Tuberoller
Divorced an Orpheus to keep his wife.
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2001
- Posts
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I had the opportunity when I was at an audio show recently to see a line of audio racks that I thought were really nice looking and super sturdy considering they had to be assembled.After a loooong wait from Audio Advisor I finally got my Vantage Point Solus 5 shelf rack.I actually bought this with the intention of using it for some of my vintage gear but it will see use in my Kid's room for her tubed system.The abuse that her gear sees is a test for anything electronic.She does'nt actually abuse things,she just uses them to death.she never shuts anything off and all her gear is subjected to the constant vibrations and jolts of her dancing and jumping around her room.When she said she wanted an all tube system I tried to discourage her and explain that this may not be the best system for her.She came up with her half of the cost of the gear so I complied and coughed up the gear.She now has an ASL tube system and her own SACD player and turntable.I just didn't see this woking in the environment that it was going in and looked to come up with some effective ways of isolating her gear.In my basement listening room all my gear is mounted on a solid steel fully welded rack,bolted to the walls.The main turntable is now placed on an air suspension on a wall mounted bracket.I live in an old brick Bungalow and the floors in my basement are tile over cement.Vibration is not a real problem for me in that room.My kid's room is on the second floor.The walls are all plaster and the floors are hardwood.There are no carpets in the house.I decided to isolate the table with a Target wall bracket.I used a heavy wooden butcher block and a Sorbothane sheet to dampen the table and bracket.I have seen heavy sheets of granite used for this but I thought the hard maple looked better.I placed the Wav8 amps and AQ2004 preamp on a top of a plank of 3/4" MDF which sits on a partially deflated 16" bicycle tire tube.The Advent receiver and Sony DVD/SACD player are both placed on heavy sheets of MDF damped by bicycle tubes as well but are futher damped by two bags(25lbs each) of lead shot placed on top of each unit.The lead shot effectively lowers the frequency at which the tube and MDF platform vibrates.All this was placed on the Vantage Point rack which was filled with sand and further damped/braced by four bags of lead shot on the bottom shelf.The speakers are placed on Atacama steel stands filled with lead shot and isolated with cone feet and a sheet of sorbothane on the mounting base.I know these are extreme measures but I have found sonic benefit here as well.This system has a much more silent backround than it did before placing it in her room.These measures have held up well and I can report that the turntable has not skipped yet and the tubes have survived so far(three weeks).
I decided that since these tweaks had worked so well in the crazy environment of my daughter's room I would try some on my main system to see where I might make some sonic improvements.I figured the tube amps or preamp might benfit the most.I tried the MDF/bicycle tube tweak with no luck.The amps are already sitting on butcher blocks so maybe I was going in the wrong direction.I tried each tweak seperately to no great effect.I figured my sytem was pretty much tweaked well enough and then tried the sorbothane sheets on the tubed gear and heard no improvements.To my suprise the one piece of gear that did benefit from the damping of the MDF/tube was the Headroom Max amp.Don't laugh,but I have a noisey tiolet in my basement that causes a weird resonance through the Max while the tank is filling,I can also sometimes hear outside sounds amplified through the Max.This is not a big problem but happens often enough that I was looking for a way to stop it.I placed the Max on a smaller plank of MDF with a small tube and a sheet of sorbothane directly underneath the amp and placed one bag of shot on top.No more toilet noise,no more noise from the headphone cable rubbing,no more outside noises amplified.this made a big difference in my opinion and I think that damping and isolation should at least be tried in your systems.
I decided that since these tweaks had worked so well in the crazy environment of my daughter's room I would try some on my main system to see where I might make some sonic improvements.I figured the tube amps or preamp might benfit the most.I tried the MDF/bicycle tube tweak with no luck.The amps are already sitting on butcher blocks so maybe I was going in the wrong direction.I tried each tweak seperately to no great effect.I figured my sytem was pretty much tweaked well enough and then tried the sorbothane sheets on the tubed gear and heard no improvements.To my suprise the one piece of gear that did benefit from the damping of the MDF/tube was the Headroom Max amp.Don't laugh,but I have a noisey tiolet in my basement that causes a weird resonance through the Max while the tank is filling,I can also sometimes hear outside sounds amplified through the Max.This is not a big problem but happens often enough that I was looking for a way to stop it.I placed the Max on a smaller plank of MDF with a small tube and a sheet of sorbothane directly underneath the amp and placed one bag of shot on top.No more toilet noise,no more noise from the headphone cable rubbing,no more outside noises amplified.this made a big difference in my opinion and I think that damping and isolation should at least be tried in your systems.
