Amp Stand for Heavy Amp on Wood Floor?

[Puma Cat]

It depends a lot on thickness and dimensions of the board. IMO unless we use an accelerometer connected to an audio analyzer we never know the real ringing performace of a board.

You don't need to put an accelerometer on it. Just put a small music box mechanism on some granite and turn the little crank. You'll hear just how loud it rings...

 

[the sound of Tao]

Stunning!

Holy heck! What a beautifully designed home!

Thanks guys though I’ve probably wandered perhaps a tad too far off topic and down my memory lane… the advantages of getting older, memory lane is never far away lol.

The whole house was almost built out of tone wood (or more precisely stone wood) and all the gear within it eventually sat on marble slabs over stainless steel steel footers over marble floors on top of ironbark hardwood posts. Then I final tuned each component by ear by adding layers of optical calcite on top of the gear for dampening.

On reflection a tad ott but I did the original tuning with the layers of each material when the Magnepan 20.7s were my main speakers and they just made it more obvious how it all was working. The difference between using layers of Carrara marble versus layers of granite was very clear (the infamous ringing top end… or Quasimodo effect) and after trialling all sorts of materials over a few years granite and synthetics like plastic composites (a kind of rolled numb deadening at the top end) had impacts that never worked positively for me (in my setup).

I prefer the simpler more restrained approach in Peter’s system. It’s more elegant and I enjoy a final process of then fine tuning by ear… it’s the kind of activity of patience that adds to the music zen of it.

 

[Atmasphere]

I prefer the simpler more restrained approach in Peter’s system. It’s more elegant and I enjoy a final process of then fine tuning by ear… it’s the kind of activity of patience that adds to the music zen of it.

How would you 'tune' a damping system? That implies that its got a resonance its not damping, doesn't it?

I've found its impossible to 'overdamp' any audio product- the more dead it is to vibration, the more neutral it becomes.

 

[Kingrex]

I liked Caelin's response about vibrations when he was talking about his Altair
Don't try and absorb vibration
Make all components that move relative to one another as a monolithic block.
Where transmission speed of vibration moves through it very quickly.
So there is no storage of energy or release of energy relative to one component to another.

 

[Kingrex]

There is some trepidation for me because while that wood in the slabs is beautifully figured more importantly it has great sentimental value for me. I bought it out of an inheritance when my grandfather passed. He was a carpenter and builder who built houses in the modernist era and he was the inspiration for the house that I designed in the village on the lake that he used to visit for holidays when he was a child. I clad the house in recycled red mahogany shiplap and it is the kind of material and detail that we both really loved.

View attachment 106260

Dang, nice pad. My wife and I have searched hard for land with a view as such. Well. we also want it close to a regional airport, health care and a multitude of coffee shops and restaurants. Our list is simple.

 

[PeterA]

How would you 'tune' a damping system? That implies that its got a resonance its not damping, doesn't it?

I've found its impossible to 'overdamp' any audio product- the more dead it is to vibration, the more neutral it becomes.

That is what I thought until I started doing listening tests. Much of my room acoustic treatment and my pneumatic isolation platforms contributed to a sound that for me was over damped and somewhat dull.

I had a variety of steel plates of different dimensions, different thicknesses, and one from kinetic systems the manufacturer of the Vibraplane was actually covered on all six sides with a vinyl like surface. That specific steel plate was over damped and sucked the life out of the music. It was likely better suited for being placed under a microscope.

If the more damped an audio product is the more neutral it is, it would seem that most people would choose the most damped record platter material every time. This is not the case. Perhaps people are choosing preferences that are not neutral, but I suspect if you asked them, there would be variety of different responses.

It is the same with platforms under components. People experiment with different materials, their dimensions, and the ways in which they damp those platforms. And then they select the solution which sounds best to them. I refer to this process of experimentation as fine tuning. I adjusted the dampening of my stainless plates by using different numbers and thicknesses, and locations of rubber O rings between the plates and the wooden slabs below them. Everything affected the final sound. This is the fine-tuning part.

I am trying to achieve a tonal balance, resolution, and dynamics of the sound of the system where it sounds most natural.

 

[the sound of Tao]

That is what I thought until I started doing listening tests. Much of my room acoustic treatment and my pneumatic isolation platforms contributed to a sound that for me was over damped and somewhat dull.

I had a variety of steel plates of different dimensions, different thicknesses, and one from kinetic systems the manufacturer of the Vibraplane was actually covered on all six sides with a vinyl like surface. That specific steel plate was over damped and sucked the life out of the music. It was likely better suited for being placed under a microscope.
If the more damped an audio product is the more neutral it is, it would seem that most people would choose the most damped record platter material every time. This is not the case. Perhaps people are choosing natural h preferences that are not neutral, but I suspect if you asked them, they would be variety of different responses.

It is the same with platforms under components. People experiment with different materials, the dimensions, and the ways in which they damp those platforms. And then they select the solution which sounds best to them. I refer to this process of experimentation as fine tuning.

I am trying to achieve a tonal balance, resolution, and dynamics of the sound of the system where it sounds most natural.

Very much so… much like a room can just be over treated. In the end it’s achieving the appropriate balance and rightness in sound and in best reflecting the way instruments sound in live performance. As my grandmother would say you’ve got to be careful to not overcook the duck.

 

[Puma Cat]

I've found its impossible to 'overdamp' any audio product- the more dead it is to vibration, the more neutral it becomes.

I don't agree; in my studies, overdamping some components or devices can make them sound "dead".

 

[Atmasphere]

Make all components that move relative to one another as a monolithic block.

If the equipment is in motion, microphonics can occur.

Much of my room acoustic treatment and my pneumatic isolation platforms contributed to a sound that for me was over damped and somewhat dull.

Room treatment is very different from damping equipment!

Its literally impossible to overdamp electronics like a CDP, tuner, preamp or amplifier. Its also impossible to overdamp a turntable platter. It is possible to overdamp a tonearm, depending on how the damping is implemented, such as a damping trough.

Damping will reduce microphonic effects, which almost always manifests as high frequency distortion. So damping will allow the system to be more relaxed because there will be less HF energy. If your equipment is lacking HF bandwidth, I could see this being a problem. But any gear that doesn't have full 20KHz bandwidth doesn't qualify for the term 'hifi'.

The tricky bit here is damping or room treatment that isn't doing its job properly by not being active at a certain frequency or the like. At that point you probably are 'tuning' it trying to sort the situation out. That sounds really difficult to me!

 

[PeterA]

Ralph, do you think it’s possible to over-damp an amplifier stand?

 

[tima]

Yup

You know where I went SRA was the close 2nd. My problem with SRA is that it is more equipment specific. Nothing to do with its performance for the model it is spec'd for. They are excellent and that is coming from a competitor. That is an expensive proposition for a distributor or dealer like myself that demos many different amplifiers. They were literally in a dead heat then CMS went modular and incorporated the frame and contact point changes that made them more, shall we say, long term keepers for as long as the new amps fit.

Hi Jack, worth noting: SRA will modify any of its platforms for alternative components than originally built -- at no charge as long as the platform dimensions don't change. I agree they are excellent.

 

[microstrip]

(...) I’ve used about half of it for a dining table in the last house but am a bit inspired more recently with your approach to use the remaining slabs for my gear and bring in a layer of polished stainless as an additional constrained layer above.

What kind of glue are you considering to join the stainless plate to the wood slate?

 

[microstrip]

How would you 'tune' a damping system? That implies that its got a resonance its not damping, doesn't it?

I've found its impossible to 'overdamp' any audio product- the more dead it is to vibration, the more neutral it becomes.

Our usual talk about damping when applied to audio platforms is an oversimplification - the critical parameter is the acoustic impedance versus frequency, something hard to measure and discuss.

 

[the sound of Tao]

What kind of glue are you considering to join the stainless plate to the wood slate?

Just in initial concept mode at this point Francisco… will have much research to do. May even just allow mass and gravity to do its thing first and go from there. Simpler approaches and easily reversible is probably going to be the starting point… I love modular builds so it’s easy to trial changes.

I also have a backlog of stuff to do with my current speakers project so perhaps the answer to which glue brings me unstuck may even form something more of an epitaph for me at the current rate

 

[PeterA]

What kind of glue are you considering to join the stainless plate to the wood slate?

No glue in my case. Is anyone gluing these together? I did try Sorbothane between the stainless steel and wood and that was a big mistake. Way over damped. Birch plywood is also not a good platform material. Too damped because of all the glue.

All of this is based on listening tests in my own system and room and to my preference. YMMV.

 

[the sound of Tao]

No glue in my case. Is anyone gluing these together? I did try Sorbothane between the stainless steel and wood and that was a big mistake. Way over damped. Birch plywood is also not a good platform material. Too damped because of all the glue.

All of this is based on listening tests in my own system and room and to my preference. YMMV.

I hadn’t really thought I’d need glue and that earlier thoughts of something like silastic might be even worse… I tried sorbothane a number of times with a range different kinds of slabs and invariably the death of a thousand good tunes followed!

I did find a polycarbonate bonded copper sheeting that might be worth using as a layer but ended up just using a sheet of roofing copper in between the slabs.

 

[the sound of Tao]

Dang, nice pad. My wife and I have searched hard for land with a view as such. Well. we also want it close to a regional airport, health care and a multitude of coffee shops and restaurants. Our list is simple.

Even better if also close to vineyards and a dozen fantastic beaches… which it is. Ahh yes, on selling up… regrets, I’ve had a few…

 

[Kingrex]

Some interesting tweaking on amp stands. I have tried a multitude of platforms under my amps, as well as equipment on my racks. I have tried layers of different materials or just a piece of something. Each component speaks for itself and what it wants. Same of the feet. In my system, the amps have been the least critical of what they sit on. The digital really voices what it wants. The preamp and phono preamp also have wants, but they are between the demands of the amp and digital. I don't have my TT dialed in yet. I assume it has some serious needs. At the moment I am trying to resolve resonances in the tonearm that are causing a buzz at high energy transients like a sharp horn or singer belting it out.

 

[Puma Cat]

The tricky bit here is damping or room treatment that isn't doing its job properly by not being active at a certain frequency or the like. At that point you probably are 'tuning' it trying to sort the situation out. That sounds really difficult to me!

Not if you do a DOE. I did one to determine the optimal settings of my REL sub in my room...with actual data.

Check out the functional interaction betweeen sub gain and sub crossover. Pretty interesting surface response plot...

This model is statistically significant with R-Square/R-Square adjusted of 0.97066/0.9486 and a p-value of 0.0016 (where Alpha is 0.05, and Beta is 0.10). I love a good transfer function.

Don'tcha just love...JMP?

 

[Atmasphere]

Ralph, do you think it’s possible to over-damp an amplifier stand?

No. If damped perfectly it will perform the best. Many stands I've seen are really poorly damped. I know of one equipment stand (not sure if its still made) that actually added resonance- the thing rang like a bell.

If you're going to slap stuff together using by gosh and by golly techniques, expect to spend some time trying to sort out what's going on. Some simple measurements could save you a lot of time:

Our usual talk about damping when applied to audio platforms is an oversimplification - the critical parameter is the acoustic impedance versus frequency, something hard to measure and discuss.

Yes- hard to discuss because people don't like to hear that they are wasting their time- and so they shoot the messenger.

You could measure a frequency sweep emitted by the speakers in the room in which the damping is used. 'Before' and 'After''... A sweep generator and a microphone, plus a bit of software would get you down the road on that. You could easily show were the damping was working- and where it was not. These days that's pretty easy stuff you can do on a phone or tablet.

We've been working with damping for decades. We used it in our turntable, beneath the turntable, using a platform and a custom built stand for it, in our preamps, beneath our preamps and beneath our amps as well as on individual tubes.

What we found is that if the damping is really working, for example inside a preamp, then adding a good damping platform simply makes it all work better. I've yet to see a situation where properly designed and applied damping didn't make an audible and measurable improvement.

So when I hear about stuff being 'over damped' it suggests to me that damping principles aren't being applied. At the very least a person could learn from how Empire killed resonance in their platters 50 years ago by using two parts each with different resonant frequencies mated together so the two rob energy from each other. Or figure out the difference between extensional damping compounds as opposed to constrained damping layers. By gosh and by golly doesn't cut it.