Anti-Resonance Footings

[av_phile]

Any users of these cones here? Any truth to their claims?
http://www.dhcones.com/cones.html

 

[Mudcat]

"DH Cones are ceramic stands which enhance your audio system by minimizing sound vibrations and distortions to your stereo equipment. DH cones are made of high-tech ceramic material, often used in space shuttles and advanced military rockets. They have a hardness degree of 9.5, surpassed only by diamonds. Their design is based on the theory that the ability of materials to minimize vibrations and resonance is correlated to the hardness of the materials."



First of all, I think you've been around this site long enough to realize that as soon as a vendor throws in a reference to the space shuttle or a military system, you should take off.

Secondly, I work in the marine industry, I design propulsion plants for naval and coast guard ships. We are constantly using vibration isolation mounts to seperate the diesel engines from the rest of the ship to lower transmitted noise. The mounts we use are very soft. A mount that has a hardness equal to a diamond is not soft and will transmitt noise faster than air. In other words, this mount directly couples the noise path - not good. About the only thing they got right is the last sentence, but they are going in reverse.

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

What Mudcat said! Also, solid-state gear does not exhibit microphony, the property of transmitting physical vibrations through the signal path in normal use, unless you take the cover off and thump soundly on the circuit components with a solid object (not recommended!).

Bottom line: Isolation tweaks, whether "high-tech ceramic", compliant rubber, or air suspension are all snake oil. Spend the money on some good CDs!

 

[jeffsg4mac]

Isolation for a turntable=good Isolation for a cd player=nonsense. Try playing a turntable in a moving car and let me know what happens. Lot's of cd players in cars though huh?

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

Isolation for a turntable=good Isolation for a cd player=nonsense. Try playing a turntable in a moving car and let me know what happens. Lot's of cd players in cars though huh?

No argument there. I think they did try putting turntables in cars way back when! You can imagine...

 

[Mudcat]

When I was in high school (30 plus years ago) this guy had a corvair with a complete home stereo installed including a turntable. Had the rear seats removed and everything installed in their place. The turntable was mounted in a box with thick soft foam beneath and on the four sides. I'm not sure if he ever tried playing it while moving though. I'm also not sure of his power supply.

 

[MarkOcena]

I was at a local audio store last week shopping for some speakers when I was told about isolation feet. The sales guy / owner of the small store introduced them (these were soft gel-type, not diamond-level hard) when I mentioned that a particular centre channel that had its own feet would not fit on my TV. He said I could use 'focul pods' as feet to make it fit on the small TV. He went on to say they also improve sound quality by eliminating vibrations/resonance from the TV and whatever else that interfere with the internals. He also explained how all audio/video equipment is enhanced by isolation. He did mention they were born out of some sort of crazy NASA research & development project.

The way he introduced these things had my doubting from the start. I thought it would only be plausible when applied to a mechanical device; a turntable as you guys already mentioned. Possibly a CD player too, but these have error correction and other things that would theoretically do the same thing.

The guy did a little demo for me. All the electronics were on one tall rack, away from the wall. The CD/DVD (NAD T562) sat on top of the amp (Anthem P5 Statement), and on the shelf below was a pre/pro (Anthem AVM-30). (BTW, the latter two pieces were being 'burned in', according to the guy.) Based on all this guy had told me about cables and 'burn in', I wasn't putting any weight into his claims regarding isolation, exotic cables, or any other accessory he sold.

What scared me was the difference in sound when he slipped the four little feet under the CD player to separate it from the amp and rack. I didn't want to believe it. I still don't want to believe it. But I did hear a difference (I'm not going to start explaining it in subjective terms, but it was for the better) There is a possibility that feet can dissipate vibrational energy. Of course the energy has to go somewhere. I would think that an improvement in sonics in this case is measurable as well, but I don't have that luxury.

I don't know what to think. It's not like this is another expensive add-on; he said they were only around $50. I had never heard of these things before. Have any of you had any first hand experience with these things? Would they be worth buying to try out (if one had $50 to burn)?