as granite. I think there are a number of inherent flaws to this. First and foremost, a coupled component allows vibrations to travel in both directions, allowing them to enter the component. This is often heard in resolving (I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN BY RESOLVING SYSTEMS. COULD YOU POSSIBLY MEAN REVOLVING?) systems where there is a bit of a high frequency emphasis. The problems are further exacerbated by the fact that these materials usually exhibit a high frequency, natural resonance and thus cause 'ringing.' Pol!
ycrystal is probably the best material in this camp in terms of its dampening properties. However, nature provided the best dampening material of all, wood. How can a tall maple tree stay erect during a severe wind storm? It is because the tree absorbs a lot of the energy and dampens it. The school of thought that I adhere to -- one that I think is rationally based on facts rather than psuedo-science and that proves itself in real-world listening tests -- is based on wood being a natural absorber of vibrations. A physically massive shelf system that uses thick platforms of rigid wood provides both great isolation and immunity from the transfer of vibration through the system. It also allows the pent up electrical vibrations (and honestly there is quite a bit, which can easily be demonstrated but isn't safe to experiment with if you don't know what you are doing) to be drained from the component, which results in clearer stereo imaging. This is theory in practice. Of course !
to harness the dampening effect of the wood shelves, the electrically
borne vibrations in the component need to be channeled from the component into the wood. The science behind this is a little over my head, even though I have graduate school education in mathematical simulation of waves and energy dissipation. The conclusion is nevertheless simple; use brass cones (cone pointing into the wood) between the component and the platform and, voila, the best of both worlds.
Recently many of my audio club members had a chance to rehear my system after I had inserted the maple platforms into my system. Their comments about the improvements (not knowing what all I had done)were raves and praises.
Man can still not match nature in many ways.
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