Damping blocks

[Phil Bishop]

Hi,

Anyone played around with damping blocks on top of components, particularly CD players? Do they really work? I have tried housebrick on isonodes (damn ugly), granite on isonodes, wood blocks and, the latest, a rubber dive brick! Do they make a difference or is it just a case of autosuggestion - physical weight adds weight to sound? I think there is much more to this vibration control than immediately apparent.

Thanks

Phil

[Filterlab]

I've always found that a very solid plinth under speakers (or stands) works wonders. As far as components go all the ones I've had have differed over the years. The MF stuff seems to favour a very hard spiky method of support whilst the Jap stuff seems to like squidgy support.

Never placed anything on top of anything though, too fond of unscratched hi-fi.

[DSJR]

Depends on the gear. Naim make huge play of isolating the circuit panels inside yet for over twenty years the outer shell of the CB and Olive amps used to ring like a bell, despite a damping strip which never stayed in place..

A mate of mine fixed his CD transport using black-tac to a slate or stone slab cut to size and claimed improved performance and apparently the Cambridge 840C benefits from some internal damping.

[Phil Bishop]

Folks, I was thinking more about damping on top of components. There are sites in the states that use custom blocks of wood and also the USAs "Bright Star" organisation who market isonodes also sell Big Rock, Little Rock, etc which are designed to sandwich components and damp them - too expensive to send to UK unfortunately.

[Steve Toy]

In many applications I would expect something that grounds vibrations like Still Points would be more effective than damping, i.e: simply storing the unwanted energy.

Jeremy Baldwin of The Right Note demonstrated the effectiveness of the grounding method by removing a single Still Point placed under a CD player - the lovely Gamut CD3, at the last Heathrow show in March. There was no heckling in the audience by the Simple Simons of this world either.

[Filterlab]

...There was no heckling in the audience by the Simple Simons of this world either.

So they could hear the difference.

[Steve Toy]

Interestingly, since the shameful events at the Manchester show in the Audio Works room when Simple Simon was duly dispatched, he has since discovered the effects of microphony for himself. It began with a phonostage... There is a thread on pfm somewhere on this very issue.

[Filterlab]

LOL! That monkey.

[Steve Toy]

I've found the thread. sq + random number sequence is your heckler from the Manchester show.

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/s...ght=microphony

[Filterlab]

Interesting thread, and SQ certainly now agrees with the effects of microphony. I'm still not convinced that solid state components with no moving parts are really that affected to any major degree (although in no way unaffected). Conversely I've noticed minute differences when my DAC has been placed on different surfaces, but not the amp, and I've tried that with all sorts of fandango. Definitely for me spikes work the best on the whole, and the concept of sending vibration to a grounding point is not lost on me either. I guess it'll always be one man's mess is another's masterpiece.

On another note, I must say that Pink fish has a very dull colour palette, turquoise and white, mmmm - no pink at all though, weird.