Do vibrapods/cones et al make any difference to a headphone-based system?

Re: Do vibrapods/cones et al make any difference to a headphone-based system?

What about vibrations from people walking around the house, trucks passing by outside or F-16's buzzing your backyard? Maybe its only me.

I have Stealth fighters buzzing my backyard, but for some reason nobody believes me...

Well, wouldn't the cd spinning mechanism vibrate itself?

Then again you most likely wont even hear a difference anyway...

You did make sure jude was out of earshot before you said that, right?

But yeah, I thought Vibrapods/Sorbothane/etc... were for damping out internal vibrations...

<Wakes up from desk nap....drooling....yech.....>

Huh? What? What're you cats talking about here?

<looks up guiltily>
... uhh... why, nothing... nothing at all...
<slowly backs out of room>

Actually they are supposed to do both but isolation cones are supposed to do a better job of isolating components from outside vibrations. I recently removed all the cones from my headphone system and replaced them with either vibrapods or custom bases made from oak and sorbothane sheet material. So far the result is a big, No SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE ( I am a statistician after all). I will probably put the cones back under the oak bases but just so it will look higher-end

Actually morphsci, Cones change the resonant frequency of a component, soft things like Vibrapods attempt to insulate and absorb vibrations.

Myself? I hear a big diffeerence between cones and pods. I like pods better.

I don't really disagree with you. However, cones and pods have multiple functions. For example while cones may work primarily in resonance control by coupling a component to a larger piece of material such as a shelf or house, it also serves by its shape as a unidirectional transmitter of vibrations. In the same vein a vibrapod or even better a sheet of 50 durometer sorbothane will primarily absorb vibration. However, it will also couple a component to whatever is attached to the other side of the sorbothane and thus by mass loading will also affect the resonance of the component.

Right now I do not hear a big difference but I also seem to prefer the pods and isolation platforms to the cones.

i hear a difference with different footers in my set up, but that's just me. cones/pods/diy treatments can only be really assesed by trial and error - you've kinda just got to try for yourself and see if any differences you hear are worth the money/effort.

read something interesting recently,had to do with taming all internal/external problems.
First off,you need to sart out with a rigid platform,a well built flexi should be enough i think..
Next up is a platform comprised of dissimiliar materials performing multi-functions.Layer of say 1" wood/layer of absorbant material such as closed cell foam bonded to the wood/and another 1" thick layer of wood on top ,also boded.
Then you add some cone feet in a group of three on the bottom point down to couple to the rigid shelf.Another trio of cones are placed point up to couple the CD player or other device to the new platform.Sounds like a melding of all the pros and cons of spikes/or pods.
A DIY solution should not be too hard to implement

What would the rickster do ? I have a thought to make a mini-isolation-platform for a portable cd player using a similiar but different model.How about a couple of those steel plates from home depot that are used to cover an electrical junction box,about 5X5 in size and painted black.
Between them glue a nice thick mousepad (trim the edges once dry) and then use the smallest tip toes .Put the PCDP on this and finish off with some added "mass" to the top of the CDP,a small sandbag,brass weight,whatever you can use without collapsing the lid.
Then again,maybe i am crazy

ricker,

Now that's an interesting idea, man. If you do anything like this, please post pics. This I'd have to see.