Barry, I wholeheartedly agree that vibration handling, electrical, and room acoustics are, in and of themselves, all very critical areas that should be proactively addressed individually. As properly addressing these items can translate to a real improvement in one's musical experience.
However, in your post above, you made the following statement:
"Eliminating all vestiges of vibration
contamination will ensure that the fragile
frequency / amplitude / phase relationship
that is contained in the recording remains
undisturbed."
This is difficult for me to comprehend because it is my understanding that it is simply impossible for vibrations and resonance to not disturb the components, rack, and speakers unless these items were placed one or two rooms away from the listening room.
My own little home-grown analogy for lack of one's ability to eliminate vibration via dampening and/or isolation is the following:
"You're in your vehicle at a stoplight. Somebody three cars behind you pulls up with his subwoofer blasting. You feel the beat in your sternum and gut. You look in your rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of the guy 3 cars back and your rearview mirror is really vibrating."
But the question is, Why? If the other guy's car is sitting on rubber air-filled radial tires and yours is too, and you are sitting on a well-cushioned seats and your rubber-surround windows are rolled up, why are you not completed isolated from these vibrations? Why not your rearview mirror? Now imagine how much worse that guy's chest and rearview mirror are vibrating.
Should not these air-filled radial tires and the space distance between the vehicles be deemed an excellent means of dampening and isolating vibrations?
Using that analogy and it's real effects as an example, I would conclude that it is simply impossible to 'eliminate all vestiges of vibration contamination' as you put it.
That, and the results of my limited experiments, are why I believe it is best to expedite the transfer of these nasties away from the components, rack, and speakers via the coupling methodology.
That is in contrast to simply de-couple and hence trap those vibrations inside each component and thus potentially reeking havoc on the innards and subsequent sonics.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
-IMO
However, in your post above, you made the following statement:
"Eliminating all vestiges of vibration
contamination will ensure that the fragile
frequency / amplitude / phase relationship
that is contained in the recording remains
undisturbed."
This is difficult for me to comprehend because it is my understanding that it is simply impossible for vibrations and resonance to not disturb the components, rack, and speakers unless these items were placed one or two rooms away from the listening room.
My own little home-grown analogy for lack of one's ability to eliminate vibration via dampening and/or isolation is the following:
"You're in your vehicle at a stoplight. Somebody three cars behind you pulls up with his subwoofer blasting. You feel the beat in your sternum and gut. You look in your rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of the guy 3 cars back and your rearview mirror is really vibrating."
But the question is, Why? If the other guy's car is sitting on rubber air-filled radial tires and yours is too, and you are sitting on a well-cushioned seats and your rubber-surround windows are rolled up, why are you not completed isolated from these vibrations? Why not your rearview mirror? Now imagine how much worse that guy's chest and rearview mirror are vibrating.
Should not these air-filled radial tires and the space distance between the vehicles be deemed an excellent means of dampening and isolating vibrations?
Using that analogy and it's real effects as an example, I would conclude that it is simply impossible to 'eliminate all vestiges of vibration contamination' as you put it.
That, and the results of my limited experiments, are why I believe it is best to expedite the transfer of these nasties away from the components, rack, and speakers via the coupling methodology.
That is in contrast to simply de-couple and hence trap those vibrations inside each component and thus potentially reeking havoc on the innards and subsequent sonics.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
-IMO