The Teo Audio diamond isolators don’t exactly look robust, but the description certainly fits the bill, as I absolutely need the bass dampening considering my apartment situation. The site doesn’t describe much though, I can’t find info on the max load weight per pad or the price on these.
Somewhere around 100-125lbs per pad is when they are at their optimal, as in the entire pad is being used. On both sides, with flat connectivity to the two full surfaces of the pad.
The way to use them with light audio gear is to spike/cone the gear and then place the center of the
dull tipped cone (do not want to rip the material) in the center of the pad. And then you have maximum force in a small part of the pad. This gives a nice xyz type of damping effect, overall (the surface of the pad curves in and captures the cone tip) , and the preamp, cd player, etc, will be 2hz lossy spring damped. From both sides, essentially. Isolation and damping, combined.
sorbothane? No. Left that stuff in the ditch over 25 years ago, never looked back.
FYI, Taras, the other half of Teo Audio, his professional or day job, is doing world class acoustics and mechanical isolation, etc work. He’s the guy the best firm in Toronto calls in as the cooler for jobs they can’t tame. The firm who calls him in is probably the most original and oldest running company on the planet in taming all the known forms of mechanical and acoustical noise. Taras has done the acoustics on about 60 films and there is near a 100% chance that most of the readers here have heard his work, as some of the jobs are permanent acoustics installs for recording studios (Film, TV, etc). He’s taken on jobs that the best in acoustics refuse to touch --and walk away from. Their record (other acoustics firms) is one of not offering refunds for failed jobs (contracts state zero guarantees) and Taras always guarantees his work. If that does not say ’absolute unit’ in the world of acoustics, I don’t know what does. So good that the NRC can’t touch his skill set. 100% serious here. What I’m trying to say, is, that we say - the pads work. And that’s what stands behind the statement.
A hard damper like a magnetic one, or even done with elastic stranding, or springs of some sort... with hard shiny aluminum attachment... does not damp anything, really, it merely isolates.
The diamond dampers (just a convenient marketing name) works from both sides. It damps the connectivity to the given surface, so it isolates and it damps the device that is sitting on the pads with something analogous to their primary isolation function. double duty.
It is incredibly effective, and quite correct in what it does. The problem comes when people are so used to gear with noisy chassis that they’ve tuned their hearing and their system design/build/choices to the sound of rattly noisy gear with poor isolation.
So they try the dampers and some say the sound is too dulled. And we have to agree and go along with that... rather than state the obvious prior point.
Which is... ’go back to the start of the entire endeavor and set off on the correct foot from the get-go’. As one now has a better noise floor which means a better and greater dynamic range, so one is listening to less noise, noise that was previously mistaken for being signal. Ouch. The upside is that the door is open for better. Discernment is required.
In the case of this very large and heavy speaker, a total of 12 pads might be in order. Six per speaker might be the trick. Isolation will be the result with a side order of a bit of noise removal from the speaker cabinet.
