Vibration Management

[stehno]

No disrespect John, but tbh your offer of getting involved was really a bit of a tease, mirage at best, total waste of my time at worst
All I was saying was that in my investigations so far, Stacore was a likely contender to get my hard-earned
Jarek fully understands that his device is up against already established heavywt contenders in Minus K and Herzan, and didn't cry things off
If you really think I would buy into anything like yr concept and product w'out comparing it against anything else, you really didn't think it thru
You come online pretty much castigating other vibration management issues as being wrong headed, inferior, and that your's has amazing effects, boosting performance up the scale
As people like me show interest, you drop some clues as to yr approach, and then tell us you're not even in current manufacture
And as I show continued interest but inform you of the fact that my preference up to this point had been established brands (and a new one, Stacore), you bow out
Puh-lease!
Thank you SO much for volunteering not to waste my time further

Duly noted, Marc.

FWIW, even before sending me your pics, I had concerns to engage you further. But I chose to use your previous pole position comment as sufficient reason to politely bow out.

BTW, If somebody like myself does not castigate vibration isolationists for being as you say "wrong headed", who might you recommend? Or perhaps you prefer I say nothing at all. And if indeed they are "wrong headed" and nobody says anything, how is anybody truly benefited?

 

[stehno]

I may be misunderstanding Stehno, but I do not think his clamping system is primarily for damping a ringing component chassis. I think it is more about providing an optimal interface or conduit through which internally generated vibrational energy can most efficiently leave a chassis and travel away into some mass sink like a concrete floor system. He is essentially soft welding the metal chassis to a metal clamp to improve the contact for energy transmission. If you look at his rack, it appears to have clamps near the perimeter of the top plate where most chassis are already pretty rigid. The bottom plate makes contact with the rack near the center of the component where transformers are located. If damping were the only concern, that could be accomplished by simply placing weight on the top of a component. The clamps are doing that but a lot more too.

BTW, Peter, for the most part you summarized things quite well.

 

[microstrip]

Thank you, much appreciated! We're working on several very interesting projects but a little mystery makes life so much more interesting doesn't it?

Yes, particularly as you are working in a mysterious area - streaming bits. Apparently you can only play in the timing and noise zones, I can not understand how you can control (and by this I mean systematically manipulate) sound quality just controlling vibrations of a digital server. But it is just one more of the many areas that are not scientifically understood in the high-end - I am reading your posts with great expectation.

 

[stehno]

So you are talking airborne vibration here, in which case an isolation device will obviously not work, unless it’s a soundproof cabinet you put the gear in. And I presume you are also talking vibration generated within the component itself, such as coming from a transformer or vibrating coils (coil whine). However, transformers and coils can be decoupled and/or damped.

So you're saying the isolation method is only good for the infrequent parties and heavy-set people dancing in front of sensitive TT? If so, I'll go along with that. But again, that's shock and impact and I assumed this thread was about alternative forms of vibration mgmt.

That aside, for air-borne vibrations you propose a solution of a sound proof booth. And for internally-generated vibrations you propose decoupling transformers and coils.

Is that it? What about all the other electrical wires and parts vibrating while current is flowing through them? And since you've now successfully decoupled any power supplies, coils, and say motors too, now that you've also successfully trapped all vibrations within those power supplies, coils, and motors how perverted and distorted has their performance become as a direct result of their now receiving the full brunt of the vibrations they themselves have generated?

And exactly for that I’d like to see some hard evidence: do parts of audio components vibrate when being exposed to airborne vibrations? The Doppler vibrometer will easily tell you. And if they do, does that have an effect on the sound? A controlled listening test will easily tell you.

Well, I never said air-borne vibrations cause internal wires and electrical parts to vibrate. But I just assume with your obviously vast knowledge you already know they vibrate and why.

Do these vibrating parts have any affect on sound? Well, clearly we have some really intelligent people here and elsewhere spending their entire lifetimes attempting to minimize some negative affect on sound, especially by isolation. I just assumed you were also on this same page.

A controlled listening test will easily tell? Whose ears do you recommend for that task? Shouldn't some sensitive measuring instrument be able to tell us whether the quality of sound is impacted by vibrating parts?

In cases where structural vibrations creeping up your rack into the turntable are the only source of vibration, isolating the TT is enough. Optical tables do just that. The allegation that airborne vibrations and vibration generated by the component itself are harmful still needs to be proven by hard evidence. So far I haven’t seen any.

In cases where structural vibrations creep up? For the isolationist, when are there cases they do not? I thought vibrations creeping up was the whole purpose for the vibration isolationist's existence? Perhaps you have confused me with a vibration isolationist as I never mention vibrations creeping up my rack. This is another falacy of the isolationist. It is the lightning rod that captures unwanted energy and redirects downward via grounding wire and spike. To the contrary, as one who adhere's to enery transfer, I propose vibrations are traveling downward from the component. But I can see why you think that may be impossible since your isolation method traps all vibrations already captured at the component.

You haven't seen any hard evidence of air-borne and internally-generated vibrations affecting our components' performance? How long have you been looking?

You seem intent to keep the sources of vibration seperate and now seem to suggest that some sources of resonant energy are relevant to quality of sound while other sources of resonant energy are irrelevant. Whereas, I've always been under the impression that resonant energy's distortive harm is indisciminant regardless of its source once its captured at / in the chassis. How about you provide some hard evidence to substantiate your claim that some resonant energy types are benign while others are harmful?

During my college time I lived in an old house with wooden floor, the cartridge was jumping all over the place when I moved, so I provided cheap (DIY) but effective mechanical decoupling. Why other people do other things when confronted with the same problem, you should ask these other people.

Klaus

No doubt. I suspect it's shock and impact experiences like this that lead many to believe they are now vibration experts.
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BTW, you neglected to answer my four rather simple questions below. Perhaps you'd like to take a stab them here?

1) As one committed 100% to mechanical enery transfer, I use hard rigid materials and designs only and all tightly coupled. Why would a true isolationist (is there any other kind?) use even a single piece of material that was harder or more rigid than say Sorbathane? And why would they have even one connection fastened tightly?

2) If as the isolationist says, the floor-borne vibrations induce the most harm and that's what we need to protect our sensitive components from it, why do their solutions not follow their mindset? If I wanted to severe / decouple any electricity from reaching a lamp's light buib, I'd cut the electrical wire and I'm done. What's so difficult to understand and how much science is required to make that happen?

3) Water is intended to exit out of the bathtub's drain. Let's say you had sewage water coming up out of your bathtub's drain so you wedge a rubber stopper in there to prevent that from happening. Then your 3-year-old turns on the bathtub faucet? Where's that water from the faucet going and what will happen to that bathtub?

4) You're at a stoplight and suddenly your stomach wrenches with vibration as is your entire car. It's the car behind you with his four 18-inch subwoofers cranked. You look in your rearview mirror to identify the culprit, but the mirror is vibrating so violently, it's all just one big blur. From whence are the vibrations entering your car?​

 

[Stacore]

I think the whole intellectual struggle here is centered around airborne vs structure-borne.

From my experience with mostly structure borne isolation, I can only say a proper one can bring
a component to the next level. This can be understood logically as all the structural materials
(wood, concrete,metals etc) are much better transmitters than the air.
BTW our platforms can also deal with airborne vibrations -- we extensively
use CLD (constrained layer damping). If the component can be coupled rigidly enough to our platform,
it will work wonderfully. That's why I'm so attracted by the clamping/bolting ideas.

One more point with the "mechanical diode" and like ideas as they seem to surface
here and there: There is no such thing. If vibrations can go one way, they can go the other too.
Electrical diode works because there are two electrical charges: + and -.
There are no "vibrational charges".

Cheers,

 

[KlausR.]

What about all the other electrical wires and parts vibrating while current is flowing through them?

And the evidence for this allegation can be found where?

Without evidence such statements are just opinions, not facts, and the fact that 1000 people have the same opinion does not turn it into fact.

Do these vibrating parts have any affect on sound? Well, clearly we have some really intelligent people here and elsewhere spending their entire lifetimes attempting to minimize some negative affect on sound, especially by isolation. I just assumed you were also on this same page.

Did all these really intelligent people provide real evidence, by which I do not mean sighted, hence biased, listening?

A controlled listening test will easily tell? Whose ears do you recommend for that task? Shouldn't some sensitive measuring instrument be able to tell us whether the quality of sound is impacted by vibrating parts?

Since we all hear differently and have different thresholds of perception it should be panel of trained listeners. A measurement can tell you about sound quality only if you establish a solid correlation between what you measure and what you hear. Without such correlation a measurement, any measurement, won’t tell you anything at all re: audible effects.

You haven't seen any hard evidence of air-borne and internally-generated vibrations affecting our components' performance? How long have you been looking?

I could have been looking not long enough, or in the wrong places, of course. But if there was hard evidence, why would proponents of the vibration-is-bad point of view NOT bring this evidence forward ? In this thread some of few folks participating have industry affiliation, why would they hide (knowledge of) such evidence if that evidence was in their favour?

BTW, you neglected to answer my four rather simple questions below. Perhaps you'd like to take a stab them here?

I did post answers to 1 and 2.

3) Water is intended to exit out of the bathtub's drain. Let's say you had sewage water coming up out of your bathtub's drain so you wedge a rubber stopper in there to prevent that from happening. Then your 3-year-old turns on the bathtub faucet? Where's that water from the faucet going and what will happen to that bathtub?

The bathtub stopper is the impedance mismatch at the interface of your vibration drain. The water will not go down the drain, but will remain in the tub, as is your vibrational energy which will be reflected at this interface. Obviously you are free to ignore the laws of physics but they will continue to work without your permission.

I skip no. 4. The moment I see hard evidence that vibrating parts of components do harm to our cherished sound waves hitting our eardrums I might consider taking action. Note that it’s the salesman who has to convince ME, it’s not me who has to convince HIM.

 

[Stacore]

One more thing:

John's theories about his rack system IMHO can be actually easily checked by any vibration lab:
Chasing vibration propagation in all possible structures is their daily job. I'm not an instrumental specialist,
so take this with a grain of salt: Cover the rack with accelerometers (it is the art of how to place them to see what you need to),
hit the clamped test component with a very light impulse hammer and see how the vibrations propagate. With some post processing,
you will even get an animated movie with the movements corresponding to the vibrational modes.
One will be able to l see if indeed the vibrations are drained away from a given component by the rack.
One can then reverse the process and hit the floor to see how the vibs go up the rack.

Having said that, I am personally a "sonic result freak": If the thing works sonically for me then this is what matters.
Whatever technology and whatever mental picture one has behind it.

Cheers,

 

[stehno]

I think the whole intellectual struggle here is centered around airborne vs structure-borne.

Not quite.

From my experience with mostly structure borne isolation, I can only say a proper one can bring
a component to the next level. This can be understood logically as all the structural materials
(wood, concrete,metals etc) are much better transmitters than the air.
BTW our platforms can also deal with airborne vibrations -- we extensively
use CLD (constrained layer damping). If the component can be coupled rigidly enough to our platform,
it will work wonderfully. That's why I'm so attracted by the clamping/bolting ideas.

If you tightly / rigidly couple the component to your platform, would you not consider this the beginning stages of migrating away from the isolation methodology?

One more point with the "mechanical diode" and like ideas as they seem to surface
here and there: There is no such thing. If vibrations can go one way, they can go the other too.
Electrical diode works because there are two electrical charges: + and -.
There are no "vibrational charges".

Cheers,

I've never said it's one way only. Of course it's a two-way path. But it's one way starting at the source where the bulk of energy has congregated. To you it's essentially one direciton and to me it's essentially the opposite direction.

 

[stehno]

One more thing:

John's theories about his rack system IMHO can be actually easily checked by any vibration lab:
Chasing vibration propagation in all possible structures is their daily job. I'm not an instrumental specialist,
so take this with a grain of salt: Cover the rack with accelerometers (it is the art of how to place them to see what you need to),
hit the clamped test component with a very light impulse hammer and see how the vibrations propagate. With some post processing,
you will even get an animated movie with the movements corresponding to the vibrational modes.
One will be able to l see if indeed the vibrations are drained away from a given component by the rack.
One can then reverse the process and hit the floor to see how the vibs go up the rack.

Having said that, I am personally a "sonic result freak": If the thing works sonically for me then this is what matters.
Whatever technology and whatever mental picture one has behind it.

Cheers,

Jarek, personally I could care less what's happening at the rack structure. Whether the accelerometer reading are going off the chart or flat-lined, perhaps that's just an indication the rack is doing its job. What I care about is what's happening at the sensitive component. And I suspect even taking readings at the sensitive component can only give a tiny glimpse of what's really happening everywhere within and throughout. Moreover, I suspect even light taps with an impulse hammer is borderline shock and impact.

A sonic freak, eh? Where's the frickin' science there? Where's somebody like Klaus when I so desperately need him? I'm just kidding of course. Assuming we have sufficiently trained ears and using intimately familiar reference material and given the alternatives available today, I cannot think of a better way. And frankly, I'm relieved to hear you say that.

Jerek, with all due respect I've been intentionally vague in these last few responses to you. Additionally, there still remain a few key aspects I've not shared anywhere. I failed in my attempt to take my product to market but that's not to say I'm not considering options to do so again.

IOW, I do not intend to help another make money at something I've spent years developing, especially one who adhere's to the isolation methodology. But if per chance your pursuit is to design far and away the absolute best performing "isolation-based" product in the market bar none, shoot me a pm and perhaps we can do business.

 

[Stacore]

If you tightly / rigidly couple the component to your platform, would you not consider this the beginning stages of migrating away from the isolation methodology?

As I said, I'm sonic result oriented, and not methodology oriented. Let me also repeat that I see no
reasons why one should choose either isolation or drainage and not both.

IOW, I do not intend to help another make money at something I've spent years developing, especially one who adhere's to the isolation methodology. But if per chance your pursuit is to design far and away the absolute best performing "isolation-based" product in the market bar none, shoot me a pm and perhaps we can do business.

Thank you John, let's see what the future brings us

Cheers,

 

[FrantzM]

Jarek, personally I could care less what's happening at the rack structure. Whether the accelerometer reading are going off the chart or flat-lined, perhaps that's just an indication the rack is doing its job. What I care about is what's happening at the sensitive component. And I suspect even taking readings at the sensitive component can only give a tiny glimpse of what's really happening everywhere within and throughout. Moreover, I suspect even light taps with an impulse hammer is borderline shock and impact.

A sonic freak, eh? Where's the frickin' science there? Where's somebody like Klaus when I so desperately need him? I'm just kidding of course. Assuming we have sufficiently trained ears and using intimately familiar reference material and given the alternatives available today, I cannot think of a better way. And frankly, I'm relieved to hear you say that.

Jerek, with all due respect I've been intentionally vague in these last few responses to you. Additionally, there still remain a few key aspects I've not shared anywhere. I failed in my attempt to take my product to market but that's not to say I'm not considering options to do so again.

IOW, I do not intend to help another make money at something I've spent years developing, especially one who adhere's to the isolation methodology. But if per chance your pursuit is to design far and away the absolute best performing "isolation-based" product in the market bar none, shoot me a pm and perhaps we can do business.

An understatement... So far not much in the way of facts either.. But we are in High End Audio: facts are not always welcome.

 

[Stacore]

(I'm sorry, when I try editing posts on my mobile I end up deleting them; so I repeat the last one)

Marketing and sales issues apart, let me defend John a bit. Not actually John himself, I don't think he needs it,
but some phenomenon: The inability to present a right mental picture behind an idea and inability to communicate it
clearly to the community, does not invalidate the idea itself. I have met quite a few top rank scientists, including Nobel Prize ones,
who speak such a mumbo jumbo that its hard to believe what you are hearing. I've been working with one of the founding
fathers of quantum information science and his mumbo jumbo is just outstanding (he knows it so will not be offended)
To continue the thought: Audio is an experimental activity. At the end, sonic results are what matter, not metal pictures.

I'm personally quite attracted by such skeleton support constructions, but as I explained earlier in this thread, IMHO they are not
optimal if isolation is involved (this does not apply to the clamping/bolting).

Cheers,

 

[PeterA]

As I said, I'm sonic result oriented, and not methodology oriented. Let me also repeat that I see no
reasons why one should choose either isolation or drainage and not both.

Both are involved in my turntable solution. Certain circumstances may dictate that the combination of both offers the best results. I think it all depends on the given conditions and what one is trying to achieve.

It would be great if one could come up with a way to drain all internally generated vibrations and to also prevent all external vibrations from ever reaching the component in the first place.

 

[Stacore]

I'm very much attracted by the bolting idea.
To use our CLD and quality mass both ways: prevent from outside and drain the inside. No problem for us to drill our top plates, install threaded inserts and design bolts to hard-couple a component. This will be of course component-specific due to the holes placement but in principle we can do that.

Cheers,

 

[DaveC]

(I'm sorry, when I try editing posts on my mobile I end up deleting them; so I repeat the last one)

Marketing and sales issues apart, let me defend John a bit. Not actually John himself, I don't think he needs it,
but some phenomenon: The inability to present a right mental picture behind an idea and inability to communicate it
clearly to the community, does not invalidate the idea itself. I have met quite a few top rank scientists, including Nobel Prize ones,
who speak such a mumbo jumbo that its hard to believe what you are hearing. I've been working with one of the founding
fathers of quantum information science and his mumbo jumbo is just outstanding (he knows it so will not be offended)
To continue the thought: Audio is an experimental activity. At the end, sonic results are what matter, not metal pictures.

I'm personally quite attracted by such skeleton support constructions, but as I explained earlier in this thread, IMHO they are not
optimal if isolation is involved (this does not apply to the clamping/bolting).

Cheers,

I agree, too often we conflate the person with the idea and judge on it's presentation. We also tend to make up our minds and form strong opinions given inadequate evidence. Keeping an open mind is a much more scientific approach when things aren't black and white imo. In this specific case I think it's impossible to form opinions on what sounds best without experience. I've personally heard isolation and coupling sound both horrible and excellent in different circumstances.

 

[stehno]

(I'm sorry, when I try editing posts on my mobile I end up deleting them; so I repeat the last one)

Marketing and sales issues apart, let me defend John a bit. Not actually John himself, I don't think he needs it,
but some phenomenon: The inability to present a right mental picture behind an idea and inability to communicate it
clearly to the community, does not invalidate the idea itself. I have met quite a few top rank scientists, including Nobel Prize ones,
who speak such a mumbo jumbo that its hard to believe what you are hearing. I've been working with one of the founding
fathers of quantum information science and his mumbo jumbo is just outstanding (he knows it so will not be offended)
To continue the thought: Audio is an experimental activity. At the end, sonic results are what matter, not metal pictures.

I'm personally quite attracted by such skeleton support constructions, but as I explained earlier in this thread, IMHO they are not
optimal if isolation is involved (this does not apply to the clamping/bolting).

Cheers,

Thanks, Jarek.

BTW, I mis-spoke earlier. I incorrectly said I never claimed vibrations travel one way only when in an earlier post I said exactly that. That mechanical energy, like electricity, is always seeking the most expedient path of least resistance to ground. But I suspect mechanical energy doesn't have quite the umph or push that electricity has. That's really just a guess that in the end doesn't matter all that much so long as I'm able to get them to the floor.

IOW, I agree that any type of mechanical conduit has the potential for 2-way traffic just like an electrical wire has 2-way potential. Hopefully, I didn't imply there's a traffic cop prohibiting mechanical energy from going in alternate directions. To the best of my knowledge the energy is simply traveling away from its source and down toward the floor as it travels further from the source. Which to me seems natural enough.

IOW, I suspect the sensitive component attracting unwanted energy just like a lightning rod now becomes the new source of mechanical energy and starts its travel from there which implies heading south in my case. And like the lightning rod attracting unwanted energy there's little I can do to prevent the capture of ALL sources of mechanical energy at the component. But there's much I can do to redirect it once captured. Which is the entire purpose of the lightning rod's grounding wire or in the component's case, the rack. Anyway, that's my take.

 

[stehno]

I'm very much attracted by the bolting idea.
To use our CLD and quality mass both ways: prevent from outside and drain the inside. No problem for us to drill our top plates, install threaded inserts and design bolts to hard-couple a component. This will be of course component-specific due to the holes placement but in principle we can do that.

Cheers,

Jarek, I don't know the first specific thing about your CLD product. That said and on its face, my suspicion is even if you used a vastly superior means of tightly coupling the sensitive instrument to the CLD, (which IMO is a form of resonance energy transfer), aside from perhaps some / few minor benefits or gains by some potentially improved damping, there should be little else in the way of improvements.

My guess, given the constraints I suspect you're up against, it's not worth your effort. But I'd love to hear about the results if you do.

 

[stehno]

An understatement... So far not much in the way of facts either.. ....

To the best of my knowledge and for the most, I'm all alone in my research, designs, exeuctions, principles, and experiments. So with all due respect I'm curious how somebody like yourself might know too.

Per chance, do you work for the NSA?

 

[thedudeabides]

What you have posted to date certainly lacks any credibility given your insistence on secrecy and ambiguities.

So for you to criticize Frantz, myself or others as a direct result of your intentional obfuscations is, at best, hypocritical and dishonest.

Frantz work for the NSA? Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

 

[stehno]

What you have posted to date certainly lacks any credibility given your insistence on secrecy and ambiguities.

So for you to criticize Frantz, myself or others as a direct result of your intentional obfuscations is, at best, hypocritical and dishonest.

Frantz work for the NSA? Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The NSA comment was tongue-in-cheek, silly goose. As for me criticizing you? Well, to be frank I don't think I've yet seen anything worth my while. Even though for some reason you keep poking me every now and again.