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Sonic benifits of dedicated hi fi equiment isolation tables?

A dealer recommended a professionally made custom bespoke NAIM FRAIM audio clone rack with itsisolation cones, exotic hardwood, blah blah. I was the extreme skeptic and I pooh-poohed the idea.

So he volunteered to bring it over and conduct a face-to-face shootout with my prior "heavy" rack .... with my own gear and in my own mancave.

Short answer:

It was a clear improvement sonically and the improvements were not subtle. I won't attempt to lamely provide some technical bull$hit for this audition result..... it left me somewhat slack-jawed.

BUT..... it made a worthy, measurable quality improvement ( with my gear and in my listening arena) with its isolation cones etc....full stop. So I kept it .... again full stop.

MY ANECDOTAL TAKE:

The degree of improvement is firstly, system dependent; and secondly, listening environment dependent. One size does NOT fit all.

The degree of improvement was most acute with the source, when compared to the other electronics. The latter benefited for sure, but more so with cdp/DAC.

It looks a helluva better visually to boot as a bonus.

I am no longer the uber-skeptic.
 
AKG said:
BUT..... it made a worthy, measurable quality improvement ( with my gear and in my listening arena) with its isolation cones etc....full stop. So I kept it .... again full stop.
....
I am no longer the uber-skeptic.
Click to expand...
So as an uber-skeptic what measurements did you make which led you believe that putting a different table and some cones under your electronics made a measurable difference to their performance?
 
Technical measurements???? Uh huh... Really????

We had 4 people in the room,.... 3 skeptical hobbyists (me and two mates) as hands-on witnesses and the new rack provider of course.

We kept it simple:

- we just let our ears do the judging in an A- B shoot-out.
- The choice was unanimous... point, set, and match.

ONLY AFTER THAT (emphasis added) we added a further tweak to the equation by introducing additional new (replacement) room treatments that the dealer also brought with him to tame some niggly listening room acoustic effects. I guess that would qualify as the comparative "subtle" improvement as per the Purite Audio prior comment.
 
Quite tricky to A/B racks of course, as you can only remember aural information for seconds.
There is an excellent thread where an engineer who specialises in vibration measurement measured various solid state components on various supports.
I will try and find a link.
Keith
 
Keith,

Actually, they don't annoy me and I'd bet I have far more respect for the scientific method than most here. But the constant objectivista stance is a bit of a forum irritant that as a moderator I'm helping to keep in perspective, especially when objectivistas aren't as objective as they'd like to think they are.

If you're looking for the things that annoy me those would be hypocrisy and bullshit.

Joe
 
I use a Hutter rack as well. Does it make a difference? absolutely. Is it night and day? of course not.

One shouldn't forget, your system has to go somewhere and an attractive shelf system, with easily adjusted height, seems as good a way to go as any.

I wouldn't spend £3000, but my system wouldn't justify it. I've used the Hutter for about 12 years and see no reason to change.
 
Here's one for the skeptics amongst you.
As mentioned, I owned a Mana amp stand for a number of years.
Then I bought myself a Meridian transport. For some reason it sounded bloody awful on it. I seriously ended up putting a soft cushion on top of the rack for it to sit on.

Now surely if "placebo" was in effect, it would have sounded great.
So how is it I thought it sounded so bad, is there a placebo logic for that?

For ref, the Mana stand was sold within a week, and NO I didn't bother trying to measure it...
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
Here's one for the skeptics amongst you.
As mentioned, I owned a Mana amp stand for a number of years.
Then I bought myself a Meridian transport. For some reason it sounded bloody awful on it. I seriously ended up putting a soft cushion on top of the rack for it to sit on.

Now surely if "placebo" was in effect, it would have sounded great.
So how is it I thought it sounded so bad, is there a placebo logic for that?
Click to expand...

You have to ask your subconscious... :)
 
Hi, Julf.

Not you, but it is funny you run a pair of Briks. :)

Don't get me wrong. I like Briks and I lusted after a pair when I was in the height of my flat earth thrall, but it's not the speaker I'd expect a hardcore objectivista to have. They're tonnes of fun, though, which matters more to me than whether the speaker is objectively transparent, the closest approach to the original sound or lets me hear the what the fartists* actually intended.

Joe

* The clichéd audiophile nirvana goal modified for comedic effect
 
AKG said:
Technical measurements???? Uh huh... Really????

.
Click to expand...
Well, you said it produced a measurable difference. I wasn't seeking to open the usual conversation. I was just assuming that you meant something along the lines of what you said.
I have no idea whether my naive literalism was what provoked Joe P.
 
Adam,

I have no idea whether my naive literalism was what provoked Joe P.
Click to expand...
Nope, it was on a different thread and it was in response to something Keith posted.

Basically, I applied some Keithonian thinking to something Keith wrote and he didn't care for that and somehow conflated my comment with a presumed issue with objectivity, which is odd because I have no problem with objectivity.

Oh well. As my grandfather used to say, "Live by the fart and you will smell the farts."

Joe
 
Joe P said:
Adam,


Nope, it was on a different thread and it was in response to something Keith posted.

Basically, I applied some Keithonian thinking to something Keith wrote and he didn't care for that and somehow conflated my comment with a presumed issue with objectivity, which is odd because I have no problem with objectivity.

Oh well. As my grandfather used to say, "Live by the fart and you will smell the farts."

Joe
Click to expand...
Yes that was a direct hit.
 
Joe P said:
Not you, but it is funny you run a pair of Briks. :)
Click to expand...

Well aware of the apparent contradiction :)

Don't get me wrong. I like Briks and I lusted after a pair when I was in the height of my flat earth thrall, but it's not the speaker I'd expect a hardcore objectivista to have. They're tonnes of fun, though, which matters more to me than whether the speaker is objectively transparent, the closest approach to the original sound or lets me hear the what the fartists* actually intended.
Click to expand...

Precisely. I am very well aware of their shortcomings, but if I want to do "clinically analytic" listening, I always have my Genelecs.

I am not one of the guys who has One True System. I have the briks (active, with 4 channels of DSP's class D power) in the living room, an old tube radio retrofitted with a raspberry pi and chip amps (without harming original electronics!) in the dining room, a 5.1 system in the movie room / library, genelecs in the office/studio space (along with a tube amp and a pair of LS3/5a:s for the cold winter nights when I like the glow of tubes), and various streaming clients (mostly squeezeboxen) in the workshop/garage, bedroom and kitchen...

Would I ever argue that they are the best systems in the world, or objectively transparent? Of course not. Do I care? Of course not.

Music should be fun.
 
Julf,

Exactly, and I bet your Briks are both objectively improved and still plenty of fun to listen to.

Joe, runner of a system with more colour than a box of Crayolas
 
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