Schubert, did you copy the combination? If not, why not? |
Agear, I know the feeling well. Watch out for High Fidelity Cables! |
Wisper, I was later to the party, i.e. Star Sound racks, but I entirely agree with you. The sound stage gets so defined and real and the leading and trailing edge enhance the realism of the music reproduction.
Oh, I have always found it best to ignore the hear-nothing ones. |
I've had the benefit of having the two best racks, the Stillpoints ESS and now the Star Sound Rhythms. These are two very different technologies and each might suit some more than the other. But clearly were either removed the reproduced sound would suffer greatly. I have no patience with anyone who denies this. |
Buconero117, I think your are dealing with vibrations from music and ignoring other problems. There is a substantial problem with EMI and RFI and it is going to be more severe with long speaker wires from one room to another. Then there is also the vibration from the components themselves. Then there is the question of how one controls a system in another room. This is, of course, another addition to EMI or RFI. Finally there is the issue of static charges. I have found that any wire contact with floors, in particular, adversely affects the sound.
Agear, I have heard about your room from Robert and have learned that there will probably be one much closer to me. I assume within your room you are still using Star Sound racks, etc.? |
Agear, I've had LEDE rooms, digitally equalized rooms, Holographic rooms, Room Lens rooms, RPD diffuser rooms, and most recently Zilplex rooms. Since Rick Schultz seems likely to get a Starsound room, I will wait to hear his.
But we are thinking of downsizing to a smaller house with no yard to maintain. That is if we can find one with a usable room for my stereo. Presently I have a 25 x 18 x 11 foot room, which suits me to a T. I don't want to build a house either. We bought a just completed house which we live in now. We have changed the kitchen and master bath in this well architected house. One of the major problems of it is that it in Texas but my wife refuses to leave. I want to go to Oregon. In short nothing seems likely to change soon, unless, pf course, the room blows me away. |
Agear. Lampizitor and Pitcher! I think our tastes differ. |
Ddraudt, coming on Wednesday? |
Wolf_garcia, I'm sorry but about ten years ago, I gave up on all soft or rubberized feet as well as all wood feet. They all lack all prat or toe tapping to the music. There was no leading edge on percussion and certainly no trailing edge.
I love the sense of presence of the musicians and singers. With the above, I hear only elevator music. |
Tom, were the bottom of the component perfectly flat and the platform of the Rhythm perfectly flat, I could imagine that you have four in contact. Were there no fasteners for the Audio Points, I can see that you could move the one not in contact until it was in contact. |
I have very favorable opinions about both the Stillpoints isolation devices and the Star Sound Tech. Rhythm racks. They have decidedly different sounds, which is not surprising as their technology is quite different. The Stillpoints sound is very resolved and pleasant. The Star Sound is dynamic and fast. It sounds more real with ambience and note decay.
The Star Sound will reward you highly for the most resolving components. It is much easier to use Ultras under components than to use heavy Rhythm platforms. I should also note that like locating Ultras under components having an impact on their benefit also applies to locating Audio Points on the Rhythm platform. Unless you are using the Stillpoints Grids on their ESS rack, it is much easier doing this with the Ultras.
Also, it is very easy to use more than three supports with the Ultras and virtually impossible with the Star Sound Audio Points.
Both are outstanding products that bury all other products, at least the ten to fifteen others I have used. IMHO, wood and soft products are just awful and rob the music of pace. |
Tom, how do you get four Audio Points in contact with the component? Three points define a plain, so four define two plains. Even on my speakers neither has all four in contact. |
I was the first in my family to go to college and had to pay my own way. Fortunately, I got a scholarship to IIT (Ill. Inst. of Tech.). I started out in physics, changed to EE and then to ME and then tried to change to architecture only to be refused as I had real physics rather than that for architects, and finally into polical and social sciences. I also got involved in materials testing early on at Armour Research Foundation and early computers and building them.
I was convinced that science could resolve many questions in government and politics and decided to give up on staying in computers but to merely use them in analyses and to go to graduate school.
I then found in my career that studying humans is much more difficult than dealing with engineering issues. I studied voting behavior and found that most merely voted their party loyalty and often lied about whether they even voted or not. Later I discovered that states gather data that puts them into their most favorable perspective and lie about where they do poorly.
I also discovered that how wealthy a state is is the sole determinant with other factors controlled.
So why am I posting? My oldest grandson is now in college and my oldest granddaughter is a senior in high school. My son is her father who always knew precisely what he wanted to do and got his Phd as did his wife. I was asked often by my grandson and found I could not help.
Going to a small college has the benefit of approachability of professors and being able to ask questions in class, but usually those professor are not eminent in their fields. He choose a small liberal arts college with some strength in sciences. I hope he was right. My granddaughter has high scores and seems quite interested in Rice. She will need very high scores to get into that school and has been approached by IIT! |
Roxy54, I agree with you about Wisper's post. I might well have written the same post. I know of many shill posts here as well as shill reviews. This was not of that character. |
Wolf_garcia, your post deserves no responce. |
Wolf_garcia, what has always perplexed me about engineers is their belief that we know everything about natural laws. But I've sat in civil engineering doctoral defenses and heard of "safety factors" to assure buildings will stand. I heard of engineers tracking what happened in the Challenger disaster and finding too many holes in the rings holding in the O rings caused them to break one after another with the O rings popping out.
We don't know everything. We know how to build building that mainly stand, circuits that mainly work, etc. You know you cannot explain why Tom's cello spike works so you think you are smart deriding his efforts, without having a clue about what you are talking about. And then you turn around and say you "anxiously await" vibration research.
Finally, if people hear differences where engineers say there can be none, should good engineers or scientists focus on why people hear those differences rather than saying there can be none? |
Wolf_garcia, I have always said, as have others, that sarcasm is often misunderstood as we have no body language to so judge your meaning. |
Mitch2, if I find a product valuable for the realism of my system, I usually seek some explanation. With regards to vibrations one reads a number of explanations. One entails what is a variation of springs under the devise whether they are actual springs or like poll magnets. Then another focus is on grounding the component to something much heavier. Points are part of this as the foot pounds per square inch increases with a point. I don't think there is much scientifically to say that these are really different other than having different resonant frequencies. But every device under ones component affects its sound.
For years I found very modest benefits with different devices, but with the Stillpoints Ultras and the Star Sound Rhythms there are big differences. I have my preferencs, but clearly there are stark differences. Perhaps there is good science underlying these designs and perhaps they are beneficial to only one aspect of the sound. I don't think science can lead us to one technique that clearly satisfies everyone's tastes in what they hear. |
Dgarretson, I am in total agreement with what you say.
I just have to say that after trying to get four Audio Points in contact with the bottoms of my BMC Arcadia speaker and remembering that three points define a plane, I gave up on anything more than three.
How did you manage to get all six in contact? Four Ultra SSs or Fives, sound better than three, but one can raise or lower these individual units. Of course a screw other than a tight one is anathema for Star Sound. |
Dgarretson, all that I can say is that I have never been successful with even four points. Were six better than five, etc.? |
Dave, I guess from what I have heard, the first shelf on the Rhythm has the greatest benefit, so all single shelf platforms might be best. All one needs then is lots of space and long ics and pcs. |
Ddraudt, I have had the time to do only one experiment and it was at the top of my four shelf Rhythm rack. I heard no difference with the Koda K-10 between the third up shelf and the fourth up. As you may recall I have the music server o the bottom shelf as it needs no direct line of sight nor any hand operation.
I do understand the idea that the lowest shelf can get the vibrations to earth fastest. Maybe that is better for you as you are on the ground floor. |
Ddraudt, I totally agree. |
Charles1dad, I understand your disappointment that the cheap little Apprentices are not the peak of isolation, as I was. Frankly I was shocked at the level of improvement.
Presently I do not have them under my 198 pound each speakers or under their outboard crossovers. I'm not even thinking about Rhythms under the crossovers. There are two reasons why I don't have them under the speakers. One is their cost and two is their weight. Two of us were able to rock the speakers front and back and get blocks under them high enough to slide the Apprentices under them.
Given the size of the Rhythms, however, there is no room to use blocks. It will take at least three to get them up on Rhythms. As I am now using a stereo amp, I have one unused Rhythm, so I will be buying one more single shelf Rhythm. |
Mapman, Find a copy of TheL.A. Four Scores which is outdoors. It is well recorded and quite different sounding. I agree that some recording venues harm the recording. |
Wolf_garcia. if Dudley said that my limited respect for him is much lower. The revelation for me was in trying Star Sound Audio Points under the Tripoint Troy Signature. There is something magic about the Audio Points.
The proof is always in the pudding. I just wish Star Sound made 3 inch Audio Point based on those under the Rhythms with 1/4 20 threads. I strongly suspect they would be better. |
T_ramey, it may not help you much, but I used an SS Apprentice on a Accapella platform on a Stillpoints ESS rack with SP Grids under my Koda K-10. I fully realize that this represents a conflict between the philosophies of SPs and SST. Later when I got the SST Rhythm rack, the sound greatly improved.
The Rhythm is both more expensive and far superior to the Apprentice. |
Dave give me two words with double u's as vowels. Skiing bothers me but I love to do it. |
Mapman, I have a Concord recording of the LA 4 outdoors. Of course, it has no ambience, but the dynamics are captured, presumably because a good recording engineer. With my much improved system, it actually sound like I am there at the recording.
I also have another outdoor recording in Brazil that is very confused sounding. I do know in this case that it was not done on a stage as was the above recording. I was involved in seeking to record an outdoor jazz band. I think it takes much time at that endeavor to become good at it. |
Dgarretson,
I have a very different experience with Stillpoints Ultra devices on different shelves. Initially, I had their ESS rack with acrylic shelves. While it sounded very good, I always thought that the acrylic ruined the ESS rack. Exemplar Audio came out with their XP-2 tube preamp that has Ultra SSs mounted so that they can be used directly into the "technology" bases mounted into the ESS rails. I first just put it on the ESS with the SSs on the screws holding the shelves on. Then I removed the acrylic shelf. I did not hear much difference. Later I got the Ultra Fives and thought that I would try them more toward the center of the component on the acrylic shelf. It was awful! I could not mount the Fives directly to the railes as the SSs were in the way and it was difficult to unmount them. Much later Stillpoints came out with Grids to replace the acrylic shelves. Wow what an improvement when I mounted the Fives on them under the XP-2!
To the degree that I understand the "tchnology," I don't understand this. Almost alll vertical motion is supposed to be converted into heat. How does the shelf affect the sound?
I have also found that Fives sound quite different on Mana stands and on the Synergistic Research Tranquility Base, then on the Grids. Recently I tried them on the Star Sound Tech. Rhythm rack. Of course these companies have quite different designs. It is audibly evident! |
