Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?

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InfernoSTi

What are people's experience with vibration control under your Ubers (or other PI Audio equipment) and what did you try?  If you found something you liked, I'd like to hear about it. 

As a note, I have been playing with vibration control with all my equipment from DAC to pre amp to amp to speakers.  I've tried things from maple platforms of various thicknesses to bamboo platforms to Herbies Audio Lab products (a variety) to Stillpoints.  I find that some things don't make a difference while others make a noticeable change while other things still (or the combination of things) make a noticeable improvement.

In other words it has been a bit of the game of Battleship with vibration control (hit and miss). 

My next round of experiments will involve single digit seismic isolation (i.e. roller ball for horizontal and perhaps low resonant air for vertical).  If nothing else this is giving me something to study and play with rather than buying new equipment! 

But for this post, I'm really interested in hearing if folks find there is a benefit or not to vibration control under your Ubers...

John

Big Red Machine

I heard it in 2014 and again this year at Axpona and was shocked :scratch: to hear it, but Nordost Sort cones under a power strip improved the sound.  I now have them under my Audio Magic XXX unit and my amps. Every edge I can get......

Tomy2Tone

I heard it in 2014 and again this year at Axpona and was shocked :scratch: to hear it, but Nordost Sort cones under a power strip improved the sound.  I now have them under my Audio Magic XXX unit and my amps. Every edge I can get......

Which variation of the Sort cones do you use? AS,AC,BC...please say their not the TC.  :o

And is this on a rack or platform or the floor?

dpatters

I have Herbies tenderfeet and some of his other stuff under all of my components and I use the decoupling gliders under the spikes of my speakers.
My Uber is sitting directly on the floor behind my rack.  I never really thought about footers for it but since the Herbies feet are relatively affordable
I'll think I'll give it a try.  Interested to hear from others on this topic.

Don P.

mresseguie

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John,

It never occurred to me to try anything like this with my UberBUSS, but I'll try different things over the next couple weeks. I can't say my ears are the most sensitive, but I'll give it a shot. I've got Golden Sound Black ceramic thingies. [I know 'thingies' may be too technical a name, but simply calling them 'ceramic bullets' might be too descriptive.]  :lol: I've also got some closed cell foam, a granite slab, and some damping material leftover from my auto sound damping project that are all worth trying.

Michael

Tomy2Tone

I have Herbies tenderfeet and some of his other stuff under all of my components and I use the decoupling gliders under the spikes of my speakers.
My Uber is sitting directly on the floor behind my rack.  I never really thought about footers for it but since the Herbies feet are relatively affordable
I'll think I'll give it a try.  Interested to hear from others on this topic.

Don P.

I have Herbies everywhere too including some tenderfeet under my Uber but its sitting directly on the floor. I have a maple platform I was going to try putting it on and see what it does.

I started out with tenderfeet under all my amps/dac/pre but have slowly migrated to iso cups w/sonic hardballs.

Big Red Machine

Which variation of the Sort cones do you use? AS,AC,BC...please say their not the TC.  :o

And is this on a rack or platform or the floor?

AC units and they were still pricey. I'm using some slabs of wood right now under components in this makeshift set-up.

Don't forget, Herbie's rubber products do something entirely different than a Sort Kone. Herbie's isolate and Sort Kones dissipate.

dpatters

I'd like to try The Nordost cones or the stillpoints but I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of $$$ :o

Big Red Machine

I'd like to try The Nordost cones or the stillpoints but I just can't bring myself to spend that kind of $$$ :o

Totally agree but after the second year in a row hearing the improvement in the demos I made a snap decision, whipped out my cc, and never looked back.  Bought 9 of those dudes. :oops:

Tomy2Tone

Bought 9 of those dudes. :oops:

Doh!  :o

Well I just placed an order for 4 of them from Music Direct. With their 60 day policy I figured it was worth a try. At least they're cheaper than Stillpoints...

dpatters

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #10 on: 24 Jun 2015, 06:51 pm »
Eager to hear your impressions.  Maybe you could compare the sortcones to the herbies footers. Then I'll
hope you say you couldn't tell the difference :lol: I'm hoping to avoid the "whipping out of the credit card"!!

Big Red Machine

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #11 on: 24 Jun 2015, 07:49 pm »
Doh!  :o

Well I just placed an order for 4 of them from Music Direct. With their 60 day policy I figured it was worth a try. At least they're cheaper than Stillpoints...

PM TomS about Stillpoints and his speakers.  We were both having vibration-reducing moments at Axpona and quivering about the costs. ugh

dBe

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Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #12 on: 24 Jun 2015, 08:55 pm »
Well, of course it does since everything effects everything else.  Questions are: is it audible ; bad ; good ; a lateral change , or what?  Mechanical grounding (points, etc) give much different results depending upon system synergy.  I chose the rubber footers that I use now because they did no harm and are readily available.

The people at Stillpoints are good people from my experience.

Herbie's goodies work well, too.

Time to dive into the goodie box of forgotten tweaks and see if there is anything in there, eh?

Big Red Machine

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #13 on: 25 Jun 2015, 12:32 am »
Hey Dave!

gagamut

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #14 on: 25 Jun 2015, 02:21 am »
Hi,

recently my net friend told me to try following:http://www.taica.co.jp/gel-english/products/product/geltape.html,we call GEL chips.i use 4 GEL chips GC8 under the plaform,i find a great result,it's not expensive,it's worth to try. :D

InfernoSTi

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #15 on: 25 Jun 2015, 03:30 am »
Thanks everyone for your ideas, suggestions, experiences and comments. 

I've put some Herbie's tenderfeet under one Uberbuss and regular gliders under the other Uberbuss (it has spikes) now and am liking the results.  Of course I can't wrap my mind around how it could possibly make a difference but I'm happy enough to leave them in place.   For the price, I'm satisfied.

John

dBe

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Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #16 on: 25 Jun 2015, 03:41 am »
Hey Dave!
Howdy, Pete.  How goes life??  Thanks for the input.
« Last Edit: 25 Jun 2015, 04:53 am by dBe »

DaveBSC

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Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #17 on: 25 Jun 2015, 06:36 pm »
I highly recommend EdenSound Terrastone platforms and isolators. Much more effective than maple platforms, much more affordable than the carbon fiber stuff. Really great. Symposium is very good too.






Big Red Machine

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #18 on: 25 Jun 2015, 06:56 pm »
Of course I can't wrap my mind around how it could possibly make a difference but I'm happy enough to leave them in place.   

Yeah, when I apply my engineering thinking and vibration experiences, I can rationalize that energy and vibration go hand in hand, but at these small levels all I can conclude is that our electronics and ears are much more sensitive than we casually appreciate until we reach a system level performance where we can notice such things.  Maybe....sorta....

Tomy2Tone

Re: Vibration Control: Does it Make a Difference with an Uberbuss?
« Reply #19 on: 29 Jun 2015, 03:59 pm »
I received the Nordost AC sort kones over the weekend and had a chance to mess around with the Uberbuss and Busstop as well as some other equipment. I've been having my buss's with Herbies tenderfeet sitting directly on a carpeted floor and wanted to try out one of my maple platforms I have that are intended for some future monoblocks I got coming. The platform already has some Herbie decoupling spikes underneath it with some of Herbies dbNeutralizer between the spike and the platform and the platform itself is about 2" thick.

Putting the Buss's with Herbies tenderfeet on the platform was an instant improvement with a better soundstage, not by a huge margin but enough that I liked it. So next I attempted to take off the tenderfeet and set about 3 or 4 of the sort kones. The kones are much larger than I anticipated, about 5x the size of the tenderfeet if not bigger. Now when I had 4 tenderfeet under the buss at each corner I could tell each foot was well established and was supporting the weight fairly equally. The kones were a bit of a challenge to get centered under the buss's and after playing around was surprised to see that only two of the kones were actually supporting the weight while the other two kones I could easily slide out under the buss without any issue of balance.

When I went to listen it seemed the soundstage with the kones seemed smeared ever so slightly and wasn't sure if it it was what I was hearing correctly or not so I popped the tenderfeet back in and the stage cleaned up and was better focused. I tried multiple positions on both the Uber and the Stop with the kones and felt the tenderfeet was the better performer. I tried the kones under my dac and amp and wasn't thrilled with those locations either and much preferred the Isocups/hardballs I had been using. I actually had an extra set of isocups and tried them under the Uber and to my surprise I still preferred the tenderfeet. Every other component I've been tinkering with I always seemed to like the Isocups/hardball combo better so this was interesting.

So at least for me and my setup it seemed the Herbie products were the preferred choice. Don't know if the fact I use the decoupling spikes under the platform played a role or not. As I'm typing I'm wondering if the kones would work better directly on the floor but I liked what the platform with tenderfeet did and will be looking to send the sort kones back to Music Direct. Maybe my setup needs isolation compared to dissipation...

On a side note, I also replaced the stock receptacles in my Uberbuss with Furutech GTX-D Rhodium's and LOVE what they do. Noise floor dropped and brought an increase in detail without and harshness or glare and in fact took some harshness away that was there before on certain tracks and music. Recommended!