Best Isolation Devices?


WHAT ARE THE BEST ISOLATION DEVISES FOR COMPONENTS AND SPEAKERS? I AM USING AN ATLANTIS STAND WITH 2.5" BRASS CONES UNDER PREAMP AMP AND SPEAKERS(1 BRASS AND 2 STAINLESS STEEL). I AM USING TITANIUM CONES UNDER CDP AND BLACK DIAMOND RACING CONES #4 UNDER PREAMP POWER SUPPLY. I AM ALSO USING 1.5" BRASS CONES UNDER PS AUDIO P500. THE RESULTS ARE OK BUT I PROBABLY SPENT WAY TOO MUCH MONEY FOR THESE CONES. MY CURRENT SETUP WORKS O.K. BUT I'M CURIOUS ON OTHER PEOPLES EXPERIENCES AND OPINIONS. MY AMP IS A PASS X250, MY PREAMP IS A PASS X1, MY SPEAKERS ARE HALES T5'S AND I HAVE A PS AUDIO P500.MY POWER CORDS ARE GOOD BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE BUT THEY ARE GOOD.CABLES FOR SPEAKERS ARE SHUNYATA LYRA AND INTERCONECTS EVERYWHERE ARE SHUNYATA ARIES. PLEASE HELP AS THIS TWEAKING THING CAN DRIVE ONE CRAZY. MY SETUP WORKS THOUGH. HOW MUCH SHOULD BRASS CONES COST? SOME ADS HAVE THEM GOING FOR $30 TO $450 PER SET OF THREE.
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I use a sandwhich of Audiopoints, half inch plate glass, and Vibrapods tuned to the weight of your equipment. I have tried both flavors of BDR cones and the Mapleshades (the shades do thin the bass) and preferred Audiopoints. This combo works well with my Levinson gear. I'm curios about the cones from Oregondv.com but have not tried them yet.
What works for me, under the source, is doubled-up rollerblocks and a BDR Shelf for Source. This was, by far, the best, although crazy expensive.
Before spending big bucks on audiophile grade isolation device, I highly recommend you try putting a half-inflated bicycle inner tube under your CD player and preamp. I have a 12” one under my Sony DVP-S9000ES and it sounded like a different player. The digital noise was gone, vocal was much smoother and everything came out effortlessly. I think you will like the result. But what if you don’t? Well, you will probably waste a grand total of about $4 each.
You'll never be able to fully isolate a component that is in the same room as the speaker system. Nor will you ever be able to transfer all of the energy that the device generates or picks up to another device. Some energy will remain with that component and / or be reflected back to that component. Anybody that tells you something different either doesn't understand the basic laws of physics or has some type of agenda.

The best that you can do is to reduce the ampitude of the resonances / vibrations that the device generates or picks up and try to spread them over a wide frequency range. At the same time, you have to think about minimizing the potential for the devices being used to achieve those goals contributing their own sonic signature into the system. They can do this via reflecting the energy that they were not able to effecively absorb or pass on back into the device OR coupling other outside energy back into the system. After all, anything that is coupled to a device can transmit energy in both directions. While the energy transfer might not be equal in both directions, denying this fact would be nothing short of silly.

Having said all of that, please do a search in the archives regarding coupling and / or isolating. You'll find a wealth of information both here and on Audio Asylum. Sean
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