Any one know anything about the little isolator blocks you put under the feet of cdp?

[Deaf Cat]

Hiya,

As above really, have heard bits and bobs about these things and how they are supposed to make things sound better, just wondered if any one else had? or even tried a few...?

Just wondered the theory behind them and if such things may work on a SB?

Cheers!

[Heimiko]

Those "feat" for under cdp's are to prevent vibrations going into the unit as much as possible, to let the transport have as much of a clean run as it can get. As you understand by now, the SB doesn't has a physical transport like that, so, putting it on isolators wouldn't be much of a difference

[Skunk]

Some people must make a pretty good living selling those feet. I can hardly imagine spending $400 for an interface between a table and cd player, but people certainly do.

There are lots of DIY methods you can try first to see what YOU think about it.

One is the partially inflated inner tube, with a board on top, acting as a 'seismic sink'.

Turntable manufacturers (VPI) realized sandwiching steel plate between mdf does a really good job of killing vibrations. That would be pretty easy to make yourself, especially squeezebox size.

Other people cut tennis or generally squishy balls in half, which looks incredulous.

I've seen people cut the bottoms off pop cans and mate two together with a ceramic ball in-between.

I personally haven't gotten around to trying any of these, but as you say I'm not sure one needs to with a Squeezebox. The clocking mechanisms may be candidates for dampening, but even that is up for debate probably. I just think there are lots of other tweaks concerning the SB that come before vib isolation.

[pfarrell]

Skunk wrote:
> Some people must make a pretty good living selling those feet. I can
> hardly imagine spending $400 for an interface between a table and cd
> player, but people certainly do.

It made a lot of sense back in the days of yore with turntables.
It makes far less sense with a CP player, but audiophiles are
not the most rational people. I can't imagine how a solid
state device with no moving parts, like a SqueezeBox, would care,
Maybe more so if you put the squeezebox on top of the speaker
cabinet. But I can believe that someone will swear that it makes
a huge difference.

If there is any real science behind it, then just floating it
on a tire tube or tennis ball is not going to help much.
You need to dampen and absorbe the vibration energy, and a spring
will just delay it. You really need something of a shock absorber.
Or a mass sprung between two or more series of springs.

--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimse...msoftware.html

[jonheal]

Skunk wrote:
> Some people must make a pretty good living selling those feet. I can
> hardly imagine spending $400 for an interface between a table and cd
> player, but people certainly do.

It made a lot of sense back in the days of yore with turntables.
It makes far less sense with a CP player, but audiophiles are
not the most rational people. I can't imagine how a solid
state device with no moving parts, like a SqueezeBox, would care,
Maybe more so if you put the squeezebox on top of the speaker
cabinet. But I can believe that someone will swear that it makes
a huge difference.

If there is any real science behind it, then just floating it
on a tire tube or tennis ball is not going to help much.
You need to dampen and absorbe the vibration energy, and a spring
will just delay it. You really need something of a shock absorber.
Or a mass sprung between two or more series of springs.

--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimse...msoftware.html

Well, you could suspend it in a vat of viscous fluid, or better yet, float it mid-air on magnets! You should also probably position an aluminum foil pyramid over it to reduce interference from alien sub-carrier frequencies (of course it will reduce your wireless signal strength somewhat).

(If I keep this up, I'm going to get banned from this forum. All in good fun, mates!)

[Skunk]

Well, you could suspend it in a vat of viscous fluid, or better yet, float it mid-air on magnets!

Don't act like you're joking. You're probably working on apperatuses like these in your shed as we speak, and wanted to gauge interest before setting the price point. Or, admit you've thought of them previously at least

I agree, not that it matters, with Pat. But where do you draw the line? Do microvibrations in tube amps matter much? Not instigating, just curious : )

[pfarrell]

Skunk wrote:
> But where do you draw the line?
> Do microvibrations in tube amps matter much? Not instigating, just
> curious : )

Not sure about microvibrations, but lots of tubes used in
amps and guitar amps tend to get microphonic as they start
to fail. You can turn the amp on, bang gently on the chassis
and hear noise from your speakers. You know that feedback from
the speakers has to impact the sound thru the tubes.

Supposedly, good, new, tubes are not microphonic.
But I'm not so sure. The way they work is putting
charge on a grid, which controls the flow of voltage.
Moving the grid has to change the voltage, and thus
the sound.

Not sure if it is engineering or just marketing, but
a lot of audiophile tube amps weigh a ton. 90 pounds
of amp isn't going to move much, unless you have the
gain turned up to 11.


--
Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimse...msoftware.html

[jonheal]

Don't act like you're joking. You're probably working on apperatuses like these in your shed as we speak, and wanted to gauge interest before setting the price point. Or, admit you've thought of them previously at least ...

Hmm...maybe there are a few bucks to be made here.

[CardinalFang]

Skunk wrote:
> Some people must make a pretty good living selling those feet. I can
> hardly imagine spending $400 for an interface between a table and cd
> player, but people certainly do.

It made a lot of sense back in the days of yore with turntables.
It makes far less sense with a CP player, but audiophiles are
not the most rational people. I can't imagine how a solid
state device with no moving parts, like a SqueezeBox, would care,
Maybe more so if you put the squeezebox on top of the speaker
cabinet. But I can believe that someone will swear that it makes
a huge difference.

I've heard all sorts of claims that devices are microphonic, from the more obvious tubed amps to less obvious PSU capacitors. If any of it had an impact a true audiophile would have all his gear except the speakers in another soundproofed room. But then again they wouldn't be able to admire the wooden feng shui blocks under their solid state amp.

I can't see how an SB would have any form of microphony at all though, but the old SB had a slightly rubbery feel to it, so perhaps the case was slightly more absorbing of sound than the new SB3 case. Come to think of it, that display is made of glass and I swear it rings at certain frequencies....

no, only joking.

Paul

[PhilNYC]

With regards to solid state devices with no moving parts, vibrations will still affect the performance of a transformer. I do have some serious doubts whether the SB would be affected by these things, but I've heard DACs with large power supplies that have enjoyed some improvement with the use of things like brass cones or constrained layer platforms. How much these things have an impact is dependent on a lot of things...the component itself, the stand it is sitting on, etc.