Do stands make a difference for equipment?

The guys who say I put XyX stand under my amp and it was amazing improvement.. are magnifying the change all out of proportion.

Rather, the people who say I can hear what another person hears .. are magnifying their aural/psychic abilities all out of proportion.

It is one thing to offer one's opinion on what they themselves have or have not heard, but to claim to know what all others have heard is preposterous.

The British and American approach to audio stands is very different. The Brits favour a "lighter is better" approach to manage and channel away vibration and jitter. The US approach is a "heavier mass" isolation approach.

Not true. Sistrum, a US company, favors the former approach as does Stillpoints. I guess it may depend on how you define "stand."

Interestingly, the article which I forgot to post (http://www.stereophile.com/features/806/index.html) references some of these issues.... Enjoy.

My general impression of them is that on the whole they probably make a worthwhile difference, although I myself have only owned a pair of isolation platforms from Alan Maher that I finally pulled the trigger on only recently. But they've been some kind of wonderful. These are of the newer kind that offer electrical noise reduction and isolation in one product. My rig is a $5k, CD-only, preampless system and I started by placing one stand under the Oppo 103 transport and the other under a Ric-Schultz-modified DEQ2496 DAC...no contest, a night-and-day difference for me. I will be buying 2 more stands for my monoblocks. For me too, there's no going back.

I do not waste my money sticking it into doodads. I spent it on the basic equipment.
I guess if you have state of the art equipment, and want to glean the last possible bits out of it, yeah, spend thousands on feet, stands and such. Knock yourself out!
If you have to live within a budget, then save your pennies for basic equipment. and skip the fancy stands, $1,000 feet, etc.
Just my opinion. Feel free to do whatever you want. For a person asking.. I gave my advice.
Racks. footers.. etc ALL get stuck into the 'Spend only about 10% of you budget on stuff besides electronics and speakers".

So if you want to scrimp more on cables to buy fancy feet no problem. I spent $1.25 per foot to buy Butyl rubber chemical bottle stoppers, size 10, lots of them for my glass shelf (cheap) stand.
Works great.
Allowed me to spend MORE on what matters.. like electronics.
When your doodads cost as much as your basic electronic equipment, you are in lala land. Even spending 25% on doodads is insane. Naturally you are free to disagree.

I guess it depends on what particular products Elizabeth, some are more expensive than others.The Star Sound Audio Points I mentioned are quite reasonable in price yet yield very worthwhile improvement that`s more than subtle. Their Sistrum stands are more money but are`nt excessively so, and boy do they work! It`s all a matter of perspective. These well engineered products will expose the often 'hidden' potential in good quality components.Effectively addressing vibration is worth the effort.
Regards,