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Has anyone had experiences good or bad with speaker isolation or isolation in general ?

hi
i have been enjoying buying and listening to hifi for some 35 years now and have seen many items come and go.I have also been interested in the audio cable discussions and i agree that cables do make a difference how much of a difference is a very individual, and a system dependent situation. There has been nothing that has got me so excited and improved the sound of my system that has ever made me want to really share it with fellow audiophiles until i started to try various isolation products.With so much choice from affordable to very expensive i found the hole subject very confusing and i did not know where to start. After trying lots of various products all shapes and sizes with very different results i decided to read reviews which is something i do not usually do to get some advise.I read a review on the Townshend audio seismic podiums they are isolation platforms that go under your speakers .This company is very famous for isolation ideas and have been around some 50 years based here in the UK they also had a factory in the USA back in the 1980s. I contacted Nick at Emporium hifi  and he agreed to install a pair for me so i could have a listen. My speakers are sound-lab dynastats which i use in quite a small room but with the adjustments give a nice sound. After installing the podiums we both sat down with jaws hitting the floor these podium things completely transformed the sound of my system to absolute perfection. After all this time trying various products under my equipment i have now isolated my speakers and the sound quality is exactly what i believe we all are chasing, my sound-labs are now transparent no more bass problems i have just got one big 3D sound stage the dynastats are now very open with deeper much better bass everything is perfect. I now believe isolating your loudspeakers is the first port of call i was so impressed by the Townshend audio seismic products i now sell them as i have never come across anything that has given my system such a great upgrade , the sound is the same as before but now its just so much better its playing deeper bass but tighter much more resolution and no boom , the midrange is so much more human sounding realistic and spacious with the top end so refined and perfect , is anyone using podiums and had the same experiences i would love to hear from you thank you john 
mains
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone
840 posts
 
Gravity waves are huge, sound waves and the electromagnetic waves within circuits, much less so...

That makes me think that the heroic efforts to reduce vibration used at LIGO are probably not necessary in audio.
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone
840 posts
 
@bdp24 those look very reasonably.. I may try them under my tube amp. Their speaker roller bearings are much more expensive though.. but I guess it is for two sets, so it's not so bad. 

Still, the spring suspended maple block for my turntable has been a big improvement over suspending it on an inner tube.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Ak chew ally, Gravity is the weakest force. Nuclear forces are much stronger. In fact the reason why LIGO needed to develop such robust seismic isolation methods was because gravity waves are so weak, having amplitudes around the diameter of a neutron. Thus, the detection of such waves would have otherwise been drowned out by the slightest vibration, even the vibration of atoms in some of the LIGO sapphire filament suspensions were an issue. In audio it’s not difficult to see isolation related issue with the nano scale laser beam and the nano scale data spiral on the CD, even the very small signal in stereo cartridges and tonearm wires and the 10 Hz or so resonant frequencies of the cartridge and tonearm represent challenges since seismic vibrations include that region 8 to 14 Hz. It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone
840 posts
 
Thanks for the clarification. I know gravity is way weaker than electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. I didn't realize its wavelengths we're so small..
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone
840 posts
 
I just looked it up on Caltech’s website.. they say gravity wavelengths range from a few kilometers up wards to the size of the universe. So what’s up? How are you telling me they’re subatomic?

Nevermind. I reread what you said.  Small amplitude. Got it
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