Tom wrote,
"After you took the time to learn the technique of direct mechanical coupling of transformers, caps, circuit boards and output devices you would then hear a huuuuge benefit versus the same components when damped or constrained. (Terribly depressing words they are).. I quit the damp thing twenty years ago. And for isolation it never can be achieved. If there were no matter/existence ..well then you have isolation.
I suspect you might be using one of those Strawman argument things on me. I assume you haven’t found the right method of damping. Isolating the the circuit boards from the deleterious effects of ye olde buzz saw, the large transformer, is most assuredly something you should try some time. Nobody ever said isolation techniques are perfect. I mean, after all, the isolation device is (usually) a low pass filter so even the lowest resonant frequency you can muster still let’s very low frequencies in. As we saw a couple weeks ago the LIGO project finally observed gravity waves and they had to use isolation to do it. Isolation of the optics. So, you really probably should delete the expression, isolation can never be achieved, from your repertoire. But getting down to say 3 Hz is enough for audiophile porpoises. Occasionally you'll one get down below 1 Hz. Like mine. I use damping in iso designs because it’s needed to control resonances on the top plate. I also use mechanical coupling in my designs, both for the iso platform to the floor and for the component to the top plate. Obviously one would like the vibration to exit the system as rapidly as possible which is why I espouse extremely hard materials such as diamond hard ceramics and even diamonds. Now, I’m not saying you can’t use the WRONG damping materials or that you can’t over-damp if you’re not careful. Noone said it was easy.
Tom also wrote,
"Why would you want to constrain or damp the required tools to reproduce your music when you don’t need to?"
Tom, what I’m referring to is removing, dissipating, converting to heat that vibration that would otherwise remain in the system and wreak havoc on anything the natural frequency of which excited by the frequency of the vibration, cables, tonearm, cartridge, tonearm wires, CD laser, etc. and produce audible distortion. As I intimated previously chances are good that you just got used to a certain level of distortion twenty years ago and never looked back. ;-)
G. K.
