Improving a stone rack

A learning experience

I have a Meade ETX125 EC astro-telescope on a tripod stand. I use it on two types of foundation: solid ground (outdoors, not very convenient), or a wood veranda (convenient). Guess what happens. The solid stone ground totally outperforms the wood. The image becomes stable and clear, while the veranda image remains blurred and shifts if I move or walk on the veranda.

I wish things were this clear, in audio.

With the telescope, either I see a crater on the moon correctly and in focus, or I don’t.

In audio it is more - maybe this, or maybe that.

If I should create a new laboratory with precision instruments, e g electron microscopes, what would I do? You guessed right. A combination of total stability and well-tuned component damping. Maybe even springs on stone shelves.

For a Telescope there are also a Tripod Footer that will further absorb energies in the Slab and should give a further improvement to the resolution.

Some even put kiln dried sand in a Bicycle Inner Tube and snake it around the Body, this is also a trick used in the past to improve resolution.

IS is a advancing modern concept as a design and will remove the need for some of these old tricks.     

@o_holter Is your phono pre also solid state like my EAR 324?   When I used the EAR 864 and the 912 which are both tubed phono and preamp combo, they sound best on the granite on their own feet.   My HW19-4 is used for 78s now and it has a superior spring and rubber footer (a sprung table) compared to the lousy Delrin VPI VI feet (unsuspended).

@pindac - thanks, I have the original Meade tripod, with no internal damping that I can see. Snake it around the body - you mean the telescope? And - what is IS concept design?

@fleschler - my Aesthetix Io is a tube phono. I think the newest version comes with HRS footers. I cannot experiment with feet under the main unit, due to lack of height in the rack, so it is nice to know that tube phonos can sound best on their stock feet on granite. When I get the Nobsound springs, I will test them under the two power supplies of the Io (there, I have enough height).

'IS' is in relation to optics - Image Stabilisation

Yes - The Telescope 

For Static Tripod, I adapted a Hollow Tube Civils Engineer Surveyors Tripod.

I stripped the Tripod back to singular parts, plugged the bottom of the Tubes/Forms and filled with a Liquid Rubber.

The deadness of this design is substantially attractive, but quite heavy, hence the remain in one place usage.