New amp and speakers

Slaphead07

Cool.
I'd ask people to try the squash balls before slagging them off. I know they work because I tried them and frankly vibration isolation is nothing new and hardly "the black arts". You won't get much of a result unless the equipment is capable of producing a decent soundstage anyway so really it has to be decent separates ok? And yes I know the idea of them making a difference under an amp or DAC is utterly absurd but I've heard the difference... it is there. Honest.
I'm not a squash ball sales man... my only motivation for posting this is to provide a cheap tweak to people who might want a better sound from their HiFi... nothing more. I don't expect to be dismissed out of hand for that.

If you play squash or know somebody who does then just use the old "blown" ones.

Turbulent Bill

mathias wrote:

This is absolutely hilarious , its snakeoil quackery taken to extremes ... Barking mad I tells ya , barking mad !
Show me one reputable reference source on acoustics that will demonstrate a significant alteration in response due to equipment mountings .

Squash balls .... please tell me its a joke ! Has the world of Hi-fi degenerated into such a farce ?

I made no mention of significance - I probably couldn't tell the difference between mountings, but someone might. The fact remains that a speaker and its support form a coupled system, with the properties of the mounting (rubber, steel, supercooled snakeoil etc.) affecting the overall response in some way - it's fundamental coupled systems theory. I'd recommend something like "Fundamentals of Acoustics" by Kinsler et al. as an intro to this, particularly for frequency response functions.

padi89

Just wondering on which ones to get, i cant decide...






Progress,Pro,Max or Competition?Can someone explain the sonic differences of each please as im a bit confused?
Im leaning towards Max or Pro because i want the best sound possible from my investment.There is also a 2for1 offer on them too,sweet, i can stick them under other electronics too.

Turbulent Bill

padi89 wrote:

Just wondering on which ones to get, i cant decide...






Progress,Pro,Max or Competition?Can someone explain the sonic differences of each please as im a bit confused?
Im leaning towards Max or Pro because i want the best sound possible from my investment.There is also a 2for1 offer on them too,sweet, i can stick them under other electronics too.

I'd go with the black ones: the blue are a little bit harsh and 'in your face' . Good deal too, you could even isolate your toaster for better performance...

Slaphead07

If only you could replace your ignorance with a sense of humour. You obviously haven't tried this or your hifi is too weak to show any improvement. All I ask is that you try it before you comment. Obviously too much to ask from such experts.

Turbulent Bill

Slaphead07 wrote:

If only you could replace your ignorance with a sense of humour. You obviously haven't tried this or your hifi is too weak to show any improvement. All I ask is that you try it before you comment. Obviously too much to ask from such experts.

Ah come on Slaphead, it's only a bit of fun! I've made my case above, and actually agree that it might affect speaker performance. There's still room for humour, though.

padi89

Slaphead07 wrote:

You obviously haven't tried this or your hifi is too weak to show any improvement.

Too weak? Can you explain?I mean we are in the HE Audio Hi-Fis & Separates forum so i would assume most people posting in this thread own a decent enough setup and not one of these

Slaphead07

Turbulent Bill wrote:

Ah come on Slaphead, it's only a bit of fun! I've made my case above, and actually agree that it might affect speaker performance. There's still room for humour, though.

I'm not looking for agreement (or humour thankfully). They can't practically be used under speakers as the speakers would fall over too easily - we all have serious floorstanders don't we?

conax

Slaphead07:

just read this thread.


I can’t say that I have’t been through the whole pratical and therotical intricies of resonance isolation, but I do not recall having ever come across the practice or advantage of isolating either the pre or power amplifier to reduce comtamination of the reproduced audio material, other than maybe a user placing isolators for the sake of it (just because they were to hand)
I would be interested on your views as to why this would improve the overall quality.

Slaphead07

conax wrote:

I would be interested on your views as to why this would improve the overall quality.

They're not views and they're not theories, I tried the halved squash balls not expecting it to make any difference at all to an amp or DAC but it did. Simple as that. I really don't care if people believe it or not.... I just threw it out there as a cheap tweak.

conax

Slaphead07 wrote:

They're not views and they're not theories, I tried the halved squash balls not expecting it to make any difference at all to an amp or DAC but it did. Simple as that. I really don't care if people believe it or not.... I just threw it out there as a cheap tweak.

not questioning you at all, open to all suggestions. Now, in what way did it improve the quality?

ZENER

I can see why you might believe isolating a component from it's surrounding vibration might improve things. The effect is called micro-phony (sp?). With turntables the effect is very obvious - you only need tap the turntables enclosure or harm to hear a very pronounced effect from the speakers, we can take that as a given I suppose. But as for larger less sensitive components like amplifiers and DACs . . . I remain to be convinced.

Microphones work by converting vibrations in the air around it into electrical voltages which are then amplified and reproduced through some form of output transducer. In the case of coil type mics - the diaphragm moves a coil within a magnetic field to produce an output in sympathy with the vibrations. The similarity can be seen with transformers or chokes used in amplifier and power supply design. Vibrations induce voltages in a coils windings or might cause the plates of a capacitor to vary (like with capacitor or condenser type mics) in some way so as to realise a voltage variation across its terminals.

But these voltages would me miniscule in comparison to the other signals traveling through the components and in the case of a mains transformer - the largest coil or wound device in the system - the following circuitry is designed specifically to filter out these low frequency variations and also high frequency transients.

In short there is sound theory behind the practice of isolating a device components from vibration I just don't believe there are many people who could hear the effects as prominently as they claim to.

ZEN

Slaphead07

ZENER wrote:

In short there is sound theory behind the practice of isolating a device components from vibration I just don't believe there are many people who could hear the effects as prominently as they claim to.

ZEN

Well it's impossible to know how many people genuinely hear any real improvements but I know within my own circle of HiFi geeks scepticism runs very high. As I've said before, there's no scientific reason as to why an amp or DAC would benefit from isolation, unless you place a lot of importance on build quality (an often significant factor IMHO) and isolation from other components, but I have heard a difference. I cannot and don't attempt to explain why... I'm not an engineer just a music and hifi enthusiast.

Conax, I've said several times already that isolation improves the clarity, provides more detail and focuses the imagery and soundstage. Essentially it provides a better all around reproduction of the recording. This will have little effect on basic Hifi as basic hifi is usually incapable of providing any kind of accurate imagry... they do just data retrieval