Vibration Air & Roller Bearings - Thanks to Barry & Warren

[Ralf11]

BTW, what changes did you find in the sound with and without the maple/ball/etc. stack?

 

curious as to magnitude (immediately apparent, etc.) and type of changes (air around instruments, resonant fades of drum strikes, etc.)

[brucew]

Roller bearings inlaid into a bamboo board.

Ikea Aptitlig & Edmund PCV lens 25mm OD x 100mm FL

 

[brucew]

BTW: I note that considerations of the hardness and smoothness of the bearings and cup is of rather limited value if one doesn't look at the top surface as well (the surface of the preamp, speaker, etc.) The above bearings started rolling less effortlessly and I noticed dents in the wood surface. Or what if the base of the preamp or other component has a textured surface? I found these 1" stainless steel discs on eBay. Impressively the edge is nicely finished and the surface is polished even though the description does not specifically say that. I've stuck them to the bottom of my speakers with a Glu Dot by Blutack. Solved.

[rando]

Your last post was enjoyable, but it isn't surprising you had the issues you did.  This latest effort is bound to incur more unintended consequences if used under a heavy item.  Should you read through the remainder of the thread you will see the first point of contact with the base of equipment was examined as a serious concern.  Especially when adapting this system to a Magnepan speaker (which was actually the first real test). 

 

 

 

After many hours of attaining fluency at listening to my collection of marble tile.  I've determined with almost certain fallibility that Barry Diament did not in fact exercise undue thrift in sourcing visually crystalline, frangible Chinese marble tile from a big box hardware store for use under his speakers.  In my approximation an example of this budget conscious white carrara tile with very minimal veining and an overall grey cast has produced the best overall qualities for use under items with moving parts.  Numerous sources from under a single US dollar up to more than I'll admit to publicly were used in this prolonged test.  

 

The larger amount of equipment with no moving parts, and lower weight to offset the effects of cables, did not benefit from these cheap easily acquired tiles.  A more easily displayed finer grained marble kept my equipment in place and isolated better.  The use of two identical tiles with polished sides facing outward tended to work even better than a single equal or larger thickness slab for constantly wandering items.  Maybe I'll register an hourly rate of change in attitude this Winter to more fully document this phenomenon.   

 

 

More seriously, none of you bought a machine shop and put these cups into production yet?  ?