Vibration Air & Roller Bearings - Thanks to Barry & Warren

[rando]

24 minutes ago, cjf said:

The Stacore unit is certainly a very nice platform but at roughly $5800 US per platform it places itself squarely in the middle of the "1% market" audience.

 

The industrial product I linked to is in current use by at least few people on this forum.  For the most part in challenging environments instead of as a shiny status symbol.  Without having to mention every single product on the market we have already examined.  It was as good an example of what we are aiming to accomplish as any other.   

 

I'd like to politely ask you to expound on class rage and your personal interpretations of the top 1% of wealth outside of this thread so we can stay reasonably on topic.

[Ralf11]

3 hours ago, rando said:

 

... instead of as a shiny status symbol.  ...

 

 

Why do you hate Audiophiles?

[rando]

Only 99% of them.  The remainder who are making sensible online decisions to amplify SQ and enjoyment are fine in my book.  

 

Shouldn't you be whittling Myrtle wood into bespoken cable elevators?  

[Ralf11]

I haven't been to the coast recently but some cheap Myrtle wood will not be turned away.

 

cheap = kindling level

[Summit]

On 2018-01-14 at 5:59 PM, sdolezalek said:

 

If you are to "drain away" speaker vibrations that would suggest very tightly coupling those speakers to a very heavy mass (like literaly screwing them into the floor), but that would entirely contradict what Barry Diament is doing in floating his Magnepans

For the audio rack, I get isolation and maybe damping, but where is coupling relevant in an audio rack? 

 

Then coupling an audio rack you are trying to prevent vibrations to get to the audio gear by making the rack with all the gear in place very heavy (more or less the same as screwing them into the floor). The spike or cons are used to put a big pressure on a small area and the shape of them also have an effect on which frequencies the vibrations that still pass thru has. Control of the vibration. The more uniform they are the easier it is to damp. Clearaudio Statement v2, 350 kg and Goldmund Reference Anniversary, 250 kg are two extreme examples of how isolation, coupling and damping can be used together.

[sdolezalek]

6 hours ago, Summit said:

 

Then coupling an audio rack you are trying to prevent vibrations to get to the audio gear by making the rack with all the gear in place very heavy (more or less the same as screwing them into the floor). The spike or cons are used to put a big pressure on a small area and the shape of them also have an effect on which frequencies the vibrations that still pass thru has. Control of the vibration. The more uniform they are the easier it is to damp. Clearaudio Statement v2, 350 kg and Goldmund Reference Anniversary, 250 kg are two extreme examples of how isolation, coupling and damping can be used together.

Yes, but there is a difference between speakers where the speaker itself is creating the vibration and you are trying to drain excess vibration out of the cabinet, and other sound equipment where presumably you are trying to prevent room vibrations from reaching the equipment.  I could see it in a turntable as the platter might produce vibrations you would want to dran.  But what are you draining from a piece of solid state equipment?

[jabbr]

Ever been to a packed outdoor rock concert where you can feel the bass through your legs (when standing in a packed crowd, your legs are  exposed very little directly to sonic waves through the air).

[Summit]

17 hours ago, sdolezalek said:

Yes, but there is a difference between speakers where the speaker itself is creating the vibration and you are trying to drain excess vibration out of the cabinet, and other sound equipment where presumably you are trying to prevent room vibrations from reaching the equipment.  I could see it in a turntable as the platter might produce vibrations you would want to dran.  But what are you draining from a piece of solid state equipment?

 

Yes like I said before it’s a difference between speakers where there the main purpose of the spikes and cons are to drain excess vibration out of the cabinet and spikes and cons in audio rack there you are trying to prevent room vibrations from reaching the equipment. The porous is not to drain vibrations from an audio rack it is to minimize them.

 

If make your audio rack heavier, everting else kept equal, the rack will move and vibrate less, because of more mass.

 

“Newton's second law of motion describes the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of force needed to accelerate it. Newton's second law is often stated as F=ma, which means the force (F) acting on an object is equal to the mass (m) of an object times its acceleration (a). This means the more mass an object has, the more force you need to accelerate it. And the greater the force, the greater the object's acceleration.”

 

If make your audio rack heavier, everting else kept equal, the audio rack will move and vibrate less by sound wave, because of more inertia.

 

“The inertia of an object refers to the reluctance of the object to start moving if it is stationary in the first instance or the reluctance of the object to stop moving if it is moving in the first instance. Although mass is defined in terms of inertia, it is conventionally interpreted as: The mass (m) of a body of matter is a measure of its amount of substance in the body.”

[rando]

The audiophile implementation is eliminating any chance for energy that doesn't turn into heat being nullified, sometimes in the face of common sense.  In the case of inert equipment the 'dead' marble, and sometimes wood atop it, fulfills this lower order (non)issue while the air and roller bearings prevent vibrations from reaching the equipment.  Someone here said they tried suspending their router.  

 

More than a few here use cable elevators.  The use of wood and marble directly underneath has the same effect on potential interference.  This comes closer to draining potential energy than any other effect the air and roller bearing isolation system has on equipment with no moving parts.  Obviously some amount of heat dispersion/air movement occurs on any surface directly underneath as well.  

[fas42]

11 hours ago, Summit said:

 

Yes like I said before it’s a difference between speakers where there the main purpose of the spikes and cons are to drain excess vibration out of the cabinet and spikes and cons in audio rack there you are trying to prevent room vibrations from reaching the equipment. The porous is not to drain vibrations from an audio rack it is to minimize them.

 

If make your audio rack heavier, everting else kept equal, the rack will move and vibrate less, because of more mass.

 

 

Yes, increasing effective mass, coupling to higher mass structures is very effective - it's a standard method I always use.

[marce]

Playing with these on a job...

http://topline.tv/Vibration_Damper.pdf

Not snake oil more rocket science, NASA developed them initially.

[jabbr]

8 hours ago, marce said:

Playing with these on a job...

http://topline.tv/Vibration_Damper.pdf

Not snake oil more rocket science, NASA developed them initially.

Very interesting technology

[GUTB]

I recently picked up a Pangea Vulcan rack...because it was cheap. $150 with extra shelf shipped from Audio Advisor. I'm not happy with its stability and its vibration control mechanism is very basic...essentially spiked screws on the bottom of a metal lining that links through the other pillars of the shelving. I'm just trying not to spend thousands on a real rack system...I wonder if I should just give up on that.

[rando]

There are days I'm surprised they are able to use the words "Pangea" or "Vulcan" to produce something called a "Rack" without enduring a long application process to determine if they are fit to pay for the privilege.  Little wonder it has contrived functionality that avoids similarities to higher end solutions.

[Ralf11]

10 hours ago, marce said:

Playing with these on a job...

http://topline.tv/Vibration_Damper.pdf

Not snake oil more rocket science, NASA developed them initially.

 

pure W?  the sheet doesn't mention an alloy and gives the atomic #

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

pure W?  the sheet doesn't mention an alloy and gives the atomic #

 

Tungsten (W).  I did not see any atomic number (it's 74), just plain mention of tungsten.

 

I don't have any tungsten balls.  But I have some wire nuts. 

[Ralf11]

p. 3, LH col. "About Tongueston" heading

 

 

[rando]

49 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

p. 3, LH col. "About Tongueston" heading

 

 

 

All I got out of that mess was "Go Pats."  

[rando]

Despite having big plans for experimenting this Winter.  Time was spent elsewhere.  A few different 'cups' have rotated under a subwoofer since last Summer.  Today I bought some Villeroy & Boch porcelain 'cups' with considerably better finishing quality than doll plates.  

 

Very briefly A/B/C tested them using the same air bearing for the final two.  With A being no vibration isolation on a flat solid surface.  B was large aluminum bottle caps filled with good quality cork precisely cut to allow only a few psi of weighted contact (prevent sinking into wood base) on top the air bearing.  C of course being the high quality porcelain mentioned above.  30 seconds of three separate test tracks was played using each.  

 

The corked aluminum bottle caps were carefully polished and given a very slight reverse crown.  V&B porcelain cups are 4" flat plates with a 3" base and the ever pleasing  placebophile dead sound when rapped on.  Ebay doll plates, listed earlier in this thread, and numerous other options were also experimented with to slightly less desirable effect.  3/4" steel bearing were used throughout.  All debatable choices worthy of elitist scorn or mild bemusement.  

 

Initial listen seemed to favor the coasters over doll plates or novelty beer caps.  Once the assorted cables and air bearing reached accord on balance the freedom of activity was what I suspect provoked favoring them.  The main objective in trying this was twofold.  Test if a piece of equipment that never gets touched will remain stable in spite of free horizontal movement and try to measure any visible movement that does occur.  For most other uses I'm reasonably sure concave aluminum cups will be the better choice.  I don't plan to breathe or walk anywhere near this speaker.  

[semente]

On 04/09/2017 at 6:39 AM, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

It is precisely the *elastic* springy qualities of an inner tube that is being employed with Barry's methods. It isolates, depending on resonant damping properties and so on, like the suspension on a car - in the vertical domain.

 

Similarly the roller balls provide damping but in the horizontal and rotational planes.

 

Why doesn't the inner tube provide damping in the horizontal and rotational planes?

[GUTB]

Didn't you try Symposium Rollerblocks?

[look&listen]

1 hour ago, semente said:

 

Why doesn't the inner tube provide damping in the horizontal and rotational planes?

Tube is a continuous torroid (dough-nut) shape. If you try move it one way the tube part next to force could roll, but sides can not. The round tube shape resists deformation required to move horizontal or rotate. Vertical is just air constrained by rubber walls.

 

[Blake]

My version of Barry's setup for my turntable audio isolation "sandbox":

 

1. Therm-A-Rest Trail Seat substituted in place of a bicycle innertube.  Advantages: self-inflating, valve is on the outside so no component removal is required when tweaking the amount of inflation, stable, no worries about the component resting on the valve stem. It is super easy to adjust to the necessary inflation by twisting open the valve cover.

 

2. Rollerblock Jr's instead of DIY. The turntable plinth rests on these, rather than the stock turntable footers.

 

3. Riverbed sand- larger, more varied sand grains as compared to normal sand, poured into bottom serving tray.

 

4. Two serving trays used. Bottom is larger in diameter and taller, inner serving tray placed upside-down and is smaller in diameter and shorter, so that it does not "bottom out" or touch the surface of the bottom tray.  The upper tray serves as the base and is super easy to level as it rests or floats entirely on the riverbed sand- just place the leveler on the tray and push down where needed.  

 

Setup is in a second story loft that serves as my audio-only listening room.  Unfortunately it has 'lively' flooring.  Before installing this isolation system, foot faults were very common, sound quality issues resulted from vibrations going up through the audio rack and into the turntable.  Isolation footers of various types helped to a degree but I still experienced blurring of images, smearing, poor detail and bass, and easily transmitted foot faults.  After installing this system- the difference in sound quality is absolutely massive.  It sounds like a much higher-end turntable.  Also, foot faults are now almost non-existant.  

 

 

[semente]

On 14/01/2018 at 4:59 PM, sdolezalek said:

 

If you are to "drain away" speaker vibrations that would suggest very tightly coupling those speakers to a very heavy mass (like literaly screwing them into the floor), but that would entirely contradict what Barry Diament is doing in floating his Magnepans

For the audio rack, I get isolation and maybe damping, but where is coupling relevant in an audio rack? 

 

Heavy mass is an interesting but hard to pursue alternative. A friend who works at Harwell recently showed me some photos of the Smart-sized granite base that will support"his" microscope.

 

Another example written long ago by @f1eng in a different forum:

 

I have written this before, but one of the first things I was asked to do at Garrard was to measure the rumble of a turntable. It was on the workbench, which was a pretty solid oak affair on the 4th floor. After struggling, as the experts knew I would, for an hour or so thinking I was screwing up the experiment they pointed out my error.

The measurement was done, logically, by looking at the cartridge output (that is what matters of course) whilst playing a "silent" groove on a B&K test record.

In fact you could see every bus and truck drive by on the road 4 floors down across the carpark on the cartridge output. The object of their little test was to demonstrate to me, a new young recruit, how sensitive a record player is. I have never forgotten this lesson.

All turntables were actually measured on a ~500kg concrete block suspended on coil springs with a Fn of about 1Hz.

Non suspended decks add plenty of environment to the cartridge output.

[look&listen]

5 hours ago, Blake said:

Riverbed sand-

Why sand/trays after air bag ?