novel tone controls

[monya]

Was invited last week to assess some new equipment feet from Synergistic Research. Called MiG footers and looking like Acoustic Art Satellites, they are placed under hardware as 2 facing up, 1 facing down arrangement. That they alter the sound is undeniable to me, whether it's an improvement is clearly system dependent.
However, this led me to further experiment with my own Stillpoints under the cdp. Having inverted one of them I was gobsmacked by the change in sound, mostly for the better. The bummer is that one can clearly hear changes when they are moved around under the equipment, usually related to the 'weight' of the sound.
I wondered if many folk bother to shift around OEM feet to find a preferred position as to what sounds 'right' for them. I can honestly say that differences are as great as a change of hardware in some cases.
Then of course you may prefer a different arrangement for each disc.
Strange - I can see a bloke with a white coat coming up the path....

[John]

Good isolation can make a difference I do not really see as tone control but just getting the best out your system.
There seems to be no rules to what works and what does not.
Isolation under my copper DAC and power amp I cannot hear any difference Under the Balanced mains transformer it makes a big difference and under the plate amps I can hear a difference too.
For myself I see it more as icing rather than get it right first

[1ryal]

I've been pursuing some isolation based tomfoolery recently also, and found similar effects.

I've swapped the quadraspire qx25s under my Sugden Masterclass CDP to Stands unique Carbon fiber jobbies and felt that the weight of presentation had changed.
Certainly more punch and a more clearly defined bass lines. Not sure if its better or worse, but a change of tonality never the less

[Primalsea]

Here's something to think about if you want to play about and tweak a little. Optimal vibration dampening is tailored to the frequency of the vibration and the force applied to it. The vibration bit is easy to understand and in theory any hifi product should be designed for the frequencies of interest.

If you think about a piece of hifi equipment it does not have even weight distribution. they tend to be heaviest where the transformers are. In theory you should get best results by grouping the supports so that you have more where the transformers are and less in the others areas.