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What's the best isolation system?

Let's hear your ideas on isolation. I'm hoping this will be a survey of systems featuring the different cone products including Mapleshade Triplepoints and heavy hats, Audiopoints various sizes and their footers, Black Diamond, DB Systems etc; through products like Vibrapod and the sorbathane gel feet,include the bearing type products like Aurios, and how you implemeneted or combined systems for the best sound.

If anyone has tried the Van Slyke Engineering Tri Orbs that have been heavily advertised I'd like to know also.

For instance I'm now using a hybrid Vibrapod sandwich which includes a set of Vibrapods (tumed for each component) a quarter inch piece of plate glass, and then Audiopoint or Mapleshade cones (I'm trying to decide between the two.) I have arrived at this combo by a couple of years of listening in a friends and my system by carefully substituting one product at a time.

Hope to hear from you all.
Steve
128x128sgr
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Most people don’t know isolation is an art as much as a science. There is a wrong way and a right way to implement isolation, even passive isolation. If you could hear what I’ve heard with your ears. 🤗 Look at the sentence I added to my previous post regarding the non- movement of passive iso devices. It’s not as if they - the passive devices - are moving up and down as you intimated. They are also micro nano movements.

Which one is this? http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina24.htmArt? Or science? Right? Or wrong? Micro? Or nano?

geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
Hey, that tickles! 🥱
lloydc's avatar
lloydc
734 posts
 
doesn't "active" require a pump? which makes noise? So it changes the signal/noise ration for sound that reaches  your ears?  so the pump needs to be in another room? 
    Mike Levine has an awesome listening room.  My apartment doesn't lend itself to having a custom designed listening room in a separate building, with an isolated pump.  (Same for the a/c system which bring noise through the vents.  Same for isolation transformers, which hum.)  Sure, active is the only way to go, but I can only admire it.   

mikelavigne
2,147 posts
 
@lloydc
the active devices i use (Table Stable TS units) use piezo electric sensors to sense the resonance in 6 axis, and piezo electric actuators to compensate for that resonance. they only make any noise when they level the load when fist turned on; after that they are dead quiet as far as ambient noise. i have 5 of these units in my system, they are turned on 24/7 and are dead quiet and all within 7-8 feet of my listening position.

when you say ’pumps’ i would expect you are referring to an air bladder type of resonance control. that type is passive, the air bladder acts like a spring and will float and settle. the pump would only be used to level the bladder, and would not actively react to resonace, only the level.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
I would judge active devices over-engineered. Passive done right is divine. Less is more sometimes. The real problems with air bladders are (1) they have the wrong geometry, (2) they leak air through the rubber fabric, (3) they have too much internal damping, (4) they generally don’t have low enough resonant frequency Fr and finally (5) they generally don’t isolate in more than one direction. 🔝
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