Amp stands for Pass Labs

Grant,

Did you place the amps stands you tried directly on the floor or were they placed inside another piece of furniture?
While you were at demo with these amps and amp stands what were your source components placed on and enclosed? Tom

If you don't care to experiment then what is there? Stasis? Tom

Grant,

My question was one of inquiry as to the reason why no perceived difference was heard or felt when either assembly was placed under your amps. Thats all. Tom

Grant

And all who have not heard a difference or very little when direct mechanical coupling their power amps.

A short story. 1998 and having owned a Essence power amp for a few years and knowing the builder Dale Pitcher [now of Intuitive Designs}and the amps general layout. Alex Gibson the designer of FMS cables told me to forward my speaker cables to Brent Riehl in Lincoln to have them re-wired shotgun style in hopes of producing more bass slam. Brent as it happened designed the original Audiopoint for use with Dale's amp in mind . The Essence amp in Corian had potted power supplys on a single board laying flat on the chassis bottom. In discussion with Brent, this of course came up and I was sent 3 Audiopoint 1.5 APs. These points were to be threaded into the 3 inscribed factory ready receptacles,lifting the power supply away from the main chassis and then coupling the supply to mechanical gound. My self installing the 3 points under a 120 pound amp all the while trying to thread them into a floating power supply was about to kill me. The pay off was big time in every way. The stage size and clarity increase was amazing and huge. The very reason I purchased this amp over many others became even more apparent with the installation of the three coupling points.

The use of the points this first time was under a power amp, directly coupled to the huge power supply inside. Since this first encounter I have direct coupled almost every power transformer and almost as many power supply capacitors, always with a positive audio result. I have performed the latest upgrade to my Wyred4Sound SE preamp removing the steel mounting bolt holding down the transformer and replacing with non ferrous brass and remounting on .2 audiopoints. Result was greater speed and detail.

Looking back in time now I have gleaned that especially a large mass as a power amp it is most imperative to direct couple the power supply mechanically and better yet couple it independently from the amplification circuit. If not the power supply resonance will pollute the wide bandwidth circuit. The power supply always comes first before the circuit it supplys. The supply is the greatest of resonance offenders and needs to be corrected first and most effectively interior and then exterior. Perhaps this in part is why the difference in improvement was not as large as one may have predicted. Tom

Huh,

I said no such thing either by description or by your suggestion have I ever done such a thing. I never accomplished any such feet/feat so completely except for that first time with the Essence amp because it was designed so completly to do so from the factory. The reason that I brought up the Essence was to describe the experience of separately coupling the power supply to ground from the main chassis and "that factory design" would be superior to the following. All other mods I performed were to couple the transformers of any other audio device directly to their own chassis,not independently. And those uspeakable mods could be performed by any thoughtful designer to everyones benefit, including to the Pass by Mr.Pass. You do not have to screw thru the chassis to do so, you simply put unthreaded points and coupling discs between the transformer and the existing chassis and replace the factory supplied steel screws that screw with the field of flux with non ferrous materials as described in published text books from a few hundred years ago. All other factory built power supply mounting methods I have seen are inferior to the method applied by Mr.Pitcher and Mr.Riehl just over ten years ago. Tom

Bill,

Your partially right in the mention of the use of a manifold. The application though is to the ceiling and wall convergence in my sound room. Got rid of those horrendous sounding 90 degree angles and recontoured them with 33 degree angles which edges roll away into the flat of the ceiling and wall. Got that idea when I had a new header reheated and bent to clear the linkage of my old Lotus Europa twin cam. Tom