Isolation footers for amps

I found that the plain old rubber feet under my big tube amp worked better than any footer I tried.

Robert, I’ve had this same discussion with Michael Green a hundred times. No, more than a hundred times. We argued until we were both blue in the face. Night and day for at least two years over on Stereophile Forum. Don’t believe me? Go look, all the discussions are still there. So, you’ll have to trust me on this, you are channeling Michael Green. It’s the same situation, exactly. Let me be more specific. Obviously it’s possible to over-damp something or to use the wrong materials. Noone is recommending either. Anything can be done wrong, no one is recommending doing anything wrong. If you are not getting good results with damping you are doing something wrong. Michael used to repeat the mantra, speakers are musical instruments over and over as if repeating it over and over would somehow make it true.

Also, nobody has suggested it’s not a good idea to evacuate vibrations from components as rapidly as possibly. Certainly not me. I’ve always recommended a combination of vibration isolation and rapid evacuation of vibration from components. Have you been sleeping through the discussion of NASA grade ceramics? Why are you and Michael Green SO dead set against vibration isolation? Why are you both so stubborn? Is it the Backfire Effect? It just makes you both seem a little like Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, operating without any connection to audiophiles or physics way up the river in Cambodia. One assumes the seismologist you hired or were going to hire, whatever, was unable to straighten you guys out and you fired her. Lol you saying it’s my way or the highway. I say it’s the Lost Highway.

A question of speculation:
In principal, what's the difference between the DH Cones from Golden Sound and the Star Sound brass Audio Points with brass Coupling Discs?
Someone, please school me...

I am very familiar with both of those cones and have them in my system at various times, as well as a great many other cones. One difference between the DH Cones and the brass cones is the hardness; the NASA grade ceramics in DH Cones is almost as hard at 9 + as diamond 10 on the Mohs hardness scale and brass is much much softer at 3-4 on the hardness scale although you wouldn’t intuitively think brass would be that soft. As I intimated previously hardness is directly related to effectiveness. The shapes of both are ballistic which is a good thing, both somewhat resembling the nose of an ICBM. Effectiveness is probably due to several things, most particularly rapid transfer of energy and isolation. The NASA grade ceramic cone would also be stiffer, I.e., more resistant to bending forces (isolation) than brass.

Geoff, since taking a class in tile, I have been fascinated by the fact that ceramic tile, which of course is clay, can be hardened to the point that it has properties, versus all others, to with stand reentry heats and pressures on space equipment reentry.