Active versus Passive Isolation Platforms for turntables

[Mike Lavigne]

I thought this was more of a room attribute? Because it is in your room and Marty's that I have seen the crescendos and peaks develop without the cringe and the peaks just continue to go up limitlessly I always thought this was a complete room factor.

sure; it's the room factor......but it's the fully tuned room factor. you need the right room to tune to get it to that top level, but the tuning is required too.

back in 2012-2013 when I added the MM7's my room had not been tuned for reflections, and my ceiling bass traps were not yet closed up, so while the room has always done scale and space very well naturally, things were much more confused and not as coherent.....by degrees. you heard it last October when all the work had been done.

what the Herzan did at that time was to eliminate the feedback on musical peaks, add focus and detail, and resolve congestion in the source. and so when the system was pushed it was much more nailed down for it's overall state of tune at that time. likely Marty's room as you heard it was more together on large scale music than where mine had been 4 years ago.

also just last year pushing the speakers closer together, along with moving the seating position closer (since the reflective hash was controlled) made significant improvements in holographic imaging and bass coherence. again; you got the whole enchilada. of course; we now have a few more nice little steps forward to enjoy for the future. but nothing on the scale of those prior improvements.

Ked, I suspect what Mike means is that even w his room so stellar as you've reported, a tt literally only a few feet from 4x15" <15Hz woofers, must have previously been deleteriously affected
The proof of the pudding being this extra ease since the Herzan went under
His tt is adjacent to 4x15" front firing subs
Mine is adjacent to 2x12" down firing subs
On paper at least, my tt will like Mike's be contending w a LOT if bass energy
And my subs to 16Hz are down firing into the flr which obv to a greater or lesser extent be coming up under the tt

no doubt that the amount of low frequency energy and my room set-up pushed me to do the Herzan.

Yes I understand that - it is just the ease of increase in peaks I was referring to. I understand everything would have improved with the Herzan, and he did mention to me when I was there how upgrading from MM3 to MM7 affected his TT till he put the Herzan in.

 

[Stacore]

it (sometimes dramatically) changes your reference as to how a track is suppose to sound.

Dear Mike,

Thank you for the input! Indeed your TT works under somewhat extreme conditions given the bass power.
I very much understand the above impression - the shift of reference points due to a proper
vibration isolation. I witness it myself quite often too.

BTW, have you tried simultaneously isolating other components down the chain?
This can bring you even more of the clarity esp. on high levels.

Cheers,

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Dear Mike,

Thank you for the input! Indeed your TT works under somewhat extreme conditions given the bass power.
I very much understand the above impression - the shift of reference points due to a proper
vibration isolation. I witness it myself quite often too.

BTW, have you tried simultaneously isolating other components down the chain?
This can bring you even more of the clarity esp. on high levels.

Cheers,

I have -2- Herzan's;

a TS-140 under my turntable which sits atop an Adona GTX grounded rack, and a TS-150 which sits on the bottom shelf on that same rack. and all my source electronics (dart pre with internal phono, dac, and soon transport) are stacked on that TS-150. my 4-tower speaker system sits on a 2 sets of Wave Kinetics 2NS decoupling footers. my 2 darTZeel 458 mono block amplifiers have internal suspended power supplies and circuits.

my -2- Studer A-820 tape decks are slumming it sitting on their stock wheeled racks but they seem to sound good in spite of it. but their build solidity is on a scale unseen anywhere else in hifi. there are heavy stationary spiked lower units I could substitute but I like them mobile. but the output electronics are treated with Wave Kinetics A10 U8 decoupling footer's.

I'm a believer in vibration isolation and have made a huge commitment to it.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Mike, my situation is that my tt is 4' high on top shelf of 3-tier Symposium Isis rack
This rack has 3 levels of Rollerblock lateral isoln and constrained layer damping shelves
The tt is midway btwn spkrs, so 4' from front firing 40Hz drivers and <20Hz flr-firing subs
Tt in addition to Symposium lateral isoln has magnetic feet akin to stiff springs vertical isoln
All on a 18x60 suspended timber
flr
My usual volume 80-85dB
Atm, I'm not perceiving any isoln deficit
Bass is beautifully articulated and extended, no apparent timing smear, no mistracking
Indeed all is good
And my move to a more neutral, less harsh and reflective room means that what I initially thought was lack of treble energy is now most likely a smoother top end, w less stridency than my prev apartment
So, I don't have any conscious thing I'm looking for, feel I'm missing
But a bit like Entreq, I'll know a superior presentation when I hear it w the Minus K and/or Herzan

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, my situation is that my tt is 4' high on top shelf of 3-tier Symposium Isis rack
This rack has 3 levels of Rollerblock lateral isoln and constrained layer damping shelves
The tt is midway btwn spkrs, so 4' from front firing 40Hz drivers and <20Hz flr-firing subs
Tt in addition to Symposium lateral isoln has magnetic feet akin to stiff springs vertical isoln
All on a 18x60 suspended timber
flr
My usual volume 80-85dB
Atm, I'm not perceiving any isoln deficit
Bass is beautifully articulated and extended, no apparent timing smear, no mistracking
Indeed all is good
And my move to a more neutral, less harsh and reflective room means that what I initially thought was lack of treble energy is now most likely a smoother top end, w less stridency than my prev apartment
So, I don't have any conscious thing I'm looking for, feel I'm missing
But a bit like Entreq, I'll know a superior presentation when I hear it w the Minus K and/or Herzan

"So, I don't have any conscious thing I'm looking for, feel I'm missing"

love to hear that.

Spirit. enjoy the music.......

then be open to where your ears lead you. if the Minus K/Herzan can take you further jump on that train. likely your tt is far enough out of the drivers immediate area to be relatively safe. not sure I like a 48" tall rack as lots more natural inertia to any resonance with that height (on suspended timber). but life is about trade-offs.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Mike, the classic instance of my quote was the initial Entreq trial
I really did sit down stony faced w my arms folded tightly as a non descript wooden box, S Tellus, and flimsy cbl, Apollo to preamp, was installed
I was so far from expectation bias you could have cut the air w a knife
5 mins later, I was just commenting on stuff completely obscured in my music prev, now revealed, and was a total convert
Now I have S Tellus, S Cleanus, O Minimus and 9 Apollos
And, I really didn't think anything was missing before the trial
But quite a lot of Entreq has been counterproductive on trial too, I haven't kept buying from them
Similarly, the benefits of balanced pwr, dedicated lines and esp room acoustics have tot taken me by surprise when shown to me to be effective
Now I have my "final frontier" impvt poss w tt active or passive isoln and again I start w the thought that I don't THINK i'm missing anything... LOL
Btw if I go MK or Herzan, tt will go on a static inert rack 2-3' high w isoln platform

 

[Stacore]

I have -2- Herzan's;

a TS-140 under my turntable which sits atop an Adona GTX grounded rack, and a TS-150 which sits on the bottom shelf on that same rack. and all my source electronics (dart pre with internal phono, dac, and soon transport) are stacked on that TS-150. my 4-tower speaker system sits on a 2 sets of Wave Kinetics 2NS decoupling footers. my 2 darTZeel 458 mono block amplifiers have internal suspended power supplies and circuits.

Theoretically the most optimal is a dedicated platform under each component but I guess that here something is better than nothing
Mike, did you hear the improvement when decoupling the electronics afte you have decoupled the tt?

my -2- Studer A-820 tape decks are slumming it sitting on their stock wheeled racks but they seem to sound good in spite of it. but their build solidity is on a scale unseen anywhere else in hifi. there are heavy stationary spiked lower units I could substitute but I like them mobile. but the output electronics are treated with Wave Kinetics A10 U8 decoupling footer's.

This is interesting. On paper, R2R do not look like very vibration-sensitive, but one never knows until one tries. I hope to try it one day.

I'm a believer in vibration isolation and have made a huge commitment to it.

Me too, I even started a small company
All the best,

 

[spiritofmusic]

I guess it would be great to isolate every component progressively, incl speakers, but this is going to be prohibitively expensive even to very well heeled audiophiles
For me, it's just the tt that is the component I want to max out this way
And IMHO still remains the one piece of gear most in need of a dedicated solution

 

[antelion]

Peter, sure, I understand all the trouble and thank you for at least thinking of it
This proposal is actually directed to anyone bold enough to go against the grain and try suspending
speakers. Lack of platform is not a problem - I can instruct how to make a fast -n - dirty one for
few $

We tried putting simple stand monitors on our Basics https://www.facebook.com/stacoreantivibration/posts/702630639898041
The result was very surprising: same sense of clarity, improved articulation, better dynamical contrasts etc as with e.g. the source
but the change was not so strong as with the source can be. I'd love to see more data on that from various systems/listeners.
I do believe the speaker-floor interface, ruled now by spikes, should be given a fresh
look. I think its much more important to cut the speakers from exciting the floor than chasing the Doppler effect.
Spikes do not do that - whatever you think they do not act as a diode.

Sven Boenicke created the "swing base" for his speakers which are going in this very direction. Unfortunately i did not have a comparison between with and w/o.

 

[murphys33]

I went from coupling my speakers (via spikes) to decoupling. I have my speakers resting on Gyrotension Vega Isolators and the gyro rest on symposium ultra platforms. I like it this way - better sense of ease, dynamics etc - everything that one experience putting components on isolation platforms.

 

[Stacore]

Murphys33, happy to hear about your positive experience with the "soft coupling" between speakers and the floor. Have you tried placing your Lampi GG on a pneumatic platform? We got excellent results with our platform under GG both in Lampi lab in Warsaw and during the last year Munich HighEnd show.

 

[murphys33]

Hi Jared,
I have my GG and Preamp sitting resting on Symposium Ultra platforms which in turn sits on Accurion i4 active isolation. I have tried Townshend solutions prior but that was many many years ago. I am very happy with the current setup and if I have resources, would try to put active on all my components. However for now the accurions under the pre and dac gave me the best performance. I am based in Singapore and found a scientific equipment dealer who cut me one of the best prices for accurions.

 

[Stacore]

Very good! GG apparently reacts with a wonderful easyness and resolution to a proper decoupling - we just had another (2nd after the Lampi lab)
test of a GG, this time with KR PX4 & 45 valves on our
Advanced and the effect was superb! The owner (a well matured audio manufacturer - more on our FB soon) was himself surprised.
Just one observation, but you probably know it - its best to bypass the original GG rubber feet.

 

[murphys33]

Yes I did. Experimented with various footers

 

[Tango]

Stacore Advance review by Highfidelity.pl

http://highfidelity.pl/@main-739&lang=en

 

[Tango]

Mr. Korbicz,

My rack has platforms sitting on ball bearings quite similar to the top platform of your Stracore Advance. Would this technically give adverse effect if your Stracore is sitting on it.

 

[Stacore]

Dear Tango,

Technically, my only concern would be the load capacity of your bearings - if they can stand the extra weight (62kg of our Basic).
Sonically, in our platform we have found it a bit more preferable to put the bearings on top of pneumatics.

Cheers,

 

[spiritofmusic]

Jarek, great review of the Advanced
My plan is to do a three way shootout btwn yr platform v passive Minus K BM-8 v active Kuraka E-Stable Mini 450, hopefully in the Summer
Can I ask what you make of one of the review's conclusions, that the Advanced slightly enhances leanness in the lower mids?

 

[Stacore]

Dear Marc,

Glad to be on your list & thanks for good words Well, first of all I was not present during the test so I cannot comment on the sound directly.
Second, every piece of equipment reacts differently to parasitic vibrations and sometimes one has to play with the pressure
a bit to find the sweet spot. From what I know the reviewer refused to play with the pressure and asked my business partner to set up
the platform like he thinks it should be set. Without hearing the system, he set up using the best guess - the lowest pressure possible.
It works in 90% cases. Maybe here it did not fully. No idea. FYI, the reviewer claims this leanness is characteristic to high mass decoupling devices.
I cannot confirm that.

Cheers,

 

[spiritofmusic]

Jarek, glad to boost yr product
I can see it's a labour of love and I v much love the concept
I'm considering an all-slate rack to use under my slate-plinthed tt and yr slate platform
Yes, that's a LOT of slate LOL