Thanks Mike but I ordered the HRS double wide, burl walnut with a couple of custom platforms, one for my SME 30/12 about 2 months ago. It should be just about finished in a week or two. The cost was and is outrageous. I think I'll hold on to it for at least a little while. And probably keep wondering what I'm missing out on with the Herzan.
Herzan/Table Stable "Active" Isolation table.
- Thread starter rockitman
- Start date
Thanks Mike but I ordered the HRS double wide, burl walnut with a couple of custom platforms, one for my SME 30/12 about 2 months ago. It should be just about finished in a week or two. The cost was and is outrageous. I think I'll hold on to it for at least a little while. And probably keep wondering what I'm missing out on with the Herzan.
Hi
Will stab and just sit on the sidelines. I have used the vibraplane under my txt in the past and the differences were not subtle. That "bloated bass" phenomenon was also one of the first I experienced among others. I do remember the vibraplane requiring something sturdy under it . I think the Herzan requires the same and it may work better if It is on the floor .much better coupling, minimum level of extraneous mass and all kind of momentums. As for its effect under electronics ymmv:the differences I experienced with my dac and cd transports were of the kind one can debate only in terms of beliefs . IOW subtle to non perceived.
As for most audiophile racks ... The least I write the more I will remain on topics, suffice to say that their efficaciousness is often suspect. And I find their prices rarely in line with their performance. To me the vibraplanes (there are several) remains one of the best if not the best solution. Ugly as butt but works extremely well. It could be the Herzan works as well Or better. i would like a shoot out between the two.
One more thing many of the better systems here are in a state of flux, it may be god to revisit some products that didn't do in the past. They may show their new colors under Better lights/components/room.
Will stab and just sit on the sidelines. I have used the vibraplane under my txt in the past and the differences were not subtle. That "bloated bass" phenomenon was also one of the first I experienced among others. I do remember the vibraplane requiring something sturdy under it . I think the Herzan requires the same and it may work better if It is on the floor .much better coupling, minimum level of extraneous mass and all kind of momentums. As for its effect under electronics ymmv:the differences I experienced with my dac and cd transports were of the kind one can debate only in terms of beliefs . IOW subtle to non perceived.
As for most audiophile racks ... The least I write the more I will remain on topics, suffice to say that their efficaciousness is often suspect. And I find their prices rarely in line with their performance. To me the vibraplanes (there are several) remains one of the best if not the best solution. Ugly as butt but works extremely well. It could be the Herzan works as well Or better. i would like a shoot out between the two.
One more thing many of the better systems here are in a state of flux, it may be god to revisit some products that didn't do in the past. They may show their new colors under Better lights/components/room.
Beautiful...let us know how it works...I love the HRS nimbus couplers, dampers on lots of my equipment, and the M3 platform under my transport.
But now I'm thinking I could have purchased 3 of the Herzan platforms and an Adona rack for the same price I'm paying for the HRS.
True...then again, I am not aware of anyone who has bought the big HRS rack who has said anything but superlatives...and the ones I know of...they still own years later. That says something to me.
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Frantz- can you clarify your remark about 'bloated bass' -are you suggesting that these active isolation systems cause or minimize bloat?
i'm sure that Frantz will answer you.
but i'd just like to say that 'bloat' is exactly what you do not hear with the very stiff Herzan active isolation. the bloat that Frantz might refer to is the 'overshoot' and 'ringing' from a passive system. since they are passive they don't have any active component to 'stop' the reaction to the input.
i'm sure that passive systems such as the Vibraplane or Minus-K or other 'less stiff' systems vary from implementation to implementation. and then there are varibles in set-up, such as mass loading and such for passive systems.
with my Rockport Sirius III tt which has a system very similar to the Vibraplane, some felt that the bass was a bit soft compared to other vinyl front ends. they pointed at the air bearing tonearm as the reason, but it might also might have been the air suspension. i never felt it was soft myself, but some did. and i can see that a less robust implementation of an air suspension system would tend to go toward a bit of 'bloat'.
i'm not calling Vibraplanes 'bloaty'. only recognizing the difference in 'stopping' ability between active and passive. active can stop. passive must stop by slowing down first in a relative sense. a matter of precision.
btw; this ability to 'stop' and the stiffness and the resulting precision is exactly why active isolation needs a solid rack to be optimal. otherwise the precision is compromised to some degree.
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Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I'd love to hear a shoot out between the two systems utilized under the same gear in the same room and find out the different "sonic signature"of each system
i will also point out that it is the precision of active systems that impart the ease, flow and naturalness to the music. sometimes we see the word precision and think 'harsh' or 'etched' or 'stark'. i think 'right'.
Mike, thanks for your input on this. I would have assumed there would be less bloat from using such a device, but your point about ringing (perhaps resonant frequency, I dunno) sounds right. Right now I'm using only an HRS platform mounted on a massive old chinese mahogany prayer table, but the floor is springy- solved thru judicious use of huge chunks of sorbothane between the feet of the prayer table and the floor. Not ideal, but it works. I plan to take it up a notch in my next room.
Any chance all of those servos are whirring and purring and changing the leveling of the table as the arm is tracking the LP? You are changing the distribution of the mass across the platter as the arm moves across the LP. When you set something like an electron scanning microscope on top of one of those platters, it is a fixed mass vice a moving mass. If this device is as sensitive as claimed, it seems like when in active mode it would be responding to the moving pressure of the tonearm as it traces the grooves across the LP.
in theory, any turntable movement is part of the noise/resonance that needs to be cancelled actively. i have not watched the graphic readout of the 'noise lines' while turning the platter on and off, or while cueing a record....to be able to answer that question. whether the graphic readout would tell you that or not is another question.
in use this is not an issue.
and using the turntable never causes any noise; the noise is only from the leveling process at start-up, not the noise cancelling process. if you accidently bump the shelf top then yes, you get a quick 'whir' while it re-levels.....maybe 2 seconds. it is dead quiet in use. and my room and vinyl system is really really quiet. dead quiet. if there was noise you would hear it.
I attempted to ask Ried this question in an earlier post. It seems to me that a major difference between the lab equipment for which the Herzan was designed and something like a turntable or a CD player is movement from the object being isolated and thus internal vibrations and weight shifting. He did not address this question in his response.
In my passive air isolation unit with active self leveling, the reaction time is about 0.5 seconds when "you accidentally bump the shelf top." Everything I have read seems to indicate that the reaction time of the active systems is much faster than it is in the passive systems, so they must be talking about something else. But if I push down on one of the corners or accidentally bump it, the self leveling takes over and the air pressure immediately (0.5 sec) levels the table top. This condition is not typical during normal use.
Frantz, When you write "bloated bass" do you mean that this was one of the first things you noticed when using a Vibraplane OR was "bloated bass" one of the first things you noticed was absent from the music when you used a Vibraplane? It seems you mean the latter because you later write, "To me the vibraplanes (there are several [models of Vibraplanes]) remains one of the best if not the best solution."
I never heard bloated bass with either of my SME tables, but the addition of a Vibraplane under each did indeed improve bass performance. Bass had more impact, it became better defined and tighter. It had more nuance/texture and it seemed slightly more extended. As many have said before, this improved bass performance greatly effected the other frequencies as well.
A shoot out would be quite interesting. Given the price difference and the technological differences, I'm sure they would effect the sound differently. I presume the Herzan would be more effective at isolating a turntable, but I'd like to hear the differences for myself in a controlled test.
Peter- I asked Frantz the same question a few posts ago- interested to see what he says.
I have already done a shoot out. With the TS-140 active isolation off, the unit performs as a passive device every bit as good as any passive air bladder system available. Going from passive to active on the Herzan is like lifting another layer of fog you didn't even think existed in the first place. It is a significant difference in sound improvement.
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