Equipment isolation and vibration damping.

http://www.soundkeeperrecoridngs.wordpress.com

bdiament · July 3, 2015

Barry,

I'd like your thoughts on using something like Herbie's Gliders under the rack legs and then the roller ball and tire under each item separately?

My thought was that Herbie's stuff is pretty linear in the audio range but doesn't go as low as low single digits. However, if one could dampen a little first, there is less overall vibration to address overall. This would also mean the roller ball and tire would really have a smaller range to have to filter before it was already a low "noise" (vibration) floor.

Kind of the same logic as power conditioning...have local isolation in the equipment but start by lowering the overall noise floor so it doesn't have to work so hard.

This is what I'm doing and I like it but I have trouble A/B testing such things....

John

Hi John,

I have not used that particular product but can offer a few thoughts on the other things you mentioned:

While I can see why you might think providing some isolation ahead of the "main" isolation will help, in fact, it will hinder the performance. My experience has been that, aside from there being no gain from isolating the rack (it is the gear I want to isolate), having more than one "spring" in any plane of motion will actually prevent them all from working optimally. I've found the greatest benefits from having the isolation (only one "spring" per plane of motion) as close as possible to that which I seek to isolate.

Anything that has a resonance higher than the low single digits (like most rubbery materials) is going to start isolating at too high a frequency to be effective. Further, that higher resonance will be in the audio range, resulting in a bloated bass, with diminished low-frequency definition. (Some folks like this sound and I'd never argue with whatever brings anyone their listening pleasure. But to my ears, what they are getting is not the sound of the recording, and it makes the gear get more in the way rather than more out of the way. Note how the bass now sounds the same on everything--a strong clue that it is a system coloration and not what is in the record.)

As always, this is just my own perspective. I encourage anyone who is interested to try *everything*.

Best regards,

Barry

Foggie · July 3, 2015

My spkr platform (Barry design). Works like a charm

completeluxury · July 3, 2015

barry, i saw a post that you deleted, yesterday i think, about your design for a cup and ball isolator.

by any chance have you, or will you, share your design with the people for the group buy?

YashN · July 3, 2015

I liked YashN's idea of fluid damping. There are greases heavy enough that you could float an audio component on a plate with it. Remember that bearings work because of the hydrodynamic forces that keep the rollers floating on a film of lube, because they are moving. There is little to no vibration transmission in a hi-end properly designed bearing because of this.

Check John Swenson's post about a gedankenexperiment, I'd say early-ish in the thread, to think about damping when dealing with the cup-and-ball in the horizontal plane.

See also the Townshend video, where in his device he uses a couple of damping implementations: air-damping, and I think that the rubber damps as well.

YashN · July 3, 2015

on my Enjoyyourshelf racks

Haha, cool humour.

InfernoSTi · July 3, 2015

Hi John,

I have not used that particular product but can offer a few thoughts on the other things you mentioned:

While I can see why you might think providing some isolation ahead of the "main" isolation will help, in fact, it will hinder the performance. My experience has been that, aside from there being no gain from isolating the rack (it is the gear I want to isolate), having more than one "spring" in any plane of motion will actually prevent them all from working optimally. I've found the greatest benefits from having the isolation (only one "spring" per plane of motion) as close as possible to that which I seek to isolate.

Anything that has a resonance higher than the low single digits (like most rubbery materials) is going to start isolating at too high a frequency to be effective. Further, that higher resonance will be in the audio range, resulting in a bloated bass, with diminished low-frequency definition. (Some folks like this sound and I'd never argue with whatever brings anyone their listening pleasure. But to my ears, what they are getting is not the sound of the recording, and it makes the gear get more in the way rather than more out of the way. Note how the bass now sounds the same on everything--a strong clue that it is a system coloration and not what is in the record.)

As always, this is just my own perspective. I encourage anyone who is interested to try *everything*.

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

Thanks, Barry. I will experiment with and without and see what sounds best to me. Your logic is something I will think about...I will consider that the resonance point may *add* information (accelerate?) and that is a thought I've not really considered as well.

The hardest part of all of this is that I don't have a "recording room" reference that I am able to define "best" against. I don't know how to explain this better other than to say it is more like saying this is "different" rather than "more accurate" since there is no reference to "accurate to the studio". Since I listen to two different symphony's (Austin and San Antonio), each with recently remodeled symphony halls, I can say that since *they* sound different, I don't have a single point of reference. Best becomes subjective as a result.

That said, when I added commercial roller balls (Symposium) under my DAC along with the tire, my cymbals became much more detailed yet softer at the same time. Far more subtle details in the recording are more easily heard and enjoyed. As a result, my Bill Evans Trio recordings are suddenly getting a lot of play again, just to enjoy the additional information. I can't wait for the main speakers to be on rollers, too.

John

bdiament · July 3, 2015

barry, i saw a post that you deleted, yesterday i think, about your design for a cup and ball isolator.

by any chance have you, or will you, share your design with the people for the group buy?

Hi completeluxury,

I mentioned the shape of the bowl in post #30.

Best regards,

Barry

bdiament · July 3, 2015

Thanks, Barry. I will experiment with and without and see what sounds best to me. Your logic is something I will think about...I will consider that the resonance point may *add* information (accelerate?) and that is a thought I've not really considered as well.

The hardest part of all of this is that I don't have a "recording room" reference that I am able to define "best" against. I don't know how to explain this better other than to say it is more like saying this is "different" rather than "more accurate" since there is no reference to "accurate to the studio". Since I listen to two different symphony's (Austin and San Antonio), each with recently remodeled symphony halls, I can say that since *they* sound different, I don't have a single point of reference. Best becomes subjective as a result.

That said, when I added commercial roller balls (Symposium) under my DAC along with the tire, my cymbals became much more detailed yet softer at the same time. Far more subtle details in the recording are more easily heard and enjoyed. As a result, my Bill Evans Trio recordings are suddenly getting a lot of play again, just to enjoy the additional information. I can't wait for the main speakers to be on rollers, too.

John

Hi John,

Understood. The best thing I can suggest is that as the system "gets out of the way" more, the differences between different recordings will increase.

Conversely, colorations in a system or component, being applied to everything, create commonalities in the sound between different recordings.

Best regards,

Barry

Dynamics and Control for Vibration Isolation Design

YashN · July 3, 2015

1. Do we have any frequency plots or similar information for different roller bearings as to what frequencies they actually isolate?

I haven't seen extensive transfer function plots specifically for audio, so that would be a very interesting set of experiments to do. Probably Townshend, Symposium and Naim have some.

Apart from the superb Winterflood paper (actually his Doctoral Thesis) linked to by esldude a few posts before, the following paper (also a Doctoral Dissertation) by Dino Sciulli is thoroughly interesting as it also examines the different platform + equipment combinations (e.g. Flexible Base + Rigid Equipment, FBFE, FBFE). Damping is also examined. Note the higher harmonic resonances is some implementations:

Without doing proper experiments and measurements, we are mostly proceeding at a very slow pace.

YashN · July 3, 2015

p.s. For those interested in more manageable tubes for the vertical isolation - we have a sport here in India called Tennikoit played much like Frisbee. Instead of a frisbee we use a 6" - 7" rubber tube called a tennikoit. Might just work with a strategic prick of a pin to deflate. Simple scotch tape can be used to reseal the puncture after getting the required tube compliance.

Doesn't seem a very practical solution: the scotch will unglue after a while, the thing will deflate, etc... Much easier to get a bicycle tire with a proper valve.

YashN · July 3, 2015

So, having the situation where my speakers are textured and not smooth, I plan to use a 3/8" piece of marble as the hard surface. What would be the best way to couple the marble to the bottom of the speaker? Very thin double sided tape? I would prefer it to be temporary of course, and don't want to mar or damage the speaker surface. Any thoughts?

I currently have the speakers on a small bamboo chopping block each, without anything in between. Not the best of coupling, but probably the most natural sounding for acoustic music (the sound of wood against wood).

Before testing the cup-and-ball right underneath the speakers, they were resting on the stand platform with 4 blobs of white-tak sandwiched.

You way want to experiment with that (with and without, flat layers covering all the surface rather than discrete blobs). Ensure you use a material which doesn't 'leak oil' like some of the blu-tak does, which could damage the appearance of the wood finish of your speakers (not that it is very visible if it's underneath).

YashN · July 3, 2015

On top of this I've placed a IKEA bamboo butcher block (aptitlig--17x14x1 1/4"--$14.99).

I'm surprised though that I haven't come across the aptitlig usage in the CA threads They're mentioned on other sites. The butcher blocks work really well and they're rather inexpensive.

I mentioned bamboo quite early in the thread. It is currently what is resting between the speakers and the cup-and-ball.

YashN · July 3, 2015

This page about transports has a section on mechanical mods which show a very low cost and low complexity implementation for the cup-and-ball arrangement with instructions, great for initial testing, good enough for using in your system until you can source some better implementation.

YashN · July 3, 2015

Since I listen to two different symphony's (Austin and San Antonio), each with recently remodeled symphony halls, I can say that since *they* sound different, I don't have a single point of reference. Best becomes subjective as a result.

That's the more worthwhile reference. There is no simple way to do a studio reference.

What you can also do (you probably already have) is diagnose room response and treat acoustically (and organically rather than with DSP) before any other tweak or mod.

YashN · July 3, 2015

That said, when I added commercial roller balls (Symposium) under my DAC along with the tire, my cymbals became much more detailed yet softer at the same time. Far more subtle details in the recording are more easily heard and enjoyed.

Also listen for timbral accuracy for the cymbals: if you get good results with cymbals, it's a very good sign of progress.

Forehaven · July 3, 2015

Hi Chris,

Good to hear from you! I'm glad you're still loving your LIO-8. I feel the same way about my ULN-8 (which is really the same device).

I'm glad to see the topic alive too. When I first found the benefits I wrote an article about them and wondered why this wasn't being shouted from the audio rooftops. Perhaps as folks' systems get better, they are more revealing of the benefits of proper isolation.

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.wordpress.com

Barry Diament Audio

Great to hear from you too Barry! Funny, when I got the iFi Micro DSD I was hoping to use this for both Dsd and PCM. Ted Brady had warned me of dac's sweet spots beforehand, and damned if he wasn't right. The iFi sounds great for Dsd, yet too clinical and fatiguing when compared to the LIO. So here I am w two DACs and loving the best of what both have to offer. Been also experimenting with power supplies. And lastly, I reripped my music to 32bit floating/192hz CDs to waves. Really lovely rips comp to 16/44.

All of this has taken the system to new heights, and now back to vibration control, again lol. It is funny though how were all are learning to address things written off in the past, relatively speaking, like power, vibration and room interactions.

Pm sent Barry

Take Care

Chris

jabbr · July 3, 2015

http://www.icra.it/MG/mg13/talks/gw4_juli.pdf

bdiament · July 3, 2015

...yet too clinical and fatiguing when compared to the LIO...

Hi Chris,

This has been my experience with almost every DAC I've compared to the ULN/LIO-8.

They either sound clinical and fatiguing (the one's with the most rave reviews) or they sound "softened" in an effort to make them less "digital."

I've referred to these two "schools" in many posts as the "detail enhancers" (providing "detail" that is not in the recording, i.e., spurious harmonics, which we used to call "harmonic distortion") or the "silky smooth" (rounding out the sharp edges of both bad recordings and good recordings alike).

To keep this post on topic, here's my ULN-8 "afloat" on Hip Joints:

Best regards,

Barry

http://www.soundkeeperrecoridngs.com

Daudio · July 3, 2015

here's my ULN-8 "afloat" on Hip Joints:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]19540[/ATTACH]

Barry,

Would you be up for a small experiment ? I notice that the bearing balls in your Hip Joints, could be quite a bit smaller without interfering with anything. I think that the Bowl/Ball curvature ratio is an important factor in these type devices. I believe I calculated your Hip Joints at a ratio of '4' sometime back, from your dimensions. You could conceivably double that to '8' by using a ball 1/2 the size of your current ones. It just occurs to me that a smaller ball would also be a lower mass, and perhaps more responsive (?)

It would be an easy and cheap test. What do you think ?

YashN · July 3, 2015

The iFi sounds great for Dsd, yet too clinical and fatiguing when compared to the LIO. So here I am w two DACs and loving the best of what both have to offer. Been also experimenting with power supplies. And lastly, I reripped my music to 32bit floating/192hz CDs to waves. Really lovely rips comp to 16/44.

Another thing you could (I'd even say 'should', as you might like it!) is to offline convert your WAV rips to DSD128 prior to sending them to the DAC (offline or real-time, but I get better results to my ears and in my system with offline).

bdiament · July 3, 2015

Barry,

Would you be up for a small experiment ? I notice that the bearing balls in your Hip Joints, could be quite a bit smaller without interfering with anything. I think that the Bowl/Ball curvature ratio is an important factor in these type devices. I believe I calculated your Hip Joints at a ratio of '4' sometime back, from your dimensions. You could conceivably double that to '8' by using a ball 1/2 the size of your current ones. It just occurs to me that a smaller ball would also be a lower mass, and perhaps more responsive (?)

It would be an easy and cheap test. What do you think ?

Hi Dave,

In view of the fact that Tungsten Carbide balls, which I've found to sound noticeably better (but noticeably costlier too ;-}), are appreciably *higher* mass, I don't see the advantage in going to a smaller ball. Since I've not experienced any issues with responsiveness--which I think relates more to smoothness of the contact surfaces than anything else--I *do* see a possible disadvantage in the lower mass. (Neither do I understand what the '4' means, or why going to '8' would suggest anything other than a different number.)

All that said, I'm not averse to trying a different ball size again when I have the time. I remember trying different sizes and materials when I first designed my Hip Joints. Ultimately, I decided on 1/2" and then (for reasons of economy) Chrome Steel over Tungsten Carbide. If budget was not an issue, I'd have gone with the TC. Still, I've been more than happy with my choice, which has been in the system I use for my work as well as my pleasure for over a decade now.

Best regards,

Barry

Daudio · July 3, 2015

In view of the fact that Tungsten Carbide balls, which I've found to sound noticeably better (but noticeably costlier too ;-}), are appreciably *higher* mass, I don't see the advantage in going to a smaller ball.

Barry,

The point of going to a smaller ball is not about its mass, but the degree of curvature the ball encounters as it moves laterally.

The steeper the slope, the higher the gradient, the more resistance to motion, a higher mechanical impedance.

The lower the curvature ratio (the '4' and '8'), the higher the slope, and thus the impedance.

At a ratio of '1' the ball is frozen in the bowl (one solid), with an infinite impedance. (useless for us)

At a ratio of infinity (a flat, frictionless surface), zero impedence. (useless for us)

So a higher curvature ratio should lower the impedence of the system.

I thought you were advocating a lower impedance system (like: no oil, or top bowls) ? I think this variation is in line with that goal.

... -I *do* see a possible disadvantage ... I'm not averse to trying a different ball size again when I have the time.

Up to you...

If budget was not an issue, I'd have gone with the TC.

Perhaps smaller Tungsten Carbide balls are cheap enough (now) that you wouldn't mind trying them out on a few, sensitive components ?

bdiament · July 3, 2015

Barry,

The point of going to a smaller ball is not about its mass, but the degree of curvature the ball encounters as it moves laterally.

The steeper the slope, the higher the gradient, the more resistance to motion, a higher mechanical impedance.

The lower the curvature ratio (the '4' and '8'), the higher the slope, and thus the impedance.

At a ratio of '1' the ball is frozen in the bowl (one solid), with an infinite impedance. (useless for us)

At a ratio of infinity (a flat, frictionless surface), zero impedence. (useless for us)

So a higher curvature ratio should lower the impedence of the system.

I thought you were advocating a lower impedance system (like: no oil, or top bowls) ? I think this variation is in line with that goal.

Up to you...

Perhaps smaller Tungsten Carbide balls are cheap enough (now) that you wouldn't mind trying them out on a few, sensitive components ?

Hi Dave,

I only mentioned mass because you did (in post #395).

I understand your prime intent is the ratio in ball to bowl size.

My suspicion is that beyond a certain ratio (i.e., when the ball is not "too large" for the bowl) it won't matter.

Nonetheless, when time avails, I'll give it a try. (You or someone else here may find that time before I do. If so, keep us posted, as I will.)

Best regards,

Barry

http://www.soundkeeperrecoridngs.wordpress.com