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A black hole went into my Marantz SA-10!

I always use a Herbies black hole II CD disc damper. It somehow got lost inside the transport. The tray is shallow as is, so it didn't take much for it to get knocked, and in it went! So I freaked out. I looked inside behind the tray with a bright LED flashlight. I didn't see it. Everything works. Tray goes in and out without any snagging. No skipping. I'm not not very mechanical and have no idea which screws to loosen and don't want to mess with it. It happened about 30 hours of listening ago. I use the Herbies black hole CD disc damper for 6 years. When I had my Sony 5400 ES it did make a difference and was repeatable. My GF agreed. I never did the AB comparison on the Marantz. Maybe the transport on it is not tweakable since they built it themselves. I know Steve Nugent here is a big believer in some kind of damping. Anyway its playing.
128x128blueranger

Showing 4 responses by bdp24

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bdp24
4,908 posts
 
Another excellent metal enclosure damping material is EAR Isodamp SD125, available from Michael Percy Audio.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 
The EAR Isodamp SD is a different product for a different application than the "blue stuff" that company makes. For details, see the Michael Percy Audio website. To quote Percy, the SD125 (1/8" thick) is "The best material available for free air damping of metal parts, circuit boards, and chassis covers and enclosures.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 
I did more than believe him Geoff, I ordered some SD for my EAR-Yoshino line stage and Herron phono amp. It completely eliminated the nasty, metallic ringing of both piece's top covers. My Esoteric digital player doesn't need it, as that unit's enclosure is very well damped. The transformer cover of my Music Reference power amp could also benefit, but I have a VPI brick on top of it, so no need. 
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 

Yeah blueranger, it is not for enclosure damping that I use the VPI Brick, but rather for absorbing stray fields from the amp's transformers. But the mass of the Brick makes damping products unnecessary. Another product for dealing with those fields but without the mass of the Brick is the Shakti Stone.

Geoff's questioning of the audibility of electronic enclosure vibrations and resonances is valid. But they can't help! In a perfect world, hi-fi electronic enclosures would contain no vibrations, whether from transformers, acoustic waves from loudspeakers, or seismic activity from the Earth's crust etc. Tubes especially benefit from isolation from vibration regardless of their origination, especially the small signal tubes in phono amps and line stages, but also the input and driver tubes in power amps. Also digital devices, especially CD/SACD spinners, mechanical "reading" instruments.

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