Do equipment stands have an impact on electronics?

Hi @folkfreak

Anything mechanical and spinning has known susceptibility to vibration noise, including CD’s, DVD’s and of course phonograph players. I wouldn’t be surprised if CD players were susceptible to jitter or even flat-out read errors with enough vibration. Very few CD players have buffered, asynchronous outputs. The Sonic Frontiers, and Parasound players were some of the very few. As you probably know, some other boutique players use large memory buffers to play from.

However, with good clocks and buffers, this effect should be completely eliminated. So, I am completely skeptical of hard disk / USB 2.0 players having any such issues at all.

I’m also leaving the door open to electronics or even cables having vibrational susceptibility, but again, it’s so freaking easy to begin to measure this, and I’ve seen zero. Invariably some one points out to vibration isolation for laser measurements of gravity waves, or earthquake damping .... yes, they have problems... and you know what? They are freaking measurable!! That’s how they arrive at the optimal solution. If vibration control is a real issue then magazines should be testing preamps and platforms for it. Nada.


Best,


Erik

It is quite possible we are approaching the real problem the wrong way. What if the real issues are not that electronic signals are being contaminated by vibrations, but that we are hearing our equipment stands resonate?  Same for cables. I could see them vibrating on the floor.  Maybe we need quilts instead? :)

But lack of measurements leave this up in the snake oil and trial and error. We might as well be trepinating each other in the hopes of reducing headaches.

cleeds

geoffkait: Manufacturers actually shouldn’t be the ones making measurements for vibration control/vibration isolation, it should be some third party independent agency.

to which cleeds replied,

"Why? Aren’t you making measurements as part of your design and manufacturing efforts? If so, why not share the results? If not, are you simply relying on trial and error?"

The Government employs independent contractors to test manufacturers’ products, e.g., weapons, software, radios, etc. it wouldn’t make any sense for the manufacturer to be the one providing test results. It’s competitive so the manufacturer cannot be trusted to be honest, one assumes. I use mathematics and testing in development, usually but not always, some things are not amenable to measurements, if you know what I mean, you know, what with Mr. Clock and the Teleportation thingie.

Geoffkait:Furthermore, even under ideal conditions, and with competent testers, because of the obvious variations and vagaries in vibration environments from town to town and city to city and system to system, the results of such tests would not necessarily be that helpful.

cleeds paused for a moment then pulled the trigger,

"Yes, perhaps. But without initial measurements to use as a benchmark, we’ll never know if there’s any truth to your speculation."

Sorry but there's no such thing as a benchmark for these devices as I just explained. Truth? Speculation? You’re kidding, right? What are you, god’s gift to skeptics?

Excerpt from Peter Bizlewicz of Symposium Acoustics interview in Positive Feedback Online:

PF: How do you sway remaining skeptics of the efficacy of resonance control, or what ever name we give it, in high performance domestic audio set ups?

PB: I don’t worry about potential members of the Flat Earth Society who may have a problem with the more advanced aspects of high end audio, and this includes vibration control. Ultimately and unfortunately, it’s their loss. The world has a generous supply of skeptics who seem compelled to mask ignorance with sophistry. The irony is that the usual modus operandi of these types is to accuse the audiophile community of sophistry, but the reverse is usually true: the casual skeptic has not done any research, and we have.

The first year I did CES, I had a small table set up with a CD player and I was doing demonstrations of the improvements in sound quality, through headphones, by placing the CD player up on Rollerblocks and a platform. When you physically demonstrate something, that is science, and we made a lot of believers with that simple setup. One very technical-looking fellow (who seemed a bit lost in the high performance audio area) was hurrying through the aisle of high end accessories, doing his very best not to make eye contact with any of the audio lunatics (such as myself) occupying the tables on either side. As he rushed past, I called to him "How about a demonstration?" Without changing his gait, he almost shouted, "I’ll believe it when I can see it on an oscilloscope!" I thought, what does looking at an oscilloscope trace have to do with listening?

I understand his perspective; such "tech heads" (I have also been called one of these) have been formally trained that nothing exists that cannot be quantified or defined (I am not speaking of mathematical theory here such as Gödelian Incompleteness Theory or Randomness, I’m referring to so called "real" phenomena). However, the greater reality is that this position assumes that everything is known. Unfortunately (or fortunately), everything is NOT known, and therefore, if something is perceived, but is not or cannot (yet) be quantified, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is not real. If more than one person perceives the same phenomena under repeatable and controlled conditions, it is either a case of mass hallucination or it is a real natural phenomenon. Ruling out the former, such phenomena may be quantified or defined tomorrow or in a hundred years, but to state that until that time it does not exist because we don’t know how to measure it yet is neither logical, scientific, nor intelligent.

erik_squires wrote,

"It is quite possible we are approaching the real problem the wrong way. What if the real issues are not that electronic signals are being contaminated by vibrations, but that we are hearing our equipment stands resonate? Same for cables. I could see them vibrating on the floor. Maybe we need quilts instead? :)"

Actually it would be quite easy to eliminate the equipment stands from the equation. I’m not particularly fond of racks or stands in general because they often do add vibration to the equation, audibly so, even If they’re very rigid. Thus removing the electronics from its rack and placing it on a real isolation device should demonstrate the efficacy of isolation. Furthermore, tube dampers must certainly operate by reducing the vibration effects on the audio signal, rather than the idea we're heating the glass vibrate instead, no? And if cables are suspended by thread and the sound improved that would seem to indicate that structureborne vibration is to blame, leaving the static electric field issue aside for the moment.

erik_squires then wrote,

"But lack of measurements leave this up in the snake oil and trial and error. We might as well be trepinating each other in the hopes of reducing headaches."

I hate to disagree but it’s not really trial and error at this point in time, you know, twenty years after the first audiophile isolation stands were introduced. It’s probably more accurate to call it a slam dunk than trial and error. You know, 40 thousand audiophile isolation devices later.