Vibration control inside a cabinet


For placing an amp and a CD player inside a built in cabinet, what would be the best way to control vibrations:  do I want some kind of isolation platform (actual brand suggestions would be appreciated), or something more like Herbie's Tenderfeet?  Or both?

Thanks!

mcanaday

Showing 4 responses by bdp24

Sorbothane will give you isolation to around 10Hz---not low enough imo. Get a set of roller bearings (Ingress Engineering in Canada has the best deal on them) and some of Geoff's springs for isolation to 3Hz.
Ya, and since springs isolate vertically very well, but laterally not-so-well, a set of roller bearing somewhere. I prefer them directly under the component where possible. So, the component, the roller bearings, the maple platform, the springs. Roller bearings provide no lateral isolation, acting as a coupler in that plane, transferring energy just as do cones, if you believe in that sort of thing ;-).
Roller bearings can be had from Ingress Engineering in Canada for as little as $85 for a set of three. If you use only one of the two bearing cups at each location instead of two (look at them to understand what that means!), with the ball bearing directly in contact with the bottom of the component being isolated instead of the top cup, buy three more ball bearings and that set of three becomes two sets of three. Much cheaper than some other high end isolators, and not much more than Sorbothane half-spheres.

Todd, what Barry Diament (long-term roller bearing proponent, and audiophile recording engineer) suggests is a roller bearing comprised of only one cup (the bowl facing upward, of course), the ball bearing sitting in it, and a hard ceramic floor tile put on the bottom of the component at the locations where the three ball bearings touch, the ball bearing then rolling smoothly against the tile. The original Symposium Roller Block itself had only a single cup, with another of their products recommended for the bottom of the component. The Roller Block Jr. (the $199/3 model nutty mentioned) is a pair of cups, the bowl in each facing each other, the ball bearing between them and riding in both. Barry theorizes that a single bowl provides isolation to a lower frequency; a ball bearing on a flat bottom surface would provide even more lateral (horizontal) isolation, but would then be free to roll right off your rack! The shallower the bowl (the larger it’s diameter), the lower the roller bearing’s resonant frequency.

The Ingress $85 model and the Symposium Roller Blocks have bowls of about the same diameter; the new Ingress model has a bowl machined to Barry’s suggested larger diameter (Ingress’ is 1-1/2"), and is made from Alcoa 7075 aluminum, harder than the 6061 of the original, and polished to a smoother finish, for lower rolling resistance. The new model is also a single bowl design, not a double like the original. But like I said, there is nothing to stop you from turning one set of double-bowl bearings into two sets---just buy three more ball bearings and some ceramic tiles! There are also different grades of ball bearings themselves---Symposium sells them at a couple of price points, but they are also available from ball bearing vendors on the 'net.