Herzan/Table Stable "Active" Isolation table.

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, you alluded to the fact that stiffness of cables could easily negate the effects of active isolation. With all those cables/cords going in/out of your Dart pre, how have you got around this?

the TS-150 under the dart pre was so good with just connecting the cables as they had been, I've not even thought about it. I suspect that the weight of the dart pre makes it relatively impervious to cable effects. maybe at some point I will play around with that....or not.

expanding my thoughts on the cable effects; the way the active isolation works it really does not 'float' like many passive devices do such as the Minus K, Aurios, Vibraplane, and others. it simply reacts to input. so while there is some cable effect, it's less than many other isolation approaches. this idea is just a SWAG, i'm not claiming any scientific fact here. and how the dart pre is working it seems that the cable effect is negligible in that case.

If the only way you could have demoed the Herzan with your tt was to put it all on the floor, maybe just with a kitchen worktop granite slab underneath, or a low tech light spiked single shelf, do you suspect the Herzan would have sold itself?

absolutely. the Herzan will be optimized on a concrete floor. a rack is only for user ease of use.

Unfortunately I can't disable the passive horizontal isolation in my Symposium, and I don't have access easily to another fixed rack, so it's floor level or nothing. There's no point in me even contemplating the comparison if this solution is inherently flawed.

the Herzan will do it's thing on top of the Symposium. it will simply not be quite at it's very best. you can do your floor experiment to get an idea of the potential of the Herzan when optimized, then try it on the Symposium and find out the delta in that situation. then go from there on your next move.

Where do you think you might go next? I'm getting good results with Entreq Tellus grounding, and Miguel raves about his Troy grounding in similar terms to your positives on active isolation. Entreq has been a really good complement to my 8kVA balanced power transformer, and the price is reasonable in comparison to my total system cost. Miguel's Troy is at the exalted stratosphere that Herzan/Halcyonics occupies.
Sorry this is off-thread.

there is no 'next move' for me. the Herzan direction was something that I had on my mind for years as the one thing I needed to try at some point. I finally got to do it, and it was so profound I may do more of that. but that is it.

I had visitors yesterday who have been shopping around for audio gear, going to audio shows and listening all over to pretty high end gear. they were blown away by the total lack of any noise in my system. they kept talking about it. and that is the way I see it too. so I have zero agenda to pursue any grounding products. not that my mind is closed to the possibility that it could help, since I've not tried it. I would not question what others say they hear.

OTOH as I've said to you and others multiple times in the past, if someone wants to send me some grounding gear i'll try it. but I have no interest in pursuing it on my own. it's not an itch for me I need to scratch.

 

[mep]

It's not a small point! That's why I hate heavy AC cords. Even if you're using something like tiptoes, these heavy cords can yank or pull the component off the cones. I even have to be careful that the AC cord doesn't interfere with the free movement of the R2R deck on the Symposium Isis.

There's also another problem that I ran into, and that may be peculiar to the cj gear (?). For some reason, the bottom of the unit isn't absolutely flat and all four feet don't make contact with my SRA VR Isobase. So I have to wedge something under the fourth footer to ensure there's good contact and the unit doesn't rock/resonate. It does make a big difference. On just the three feet, the sound is decidedly edgier.

Myles-Are you sure that the shelf/stand you are placing your CJ gear on is level? It's hard to imagine (or at least I want to think it is) that gear that sells for 5 figures doesn't have a flat bottom and won't sit level on a shelf/stand. I would consider that gear to be defective if it came from the manufacturer warped and unstable and you had to use shims under one of the feet to make the gear stable and level. Three points defines a plane and there is a reason why some companies choose to use 3 feet vice four under their gear. However, if you spend $30K+ for a piece of electronics, I would damn sure expect that gear to sit level on top of a shelf/stand that is already level.

 

[MylesBAstor]

Myles-Are you sure that the shelf/stand you are placing your CJ gear on is level? It's hard to imagine (or at least I want to think it is) that gear that sells for 5 figures doesn't have a flat bottom and won't sit level on a shelf/stand. I would consider that gear to be defective if it came from the manufacturer warped and unstable and you had to use shims under one of the feet to make the gear stable and level. Three points defines a plane and there is a reason why some companies choose to use 3 feet vice four under their gear. However, if you spend $30K+ for a piece of electronics, I would damn sure expect that gear to sit level on top of a shelf/stand that is already level.

Yes tried something else on it and all four feet made contact. I also have other components on the bases and they too make good contact.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Tbh Mike, I don't blame you for staying cool on grounding. The Troy route is ruinously expensive, prob as much or more than a full set of Herzans under each component and spkrs. But if you listen to Miguel, it's the final frontier. He's a little too fwd for my tastes, and Entreq really works for me, a natural evolution of balanced power use (and a Hell of a lot more affordable!). Did you just make a value decision to place a finite sum only into one area of augmentation (active isolation), or is there a bigger principle at stake? Respect your decision whichever. Re your Dart pre being great on the Herzan with no cable re-dressing, bearing in mind your revelatory experiences, do you suspect there is something you could do here to improve the Dart/Herzan performance further? And when would stuff like cable dressing become audio fetish/OCD? In my case careful cable dressing, maintaining slack/minimising pull on components, avoiding crossing over of cables/power cord will be near impossible. But to be clear, you're of the opinion that the Herzan is SOOO good that plonking an one on my passive stand with minimal cable dressing will give a sufficiently good account of itself which would then be maximised on something more inert?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Tbh Mike, I don't blame you for staying cool on grounding. The Troy route is ruinously expensive, prob as much or more than a full set of Herzans under each component and spkrs. But if you listen to Miguel, it's the final frontier. He's a little too fwd for my tastes, and Entreq really works for me, a natural evolution of balanced power use (and a Hell of a lot more affordable!). Did you just make a value decision to place a finite sum only into one area of augmentation (active isolation), or is there a bigger principle at stake? Respect your decision whichever.

don't want to get too off topic here into my direction. i'll just say that I've touched all the high end audio/music bases I had wanted to touch......as far as room/power/speakers/amps/sources/tweaks/software. i'm in enjoy mode 100% now. i'm not in discovery mode anymore. and from a resources perspective setting myself up comfortably for retirement now is front and center the focus. the Herzan was too big a difference to ignore, but I need to stay on plan. any big thing will have to sneak up on me and hit me over the head to get my attention.

Re your Dart pre being great on the Herzan with no cable re-dressing, bearing in mind your revelatory experiences, do you suspect there is something you could do here to improve the Dart/Herzan performance further? And when would stuff like cable dressing become audio fetish/OCD? In my case careful cable dressing, maintaining slack/minimising pull on components, avoiding crossing over of cables/power cord will be near impossible. But to be clear, you're of the opinion that the Herzan is SOOO good that plonking an one on my passive stand with minimal cable dressing will give a sufficiently good account of itself which would then be maximised on something more inert?

I really do not know whether I could 'tune' the cables or other related things to improve the performance of the dart pre-Herzan. if/when I get around to it I will report what I find. I suspect that I will not find much there if I do pursue it.

I've always done the cable dressing stuff......notice in my pictures 30-40 of those Shunyata Dark Field v2 cable elevators. I make no particular claims for performance differences......but I believe that doing all the little things does result in accumulative benefits.

OCD?.....absolutely guilty.

 

[mep]

With regards to grounding and its benefits in relation to your noise floor, there are real benefits to be had. Every system has a noise floor. My mission in the last few years was and is to drive that noise floor as low as possible. That was one of the primary motivating factors in my ditching tubes (except for my pair of Ampex 350s that I dearly love). Ampex Roger who sadly doesn't contribute here anymore turned me on to the idea of star grounding my system. Buy a chunk of copper bus bar and have some holes drilled and tapped into it and run ground wires from all of your gear to the copper bus bar. Run a wire from the bus bar to the outlet where you have your preamp plugged into and attach it to the center screw that holds the outlet plate on the outlet. It's simple, it's cheap, and it works. Now if we were really crafty, we could sell this grounding system to well-heeled audiophiles for a ton of cash. We would tell them that all of our ground wires were cryogenically treated and the copper bus bar was six nines copper and was blessed by Buddhist monks and we could ask around $15K for the package. Since some people pay over $5K for a single power cord, $15K would be very reasonable for an entire grounding system that would lower the noise floor of your system.

 

[spiritofmusic]

MEP, interestingly we converge and diverge. Like you I've ditched belt drive, and am pursuing (to a less exalted level than Mike) the Holy Grail of mains noise reduction. This has meant me swapping out my old trusty Michell Orbe/SME V for a rim drive Trans Fi Salvation/air bearing Terminator linear tracker, and swapping out my $9k Burmester power conditioner, and installing an altogether more effective (and cheaper) dedicated spur/lines/8kVA balanced transformer. I'll leave cryogenics for when I have the cash to preserve my body for the day when music is piped into our heads direct, eliminating the audio system ! Unlike you, I'm considering going ALL tube, my current tube pre and SET monoblocks. Will keep a lookout for noise at the fortnight demo I'm getting on two sets of tubed monos.

 

[LL21]

With regards to grounding and its benefits in relation to your noise floor, there are real benefits to be had...Buy a chunk of copper bus bar and have some holes drilled and tapped into it and run ground wires from all of your gear to the copper bus bar. Run a wire from the bus bar to the outlet where you have your preamp plugged into and attach it to the center screw that holds the outlet plate on the outlet. It's simple, it's cheap, and it works...

Just so I get this right...if I am running everything (other than amp and Velodyne) thru one Power Conditioner, are all components (other than amp and Velodyne) grounded? If so, would simply running a wire from screw of amp to screw of power conditioner effectively grounding those two? Sorry if these are dumb questions...I have a big fear of blowing my system up (or myself)!

 

[mep]

Just so I get this right...if I am running everything (other than amp and Velodyne) thru one Power Conditioner, are all components (other than amp and Velodyne) grounded? If so, would simply running a wire from screw of amp to screw of power conditioner effectively grounding those two? Sorry if these are dumb questions...I have a big fear of blowing my system up (or myself)!

Yes and yes.

 

[jazdoc]

OK, just got home from a 3 hour session at Mike's...here is what I heard:

Mike will probably disagree with this, but I thought the most improvement came with the Herzan in 'passive' mode. Switching to 'active' mode did improve things further, but the degree of change was less notable, i.e. on a scale from 0-100 where 0 is without the Herzan and 100 is with the Herzan in active mode; in passive mode the improvement was 79.43. With vinyl, the biggest bang for the buck was under the turntable rather than the preamp -- not surprising. On both digital and analog, the background was quieter and the bass more nuanced and articulate. I was surprised by the improvement in attack and detail in the upper registers. Musicians seemed more defined out in the room without loss of soundstage or image depth. Rhythmic drive has improved as a result of cleaner low bass.

A few notes from specific vinyl recordings:

Under My Thumb, Rolling Stones (Aftermath, Decca unboxed mono) --- Holy *&%!, somewhere Bill Wyman is smiling. Way more drive. Doesn't sound like mono. Jagger's vocals are much more teasing/coy

Maletoba Spank, Duke Ellington, (Jazz Party in Stereo, Classic Records, 45rpm) --- More air around each instrument, really shows off Sam Woodyard

Cat Walk, Gerry Mulligan and Ben Webster (Mulligan Meets Webster, ORG 45 rpm) --- really brings the musicians forward into the room, particularly the piano on the left. Leroy Vinnegar much more apparent

Cantaloupe Island, Herbie Hancock (Empyrean Isles, Blue Note/Music Matters 45 rpm) --- Herbie's left hand is a hammer! Freddie Hubbard's trumpet is more realistic and brassy

Fearless Pink Floyd (Meddle, Harvest, 1971 pressing) --- The air and propulsive energy are enhanced, especially around guitar parts.

My overall impression: The improvement is small, but musically significant in Mike's system. Here's an analogy...I suspect (but unfortunately have no direct experience), that when Sharon Stone rolls over in the morning and shakes her hair out, things look pretty damn good. But once her hair is fixed up, she's put on a little make up and is in a great dress, things are even better. That's the Herzan

 

[Steve williams]

OK, just got home from a 3 hour session at Mike's...here is what I heard:

Mike will probably disagree with this, but I thought the primary improvement came with the Herzan in 'passive' mode. Switching to 'active' mode did improve things, but the degree of change was less notable. With vinyl, the biggest bang for the buck was under the turntable rather than the preamp -- not surprising. On both digital and analog, the background was quieter and the bass more nuanced and articulate. I was surprised by the improvement in attack and detail in the upper registers. Musicians seemed more defined out in the room without loss of soundstage or image depth. Rhythmic drive has improved as a result of cleaner low bass.

A few notes from specific vinyl recordings:

Under My Thumb, Rolling Stones (Aftermath, Decca unboxed mono) --- Holy *&%!, somewhere Bill Wyman is smiling. Way more drive. Doesn't sound like mono. Jagger's vocals are much more teasing/coy

Maletoba Spank, Duke Ellington, (Jazz Party in Stereo, Classic Records, 45rpm) --- More air around each instrument, really shows off Sam Woodyard

Cat Walk, Gerry Mulligan and Ben Webster (Mulligan Meets Webster, ORG 45 rpm) --- really brings the musicians forward into the room, particularly the piano on the left. Leroy Vinnegar much more apparent

Cantaloupe Island, Herbie Hancock (Empyrean Isles, Blue Note/Music Matters 45 rpm) --- Herbie's left hand is a hammer! Freddie Hubbard's trumpet is more realistic and brassy

Fearless Pink Floyd (Meddle, Harvest, 1971 pressing) --- The air and propulsive energy are enhanced, especially around guitar parts.

My overall impression: The improvement is small, but musically significant in Mike's system. Here's an analogy...I suspect (but unfortunately have direct experience), that when Sharon Stone rolls over in the morning and shakes her hair out, things look pretty damn good. But once her hair is fixed up, she's put on a little make up and is in a great dress, things are even better. That's the Herzan

so in your opinion the improvement was better passive and overall it wasn't orders of magnitude better

 

[jazdoc]

so in your opinion the improvement was better passive and overall it wasn't orders of magnitude better

No, the effect was additive. The passive isolation was, IMO, the greatest contributor. Things improved further in the active mode.

 

[LL21]

Just so I get this right...if I am running everything (other than amp and Velodyne) thru one Power Conditioner, are all components (other than amp and Velodyne) grounded? If so, would simply running a wire from screw of amp to screw of power conditioner effectively grounding those two? Sorry if these are dumb questions...I have a big fear of blowing my system up (or myself)!

Yes and yes.

Thanks.

 

[Steve williams]

No, the effect was additive. The passive isolation was, IMO, the greatest contributor. Things improved further in the active mode.

Mark

could you detect when passive was switched to active had you not been told

 

[Mike Lavigne]

it was a fun session as always with jazdoc.

as I said in my initial comments (post #314) about the TS-150 under the dart pre....

these are mostly small even very small degrees of change.....but musically very significant.

it's not the degree of change but how much those changes have an affect on the musical message. when the nuance, subtlety, bass definition, clarity, etc. etc. is increased in (caution=high resolution alert, children cover your eyes) a system that is already high resolution there is a large payoff in value. the hard part of music reproduction is to have that connection with the essence of the music and it's flow and emotion.

as jazdoc's notes point out, the individual players performances were more real, and the music was more defined and real.....very significantly in musical terms.

as far as jazdoc's take on the relative contributions of the passive portion of the Herzan verses the active portion that is interesting. jazdoc is comparing his previous reference memory of my system, then adding how much has changed for first the passive, then how much more for the active portion. I have not really played around with that question myself previously, and he was in the sweet spot for that part of our session. so I will defer to his perceptions about it for now.

jazdoc told me as our session went along he got more and more how significant these changes were to the whole perception of the music. that 'connection' I get from the music now that I had not previously is addicting.

 

[jazdoc]

Mark

could you detect when passive was switched to active had you not been told

Yes... very apparent under turntable, less so under preamp. Where the Herzan under the preamp makes a difference is with the digital, less so for vinyl.

 

[NorthStar]

Thanks Mark (jazdoc) for your Sharon Stone's 'analogy'. ...Excellent! :b
- Your remarks from Mike's system with the 'active' Herzan platform are more than appreciated, as they are a solider confirmation of Mike's earlier statements (impressions), but in your own words (Sharon).

* By the way, earlier someone mentioned cable "dressing". Correct me if I'm wrong but this term is to describe the outer material/cover on the external surface of the cable itself (interconnect/speaker wire/AC power cord/any cable); or the 'outer jacket'.
- What would have been the proper term for the intended meaning was (and that member did mention it afterwards) cable "management"; routing/positioning.

________________

Last, on a humorous note; last night was full moon, and she was 14 percent closer to us (bigger).
- Very early this morning I was sick (at the time that she was the biggest), and this is very true; I vomited, and was very dizzy.

=> I just wonder; was I more lunatic too? ...In French 'moon' is "lune".

 

[rockitman]

Of all the Stillpoints passive treatment I have done to all my components, the power amps got the most benefit. I have Ultra 5's under them now. I think I will be ordering a pair of TS 150's in the near future. The power supply chassis' certainly generate vibration as can be heard from the low hum of the large transformers when I put my ear up to them.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Yes... very apparent under turntable, less so under preamp. Where the Herzan under the preamp makes a difference is with the digital, less so for vinyl.

totally disagree about significance of the Herzan under the dart pre. much more contribution to the vinyl with the phono stage in the preamp than to the digital since that's only the preamp. to me this is not a close call. maybe i'm not understanding jazdoc's post.

and we did not switch the active to passive on the pre with digital (that I recall).

 

[mep]

My overall impression: The improvement is small, but musically significant in Mike's system. Here's an analogy...I suspect (but unfortunately have no direct experience), that when Sharon Stone rolls over in the morning and shakes her hair out, things look pretty damn good. But once her hair is fixed up, she's put on a little make up and is in a great dress, things are even better. That's the Herzan

So $12K buys you some lipstick and makeup that adds up to a small improvement?