Isolation vs. Absorbtion

Thank-you for the fantastic posts regarding your experementing. I look forward to my Neuance shelves arrival (4 weeks, they had great success at CES). Question, and I realize it will require a guess. My equipment all sits on 6" of sandstone wich sits on a solid masonry foundation. Would you guess I'll want cones or EAR footers? Thanks again, and I hope you don't mind but I wrote Neuance and told them of your posts and that you have had great results! J.D.

I don't know Jadem6. Just today the sound improved yet again from just leaving the Neuance in place. But I have learnt the hard way that light/rigid/steel etc as described above, is the right way to support the Neuance. By the way, if you go to their site it kind of looks like they use Mana racks to voice the Neuance (?). This might explain why the light/rigid/steel etc works for me. I have tried sandstone and masonry before (but not with the Neuance), and found there was some lack of harmonic fullness and lack of life. I did try the Neuance on a heavy structure with some characteristics like stone for a few days and found using hard, light metal cones under the Neuance was best and that the cones sounded best with the pointy end down - even better sitting in metal cups. I have found that if you support the Neuance successfully then cones and Vibrapods between component and Neuance shelf have too hyped a sound, and that either the component's own feet or the E-A-R feet are best - with the E-A-R feet giving a more refined, less noisy result, but which can overdamp the sound in some situations. The problem, as I say, is that what ever you try first with the Neuance, you have to just leave it in place for a week and not play - very hard to do, but if you don't you will go mad (hard to type with the sleeves of this white coat tied behind my back). It is possible Jadem6 that you may (horrors, I know) be best to try a welded steel rack sometime.

Red and Dekay, Do you think a Seismic Sink would also work in isolating the Neuance Shelf from MDF or does it make things worse? I have my CAL Delta on top of the Sink now. - Dan

WHAT! You are mad Red, you must be carries away, removing my $30 stone base for a $$$$ rake? STOP, I can't take the thought! (thanks again Red for your thoughts)J.D.

Dan, I have no experience with Sinks as I am too frugal. I also feel that the use of isolation devices (like many things in this hobby) will vary greatly with each individual's application as there are many variables involved. For example we all have different bases (floors) and the sound of your floor should even vary if you were to move your setup to different locations. We are also (most of us) using different components as well. For example I have two different amps that I have played around with (one tube and one solid state) and they both react differently to the same isoaltion devices as far as how they change the sound and overall balance. I even hear differences in different pieces of Maple as one piece that I use is relatively new and two others are at least 60 years old I would guess (they are folk art cutting boards). There are also different types of maple and different cuts from the tree. The Nuance shelves I find interesting in that they should be uniform, however I would guess that they would affect different components differently. I am not going to get a headache over this (today anyway), but this is just to say that I am leaning to starting from scratch with each individual component using the two basic principals as noted above in my first post, but without any pre conceived (this does that and that does this) and just playing it by ear with each piece. For example I tried setting up my DAC in the same manner as my player and I do not like the sound with all of the layers, so far it sounds better with just three cones elevating it from my cabinet shelf (the shelf itself is dove tailed Persimmon wood and is integral to my approx. 400-500 lb storage and hifi cabinet), which makes it quite a unique shelf.