Sand bags under a cdp - didn't work well

Spent an hour and $30 yesterday threading nuts onto 5/8" threaded rod to capture 4 mdf shelves between aluminum fender washers, no neoprene. BIG improvement in soundstage but my favorite female vocals became unlistenable: harsh, edgy, grainy, 1986 $99 cd playerish. Didn't have a bicycle tube handy so I grabbed the thin urethane mat off my workbench that holds small parts in place while I sand them, folded it double and put it under 1995 $200 cd player. Soundstage still excellent, speakers almost disappear and the electronic hash/grain is GONE. Gotta get me one a them tubes.

The mat sounds pretty good too. If you get a chance play them off and post the results.

Tube people to maximize benefits of inner tube under CDP, be sure and use torpedo level and make sure CDP is level when sitting on inner tube. If you put dampening weight on top, just shift it around by hand to get perfect level. For tube alone it may have to be located off center under CDP to get perfect level. For a small DAC unit I would go with vibrapods if you want to use sonething to make sound fuller/richer.

With so many positive reports I had to give the tube a try. Picked up a couple of 6"x4" wheel barrow tubes. Almost perfect size for my CAL Alpha and Delta. After one evening of trying various combinations:

The Alpha tube DAC sounds better on the BDR points than a tube. There was a very minor loss in resolution with it sitting on the tube. That there was little change is no surprise as that was the case with the BDRs. They improved the sound slightly, adding just a bit of resolution and slightly darker background. Also tried a tube/hardwood/BDR/Alpha sandwich. No discernable difference from the DAC on the points alone.

The Delta transport was another story. On the tube alone the sound was noticeably fuller and more musical, though a bit soft at the extremes. Putting it on a sandwich of tube/hardwood/BDR/Delta seems to give the best of all worlds. Want to load the chassis, but lacked space due to closeness of self above. Suspect this would further improve things as that was the case with the BDRs alone.

Will certainly want to listen to this longer, as well as let everything settle in as I had to disconnect and move a couple of components to make room for the tubes. Also want to try sand bagging the transport, too.

Price of this tweak was less than $25 including the hardwood board (actually a cutting board) and wheel barrow tube.

I posted elsewhere that the tube I tried did nothing at all but now I see from some other posts that it wasn't wide enough. Too much air, not enough squish? The urethane mat is still sounding good, you can get one anywhere that sells woodworking tools or possibly the non-skid mats that go under area rugs. Anybody in the fastener business know where i could get urethane washers to go between the mdf and the washers I'm using on the threaded rod equipment rack? Already tried Depot and Lowe's, nada.