A world first? Passive v active isolation platforms test
- Thread starter spiritofmusic
- Start date
Ked, you are elected roving reporter. But you’ll have your work cut out dealing with fake news.
I feel that most 'isolation' products are misjudged at best, compromised, tailored to look good foremost and lacking rigorous consideration. Serious listeners could do worse than investigate the principles which underpin resonance, vibration and frequency propagation.
Investigate, consider, experiment and modify. The education gained will clear-up many falsehoods and expose the ill-considered and the fundamentally flawed and point the way toward what might be needed to move forward.
Investigate, consider, experiment and modify. The education gained will clear-up many falsehoods and expose the ill-considered and the fundamentally flawed and point the way toward what might be needed to move forward.
Theo, I’m confident Stacore doesn’t fit into this. Yes, fit and finish are amazingly good, as good as the principles underlying it’s stellar performance.
Slate mass loading 95kg.
Up to date and trouble free pneumatic pumps.
Slate/Jarek’s “secret sauce” constrained layer tech.
One more layer of this incorporating highly engineered Rollerballs, in the Advanced.
—
And the proof of the pudding? Clear performance advantage over both Minus K and active Kuraka lab platform (which apparently sells to more labs than Herzan or Accurion).
Slate mass loading 95kg.
Up to date and trouble free pneumatic pumps.
Slate/Jarek’s “secret sauce” constrained layer tech.
One more layer of this incorporating highly engineered Rollerballs, in the Advanced.
—
And the proof of the pudding? Clear performance advantage over both Minus K and active Kuraka lab platform (which apparently sells to more labs than Herzan or Accurion).
Theo makes a good point though Marc, if you change "Clear performance advantage over both Minus K and active Kuraka lab platform" into "Clear performance advantage over both Minus K and active Kuraka lab platform on my wooden suspended floor" this whole comparison thing would hold more validity.
Sure Taiko, every system is different. For me the fact that Stacore was audibly superior dealing with my floor was/is a massive boon.
I was thinking the same when we were first auditioning a solid state amp on our platform. But the floor refused to be bamboo and kept being concrete...
Thank you for all the kind words Tang, a great project.
Cheers,
BruceD has been setting up analog since 1957, and has had three minus K TT set ups, and can tell you exactly how the loading should be done. He does use mooks with minus K too though http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ation-Platform&p=432237&viewfull=1#post432237
I won't comment on specific products. I wish others to realise that I do not have a hidden agenda. I urge others to consider why a product is producing the effects it achieves( for benefit and detriment). I can see why certain products are successful but believe that for commercial considerations fundamental principals are being swept under the carpet due to the fact that examination of them would raise questions which point out the compromises and limitations of the product.
Let me throw one scrap out there for the members to consider:
It has already been stated on this site that passive isolation achieves nothing below the corner frequency of the technique used, shows a resonance(ie amplifies) at the corner frequency and isolates at higher frequencies than the corner frequency. So: Frequency matters. Many things affect the rate of the resonant corner frequency: Material, size, mass, shape, combination with other materials, damping factor, stiffness, hardness, porosity, uniformity, density, elasticity and many more. There is no such thing as an object which is unable to resonate. Even if it is at zero degrees Kelvin, it can be made to resonate. When we work with physical items they respond to factors which promote resonance, they respond to applications and modifications which mitigate(but never eliminate) resonance.
Do not look to products which claim to work for whatever you need. There is too much that needs to be taken into account for any finished product to encompass. Any designer who says otherwise is either ignorant(to some greater or lesser degree) or sweeping aside the truth of the matter because he knows that a sale will potentially be missed.
I sense that the members here at this site are generally very well educated, intelligent and have quite a degree of common sense (all three are not mutually inclusive). I would recommend that threads be started where the members discuss which criteria need to be investigated to increase the common fund of understanding of the principles that underpin the subject of isolation. Discussion of how the criteria interrelate. Consideration of how to apply techniques and the mistakes in applying techniques. Experimentation with models of application. Discussion of experimental models and the result of modification of the models.
Without this all the discussion of principles all that is achieved is as scientific as fashion and essentially amounts to Lemming-like mentality. That is all that I see in the threads to date.
What I have just said in the last paragraph may be a bitter pill to swallow but the truth needs to be considered if we are not to be manipulated by opportunistic exploiters of consumers who are more eager to spend than to understand.
Take it from me Ked, I went the extra mile to try and make the Minus K work, the price alone was sufficient motivation.
But any number of loading plates all imposed their character, and trying to centre a cantilevered plinth, motor pod and phono box was nigh on impossible.
You know my views on Mooks, they’re a liability wherever I use them in my system, so a band aid for loading plate colouration was the last path I’d ever go down.
I tip my hat to anyone wrangling success from Minus K under a tt, I could not get it to work here.
But any number of loading plates all imposed their character, and trying to centre a cantilevered plinth, motor pod and phono box was nigh on impossible.
You know my views on Mooks, they’re a liability wherever I use them in my system, so a band aid for loading plate colouration was the last path I’d ever go down.
I tip my hat to anyone wrangling success from Minus K under a tt, I could not get it to work here.
IMHO some of these this very well educated, intelligent and having quite a degree of common sense members have understood that they can not apply the rules of the scientific method to the high-end and that no general approved audiophile knowledge or audiophile science can currently be written. I consider that today's high-end is highly technological, but not scientific, and develops in what you very interestingly call Lemming-like style. Any attempt to make it scientific fails due the constraints that are needed to create scientific controls and falsifiability.
IMHO high-end audio forums share opinions and experiences, and we enjoy reading and debating them. Again IMHO your paragraph will be a bitter pill only to those who do not understand the essence of the high-end - using audio gear together with our experience and knowledge to enjoy music using all the information coming from the stereo recording when processed to our preferences.
Surely it would be great to have "scientific high-end" - people have tried it, but unfortunately experience has shown that these attempts mainly fueled anti-audiophile" debates, bringing very little novelty or innovation to the high-end development.
As always, and particularly in these aspects, YMMV!
Theo, I admire your attempt to open up discourse on what we want from isolation, and what the alternatives are to how we achieve it.
However the answer is simply going to be what sounds better than what.
So after 5 years of hearing stellar reports on Minus K and Herzan under tts, it was my time to investigate them. As this was being set up, Stacore appeared from nowhere after a prompt from Blue58, and so I ended up with a 3 way comparison.
A member here then gave it large saying his mass loading and clamping system was the way forward, but he never walked the walk despite talking the talk.
And so I had two well established lab solutions against the new audiophile upstart.
And that’s how I made my decision.
I really can’t see what else I should/could have done.
However the answer is simply going to be what sounds better than what.
So after 5 years of hearing stellar reports on Minus K and Herzan under tts, it was my time to investigate them. As this was being set up, Stacore appeared from nowhere after a prompt from Blue58, and so I ended up with a 3 way comparison.
A member here then gave it large saying his mass loading and clamping system was the way forward, but he never walked the walk despite talking the talk.
And so I had two well established lab solutions against the new audiophile upstart.
And that’s how I made my decision.
I really can’t see what else I should/could have done.
Yes, we can not do anything else than trying, because we really do not know in depth what we are fighting.
I know what I’m fighting in principle.
A 150 yr old 50’ x 35’ Victorian flexy timber joists floor with 2017 new floor on top.
All interacting with an 800 sq ft/5500 cub ft room.
A 150 yr old 50’ x 35’ Victorian flexy timber joists floor with 2017 new floor on top.
All interacting with an 800 sq ft/5500 cub ft room.
Unfortunately you do not fight the room - you fight its effect in equipment. And what you do not know are the mechanisms of the interaction with your pieces of equipment. Except for turntables, no one has accurately analyzed the subjective effect of vibrations on electronics, either induced by external causes or self vibration due its operation. So we must keep trying, narrowing our choice to what we "feel" should be tried, or most of the time, just what is available with reasonable effort.
Francisco, in my London apartment I tried racks from GPA, HRS and Symposium. Only the latter proved a definable impvt over my bog standard rack, and I was able to get 5 tiers plus spkrs isoln for not much outlay. The only thing improving on the Symposium was Shun Mooks Diamond Resonators, Giants under cdp or transformer.
And now I’m in the new room w greater floor-borne demands, Mooks have fallen from favour, and Stacore is pushing isolation into areas I never suspected possible. And beyond lab grade passive and active.
And now I’m in the new room w greater floor-borne demands, Mooks have fallen from favour, and Stacore is pushing isolation into areas I never suspected possible. And beyond lab grade passive and active.
Theo, great you are here! What you say in general is IMHO a big problem of the whole High End, not just a particular sector like isolation. There is little done on the connection: (applied methods) - (obtained sonic results), and that is the fact. So from result-oriented field, High End IMHO has been drifting more towards a luxury goods market.
Now, more specific on your thoughts. What you have been constantly pointing to is how crucial the optimization, like the correct positioning of COG is, and that there is no hope for universal solutions. I'd reverse the situation and apply your own arguments to your situation of a TT on maglev feet plus roller bearings on top. Perhaps your particular solution is very parameter sensitive? Because for example with our platforms we did not experience a particularly strong dependence e.g. on the pressure and the COG optimization.
So I gave a look at the maglev isolation. The repulsive force between two magnets follows the *inverse power law* with respect to the distance between the magnets. This is very different than e.g. springs (be it air or other), where the force is proportional to the power of the displacement. This means that maglevs have very non-linear behavior and are very sensitive for small distances and not much for large ones (compared to their linear dimensions). This, if I'm right, can translate to the COG placement sensitivity. If the maglev feet are differently loaded, they have different effective spring coefficients (apart from going off level), which may translate into complicated movement patters of the suspension. Air springs, on the other hand, seem to show less dependence of the spring coefficient with the pressure changes or at least it does not manifest sonically too strong. There is also the possibility to correct the spring operation with changing both the load and the pressure. Something absent with maglevs, where there is no other free parameter apart from the load.
If all the above is correct, then the bottom line is that your particular experience with suspension performance sensitivity, and hence the need for a precise optimization for each component, is the price you pay for the chosen technology.
Now, when it comes to the roller bearing, they are a b*tch to work with and I agree need A LOT of care in the implementation. We went sort of crazy with the deep hardened steel and 30+kg CLD plate to damp the bearings. But they pay off beautifully
Cheers,
Jarek
Now, more specific on your thoughts. What you have been constantly pointing to is how crucial the optimization, like the correct positioning of COG is, and that there is no hope for universal solutions. I'd reverse the situation and apply your own arguments to your situation of a TT on maglev feet plus roller bearings on top. Perhaps your particular solution is very parameter sensitive? Because for example with our platforms we did not experience a particularly strong dependence e.g. on the pressure and the COG optimization.
So I gave a look at the maglev isolation. The repulsive force between two magnets follows the *inverse power law* with respect to the distance between the magnets. This is very different than e.g. springs (be it air or other), where the force is proportional to the power of the displacement. This means that maglevs have very non-linear behavior and are very sensitive for small distances and not much for large ones (compared to their linear dimensions). This, if I'm right, can translate to the COG placement sensitivity. If the maglev feet are differently loaded, they have different effective spring coefficients (apart from going off level), which may translate into complicated movement patters of the suspension. Air springs, on the other hand, seem to show less dependence of the spring coefficient with the pressure changes or at least it does not manifest sonically too strong. There is also the possibility to correct the spring operation with changing both the load and the pressure. Something absent with maglevs, where there is no other free parameter apart from the load.
If all the above is correct, then the bottom line is that your particular experience with suspension performance sensitivity, and hence the need for a precise optimization for each component, is the price you pay for the chosen technology.
Now, when it comes to the roller bearing, they are a b*tch to work with and I agree need A LOT of care in the implementation. We went sort of crazy with the deep hardened steel and 30+kg CLD plate to damp the bearings. But they pay off beautifully
Cheers,
Jarek
I admire Theo’s reasoning, but this has got to be the worst hobby for: subjective opinions v divergent tastes v no agreed definitions v uber egos v even more uber bank balances LOL.
I remain perplexed how some things work, such as positives of placing a passive Entreq box on Stacore, and remain intrigued how some things that were positive in my old room like Stillpoints and Mooks are wholly detrimental in the new room.
I don’t have the energy or time to go thru what I want, need, find out the best approach, then test, and test again.
I’d say a 3 way trial of two lab devices versus new kid on the block is plenty data points for me.
I remain perplexed how some things work, such as positives of placing a passive Entreq box on Stacore, and remain intrigued how some things that were positive in my old room like Stillpoints and Mooks are wholly detrimental in the new room.
I don’t have the energy or time to go thru what I want, need, find out the best approach, then test, and test again.
I’d say a 3 way trial of two lab devices versus new kid on the block is plenty data points for me.
Marc, indeed you gave it the old college try. Not many among us has directly compared three vibration management devices in his own system. The sharing of your trials made for interesting reading and consideration.
Yes, I wonder whatever happened to Stehno. His clamping ideas were intriguing but I could never understand if he actually provided an exit pathway for the vibrations/resonances to escape the component or if he simply changed the resonant frequency of the component to make it sound or behave differently.
This whole area is fascinating to me. As is the speaker/floor interface. Just look at the different solutions of the Center Stage Footers and the Hardpoint footers that MikeL is trying. Users of each report excellent results. Or the Stacore solid rack being designed for Tango and the custom Herzan active rack which Christian just bought. They are completely different solutions to the same problem of trying to support the AS2000 turntable. In this whole area, we have many individual data points, but very few direct comparisons of competing solutions. I commend you for your efforts to do just that and share with us your findings.
Thanks Peter, this was just too good an opportunity to pass up. That the results totally surprised me was fascinating too, 5 years of ever popular comments on Herzan, the data totally supporting it, and the first few days with it unchallenged. The Stacore I had to think seriously about, I mean I was struggling to consider a 115kg pallet on my doorstep, let alone get 95kg of slate up my spiral stairs LOL. And then for expectation bias to be absolutely flipped on its head, well...you know the rest.
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