I’m not sure this answers any of your questions, Erik, but aren’t there accelerometers or other devices that measure movement in different planes that could be attached to the internals of a piece of gear, an external force of predetermined velocity/mass applied and the impact measured as a physical matter? Assuming that’s all readily available technology that may already be in use (centrifuge or other military/scientific instrument immunity to vibration?), how would you correlate it with sound?
Re tube microphonics, isn’t some of the problem "self-noise," i.e. modulation generated by the tube itself? How would providing mechanical isolation of the chassis or even the tube socket totally eliminate this? I raise this in part based on experience- my Allnic phono stage has gel tube sockets but some of the small tubes still sang sympathetically- you couldn’t hear it through the system, but you could hear it as a mechanical resonance if you were near the unit, had music going through it and muted the output downstream. Simple solution was to replace the tube- Mr. Park, from Allnic, told me the tubes would eventually burn in anyway- they weren’t common small tubes, but ones used for radio transmitting/telephony switching, as I recall.
I had a hell of a time when I used an ARC SP-10 mk ii years ago as my main preamp. The thing was microphonic as hell. I used to go through bags of 6dj8s to find quiet ones- I even had ARC modify the tube sockets at one point to try damped sockets- I forget who made them- it was a third party product similar in concept to the gel socket from Allnic. Didn’t really help, and I had ARC remove the fancy sockets and replace them with their standard parts.
On the bigger subject of "isolation," I also wonder whether using external devices sometimes robs the piece of equipment of its "life."
I’ve certainly messed with various forms of isolation, for different reasons- all of them change the sound to some degree. But, I think your question is directed less to "tweaking" for sonic shadings and more to solving problems like noise that result from unwanted vibration.
Re tube microphonics, isn’t some of the problem "self-noise," i.e. modulation generated by the tube itself? How would providing mechanical isolation of the chassis or even the tube socket totally eliminate this? I raise this in part based on experience- my Allnic phono stage has gel tube sockets but some of the small tubes still sang sympathetically- you couldn’t hear it through the system, but you could hear it as a mechanical resonance if you were near the unit, had music going through it and muted the output downstream. Simple solution was to replace the tube- Mr. Park, from Allnic, told me the tubes would eventually burn in anyway- they weren’t common small tubes, but ones used for radio transmitting/telephony switching, as I recall.
I had a hell of a time when I used an ARC SP-10 mk ii years ago as my main preamp. The thing was microphonic as hell. I used to go through bags of 6dj8s to find quiet ones- I even had ARC modify the tube sockets at one point to try damped sockets- I forget who made them- it was a third party product similar in concept to the gel socket from Allnic. Didn’t really help, and I had ARC remove the fancy sockets and replace them with their standard parts.
On the bigger subject of "isolation," I also wonder whether using external devices sometimes robs the piece of equipment of its "life."
I’ve certainly messed with various forms of isolation, for different reasons- all of them change the sound to some degree. But, I think your question is directed less to "tweaking" for sonic shadings and more to solving problems like noise that result from unwanted vibration.