Herzan Active Platform on Critical Mass or Harmonic Resolution Shelf and Rack

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, you do know power supplies are likely to benefit from active isolation
So, all you have to say to Whitney is "make that THREE Herzans, my good woman", and she will duly follow yr wishes

I don't know about that, Marc. I think that if I said that to him he would not be happy.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ron, I believe Whitney is a woman
And she would be VERY happy to supply you w 3 Herzans for said 3 box Ios
Remember, that in all things audio, what you least expect to work from first principles often is most noticeable when you try it
My balanced pwr transformer got more benefit from Mooks and Symposium Rollerblocks than my cdp, a source component
So, a heavy box w big static toroidal coil and no moving parts, did better than my more delicate cd w **** poor chassis, spinning disc transport and sensitive laser
Go figure

 

[Ron Resnick]

 

[spiritofmusic]

Haha, my bad
However, every audio guy should be in touch w his feminine side
Esp a woman's common sense in where to spend one's audio budget SENSIBLY
Hint hint, no Herzan mixed w other uber pricey passive isoln

 

[bonzo75]

Put it this way, he has the most brutal nodes in his room at 37Hz, and 70Hz, and previously they caused the most terrible smearing of information from those grooves and mistracking
W the passive Speirs under the GP the whole analog side of things just clarified and solidified that even the most torturous nodes on my bass heavy lps that I demoed there did not disrupt things
A truly slam dunk positive outcome and a massive advert for the passive Speirs

His 37 and 70Hz nodes are fixed purely because he applies EQ on the phono (which is inbuilt in his room processor). Give Keith/Purite a call, he will tell you the bass nodes have nothing to do with the Spiers. In fact, he said in his room the Spiers does not make much difference he does not have a bouncy floor. He did compare it to Accurion and preferred this. When you first heard his system he had bass nodes because he was going through the Bakoon phono, not the Illusonic. He did it find it the best of the lot he compared

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ked, I'm saying he said the Speirs allowed the tt to sail thru the maelstrom of bass/room energisation that the Liszts pre Illusonic were activating
His message to me
Before the Speirs, his tt just produced a sound w some smear
This surely is instructive the Speirs was doing it's job absolutely as advertised
I do get that he's "cured" those nodes w the Illusonic (and in the process together w the Mola Mola Class Ds neutered anything good as a consequence) and the Speirs may now be surplus to requirements
What has he placed his tt on as an alternative?

 

[bonzo75]

Ked, I'm saying he said the Speirs allowed the tt to sail thru the maelstrom of bass/room energisation that the Liszts pre Illusonic were activating
His message to me
Before the Speirs, his tt just produced a sound w some smear
This surely is instructive the Speirs was doing it's job absolutely as advertised
I do get that he's "cured" those nodes w the Illusonic (and in the process together w the Mola Mola Class Ds neutered anything good as a consequence) and the Speirs may now be surplus to requirements
What has he placed his tt on as an alternative?

He hasn't. He uses it. He had measured the Accurion and the Spiers using something called accelrometer and preferred the Spiers. He also says Spiers can provide movement and balancing i all directions instead of just up and down, which was good for him. However, the amount of difference is minor in his system and would be more if someone had a bouncier floor.

If I am not mistaken you have been there twice, once before when he had the Bakoon phono? All I am saying is unless you add it under and take it out it is not possible to make out the effects. Also he keeps changing the room treatment (RPG Modex) etc

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ked, I'm not making a definitive statement
He said to me his tt did not perform anywhere nr as well w those nodes w'out the Speirs as it did w the Speirs
And my exposure to hearing how well it did sound w the Speirs certainly was consistent w his report
But sure, it's surplus to requirements now

Do you know what the GP is on now?

 

[bonzo75]

Ked, I'm not making a definitive statement
He said to me his tt did not perform anywhere nr as well w those nodes w'out the Speirs as it did w the Speirs
And my exposure to hearing how well it did sound w the Speirs certainly was consistent w his report
But sure, it's surplus to requirements now

Do you know what the GP is on now?

It's still on the same.

 

[spiritofmusic]

On the Speirs?
Yes, but the Speirs was on a piece of furniture, a non a'phile coffee table or chest I believe
If he really feels he can dispense w the Speirs, put the GP back on a tbh inappropriate piece of furniture, and rely on Modex and Illusonic to get the best out of analog, all power to him
Keith being a slave to measurements, I guarantee one thing - the GP won't measure anywhere nr as well on that table w'out a Speirs

 

[joelavrencik]

It is great you asked Joe that. But I wonder if the answer would be different the other way around -- placing a CMS amp stand (with CMS filter shelf) on a Herzan. It might still be redundant but this way the techniques should, I think, be additive overall and not deleterious.

Hi Ron,

I hope you are well. What comes to my mind when I read these types of hypotheticals is the steps that we go through to reach our final product designs and the reasons we do what we do. Math is math and math is critical to design work. But once the math is done, and I am only speaking for myself, the larger question of the intended application becomes much more important. So, what we do is use math to start the process and human hearing to finish it.

We design our products exclusively for high end audio. So, I build what I think is the best product design based on the math and then we sit down and listen to what affect the initial design has on the components that are resting on them. It is a guarantee that something in the sound field will change. Sometimes the results are not very good.

It has been the case that the atomic constituents of a new experimental metal we were interested in were inconsistent with the type of energy transfer we needed in a particular bandwidth and the components produced a signal that was not good at all. You could hear that the sound degraded. Or a new damping material did too much in one bandwidth and not enough in others. Honestly, I have never, not even once, been satisfied with the results of an initial CMS design.

Anyway, this is a complicated way of saying that the damping materials in our products go through a process of addition and subtraction in thousands of an inch until we think we get all of the frequencies balanced correctly as measured by what we hear coming out of the loudspeakers. Then we test the design in a bunch of other systems and rooms to validate the results.

All of this is to say that we try to design our products to be "right" when they stand alone. Could there be an improvement by placing another device on ours? Sure. Could there be a degradation by doing the same? Sure. Could the same be true in the reverse? Sure.

What concerns me is that much of this is unpredictable because "everything does something". This is true all the way down to the atomic structure of the materials used in the device. With this in mind, I would suggest that people be cautious about making a major investment to try it. But, if you do, let the systems play music for at least a week before you make an A/B judgement. It takes a very long time (quite often) for complex components to fully settle in.

I hope this helps, and let me finish by saying that I am not offering any judgement whatsoever about the effectiveness of one products over another product. If anything I wrote seems that way, I apologize.

 

[LL21]

Fantastic answer and fantastic to hear a straight answer from the manufacturer himself. Thanks for taking the time.

 

[joelavrencik]

Fantastic answer and fantastic to hear a straight answer from the manufacturer himself. Thanks for taking the time.

My pleasure! This stuff is complicated!

 

[Steve Williams]

Hi Joe
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I feel strongly having lived with CMS in my system for the last two years that there is just no need for a Herzan on the CMS or a Herzan under the CMS. I believe they are different approaches to the problem. I feel the recent addition of my horizontal CMS rack has made a profound change in my system all for the better. I agree about listening for several weeks before doing the testing in order to allow the equipment to settle in. The sonic improvement is amazing and as I said to you a few days ago I do need to order another shelf.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you, Joe, for your very interesting, informative, introspective and intellectually honest reply.

Without understanding in any way any of the technical points, everything you wrote makes conceptual sense to me.

I know it must be annoying and frustrating sometimes for you to read our hypothetical questions and uninformed musings on these subjects, and I really appreciate your thoughtful and understanding reply.

 

[joelavrencik]

Hi Joe
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I feel strongly having lived with CMS in my system for the last two years that there is just no need for a Herzan on the CMS or a Herzan under the CMS. I believe they are different approaches to the problem. I feel the recent addition of my horizontal CMS rack has made a profound change in my system all for the better. I agree about listening for several weeks before doing the testing in order to allow the equipment to settle in. The sonic improvement is amazing and as I said to you a few days ago I do need to order another shelf.

Thanks Steve!

 

[joelavrencik]

Thank you, Joe, for your very interesting, informative, introspective and intellectually honest reply.

Without understanding in any way any of the technical points, everything you wrote makes conceptual sense to me.

I know it must be annoying and frustrating sometimes for you to read our hypothetical questions and uninformed musings on these subjects, and I really appreciate your thoughtful and understanding reply.

Please, no! Not annoying. Not frustrating. This stuff is complicated.......

 

[murphys33]

I would subscribe to the theory of herzan to take care of airborne and structural transmission from floor and a passive such as Symposium to drain interally induce.vibrations from components. So component on top of Symposium which rests on herzan.
I would try this over the weekend to see if there may be any performance benefits.

I placed my components on symposium ultra which then rests on accurion i4 active platforms. The end effect is very very good. There is an audible jump in imaging and soundstaging to the point that I can clearly discern a solid vocal image when I move away from my sitting position. There is a slight smearing and flattening of soundstage when one platform either active or passive gets removed. That effect is more evident when the active is removed and less evident when the passive symposium gets removed. I would be deploying both from now. The downside however is that together, they now stack up quite high.

 

[LL21]

thanks for the feedback! Enjoy murphys33!

 

[spiritofmusic]

M33, you run MULTIPLE Accurions and Symposiums? Bravo
My idea is just to go to reasonable extremes on my tt
Strong inert 1- or 2-tier rack>Speirs Robertson AMB passive air platform or Stacore Advanced platform>(in due course, Symposium Acoustics Quantum Signature constrained layer shelf)>tt