Interaction between Vibrapods and shelf material

Just a word of caution, all the vibrapods I've used leech oils/residue into any wooden surface, effectively ruining any finish or surface they spend any time on. Beware. Wouldn't be a problem on glass, but they've wrecked speakers and shelves for me. I threw them all away.

More generally, isolation solutions are designed -- as you undoubtedly surmise -- to minimize the interaction between the component and the surface it is on. Thus, isolation is less dependant on the shelving material than coupling/mass-loading devices. There may be some interaction, for sure, as nothing's perfect -- but I would agree that the more effecitve the isolation, the less the interaction. Perfect isolation would make the base material irrelevant. Again, however, nothing's perfect.

I like maple as a support and sound damping material. I don't know much about oil being leach by the supports but I use Brass points.

I bought Vibrapods, years ago and while they were all rated well above the weight of the equipment; they all flattened out(the round hollow part). The ones I used with their cones, did not. Of course; those fit into a radiused recess, in the cone, which would preclude the flattening. I e-mailed the company and asked if this was normal twice and received no reply. I won't deal with them again.

Thanks for the responses. I understand that if I'm going to consider a change to wood shelves, then I would need to change to a different coupling device, like brass points or the Black Diamond Racing cones. I don't know if there would be expected, predictable differences from my current set-up. One reviewer I read compared the BDR cones used in the standard manner (with the points resting on the shelf) unfavorably to the Vibrapods. Then he switched the orientation of the BDR cones (on a wood shelf) and obtained a superior result.

Would either of these devices tend to have more interaction with a maple shelf and, if so, would that interaction be a desirable one?