Platforms: granite, marble, maple or other?

Jafox, I haven't found many tweaks that have worked in my system. I will defend Garfish, not that you were attacking him, but because I have read many of his posts for the last couple of years and respect him and mainly because I caught a 5 pound gar in Reelfoot lake many years ago that could have been a relative. I do disagree with you when you state that you apparantly believe switching back and forth to determine what's best in a comparison. For me, I know my system so well that if it's an improvement I usually know fairly quickly. The only tweak that has worked for me is a couple of sandbags, one on the amp for internal resonance control and one on the preamp for the same. Everything else I've tried has either made things worse or made no difference but looks stupid as hell. But I'm probably lazier than most, I'm just not willing to try waterford crystal goblets on my speakers or cutting boards or bubblewrap, etc.... My equipment sits on target component and amp stands and sounds so damn good it brings me to tears sometimes. So IMHO through more than a few years of this psycho hobby - most of the time it's about the equipment hooked up to dedicated power and good rigid stands. Nuff said...

Thanks guys....I will continue to keep an open mind when it comes to tweaks. Ever since I borrowed an NBS Master interconnect and picked my jaw off the floor when it trounced a handful of other cables (Audioquest, Cardas, Transparent, Straighwire) so significantly have I learned an open mind here is a good thing.

As for me "knowing" the sound of my system, sometimes it just does not click for me at all and back upstairs I go to watch TV or do something else. And other times there is no way anybody can get me out of the basement as the music simply sounds so awesome. So this is why I "play" for 2-3 hours, swapping back and forth to confirm to me that there is or is not a difference ......and is the difference worth the price; I am a very value-conscious audiophile. And I like to feel good about a change or purchase I made or it will bug me forever to re-address that link in the system with an upgrade very soon after.

Jafox, I researched and purchased some maple cutting boards a few months ago. It was suggested to me to avoid butcher block type boards as audio shelves because the grain would transmit the vibration vertically rather than dissipate it. Also, there is a lot more glue involved with all the small pieces of wood. The problem with a thick solid piece of maple is the tendency it has to warp or crack.

I ended up with 1 1/4" boards with three glued pieces and horizontal grain. I prefer the sound with my amp on the maple on top of Isolpads with my mdf amp stand rather than the amp directly on the mdf. I also now use the same style board as the shelf for a wall stand I made using steel supports. On top of that I have spikes supporting a Neuance shelf under my cdp. It is an even better improvement under the cdp than just the maple.
The wall stand provided an equally significant improvement compared to the floor standing audio rack it replaced as a solid base for the cdp. There are a couple of wall stands by Apollo that are a perfect fit with the Neuance, in the $125-150 price range not terribly expensive but a lot more than the cost of the one I made.

I have seen Garfish's John Boos boards and like them even better than the ones I got because they are thicker and have more squared off edges rather than radiused. I'll probably go to something like that if I can get a better fit for my amp and thicker support for the Neuance shelf. You can see the boards I got in my system pics. They are painted with a Krylon product, "Make It Stone", that looks like granite.

It matters a lot whether one has a concrete slab floor or a wood frame floor. My floor is wood frame, so it is very supect to mechanical vibration from the speakers. Most vibration originates at the speaker transducers. It gets to other equipment either by mechanical contact with the floor or through acoustic pressure (sound). Concrete slab floors greatly minimize the mechanical path between speakers and the equipment rack. This is all a pretty deep subject...

I have not tried the maple shelf yet. I have been using equipment shelves made from the Ikea Lak end tables ($10), which were suggested in an earlier post on the A'gon here. Try searching on "Ikea Lak". Has any one tried those? They are light, stiff and well damped.

Cheers

I also have a wood floor and am using two schools of thought for isolating my gear.For my components I'm using a rack and shelves that dissapate energy rapidly-Apollo Aria equipment rack and Neuance Shelving.The rack is NOT mass loaded (filled w/ sand or lead)and works great with the Neuance Shelves.The addition of the Neuance shelving was a big upgrade for my system.
For my speakers I'm using mass loaded (filled 2/3 with sand/lead) Osiris speaker stands with blue tac underneath the speakers.Ken at Greater Ranges/Neuance has a head for isolating gear and his ideas worked great on my rig.