supports, a theory...

Posted by: ken c on 14 January 2001

hi folks:

i know most people must be bored to tits with discussions on equipment supports. i am starting a new thread just to torture you all some more. no seriously, i just thought that a new thread would be easier to ignore if you have had it up to here with this supports discussion.

i just want to share with you some further thoughts on this fascinating(?) subject, and put fwd a number of theories, which may not be mutually exclusive.

first, there is the theory that the ultimate support is NO SUPPORT at all. the equipment simply floats in the air - that was, presumably the equipment behaves "naturally" in some vague sense. perhaps in the same vague sense, all those spikes are attempting to achieve just this -- decouple equipment from earth and from each other mechanically. i am sure you mechanical engineers out there can be much more specific...

then there is another theory that says equipment works best when placed on a concrete floor. there has been some anecdotal evidence of this from some postings in this forum. my own experiments with may nac52 indicate that it sounds better (much more believable) when the nac52 is close to the bottom shelf -- i found the second to bottom is also OK. one of these days i will figure out how to post my system config.

then there is yet another that says its got be non-ferrous. this one i have most difficulty with - especially when i recollect the fabulous sounds from my system on sound org/sound style supports.

then there is an even more far reaching "theory" that may overlap with each of the above. that is, equipment supports are really part of the overall musical circuit of your system. in other words, there is no such thing as the sound of a nac52 on its own, only a nac52 together with a specification of where its placed when played. this may seem an obvious consequence of the system concept, but it potentially has far reaching consequences. that an amp designer for example, may have to choose component values and mechanical isolation parameters based on a particular target support. hmmmm... in which case, a manufacturer will have to state which support his equipment is designed for, in the same way as naim state naca5 for speaker cable for their amps. i dont believe manufacturers do this today -- . in some sense, life would be much simpler if they did, as they will probably be forced to make their own supports, more or less like speaker stand for SBL, for example. or else, regardless of how a manufacturer designs his amp, for example, there may be some mechanical parameters that only a good stand manufacturer will be in a position to influence -- in other words, cannot be controlled by design choice of resistor/cap or inductor values, etc etc. i will think some more about this... i guess when i try out the sound frame, i will/may be able to move my understanding fwd a little.

in the meantime, i would urge everyone to try to get their system to play music regardless of whatever supports are in use. i believe this is definitely possible. there is quite a lot of information from manufacturers (such as naim) definitely quite a lot from this forum, and from good dealers. i worry when someone decides to get a particular stand because their system is not playing music. somehow, this sounds wrong to me.

apologies again for length of this post... i do get carried away.

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 14 January 2001 by Phil Barry
Ken,

With regard to your statement, 'I would urge everyone to try to get their system to play music regardless of whatever supports are in use', I suggest a corollary:

When your system is playing music, stop thinking about upgrades.

Phil

Posted on: 14 January 2001 by ken c
hi phil, nice ti hear from you.

good advice, but impossible, i am afraid. its an addiction. once a junkie, always a junkie...

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Ken Lyon
Answer:
#1(must be held rigidly in space) and #4(all components are voiced to suit a given interface or range of "typical" furnishing and structural environments)
Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Martin M
Anyone tried a crappy wooden furniture rack (e.g one from MFI) placed in an adjacent, quiet room and put their kit on this? Seems like an obvious thing to try for those interested in this area. Long speaker cables would be cheaper than Hutter etc.
Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Allan Probin
quote:
Anyone tried a crappy wooden furniture rack (e.g one from MFI) placed in an adjacent, quiet room and put their kit on this?

Err, yes, sort-of. I've got all my kit in a large walk-in cupboard-under-the-stairs. I would imagine that this substantialy reduces the amount of air-born and structure-born energy reaching the equipment. But stands still make a difference.

I think what most people don't realise is that a stand is not there simply to isolate, its there to dissipate internal energy away from the equipment.

Allan

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Arye_Gur
ken ,

No matter why - a stand is a must.

How much money to put on it - that is an important question I think.

Arie

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Martin M
Allan, what do you mean by internal energy? And how would a stand help dissapate this?

Playing devils advocate (I know good stands make a difference) would any massy object simply turn this to heat?

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Arye_Gur
The theory I heard about stands is that - but I'm not sure it is the true because I don't remeber where did I hear it:

The sound waves from the speakers are shaking the floor. If the stand is rigid eanough sound waves don't shake it. If the stand stands on the floor on rigid sharp spikes - the floor "sees" a very heavy weight when "looks" to the stand and it is very tough to the floor to shake the stand.
If the shelves are connected to the rigid frame with spikes too, this spikes amplify the effect. If the rigid stand do shake, when it "looks" to the shelf it sees a very heavy weight so it is difficult to the stand to shake the shelf.

Arie

Posted on: 15 January 2001 by Allan Probin
Internal Energy:

This is my understanding of the situation:

What I mean by this is vibrational energy generated within the equipment by such items as transformers, motors and even the components themselves when subject to an alternating current. This vibrational energy can cause other components within the equipment to be vibrated which leads to microphonic effects.

In terms of dissipation, a good stand must be able to efficiently extract this energy from the equipment and at the same time prevent it re-entering the equipment some time later or being passed-on to another item of equipment in the same rack. This implies a requirement for an easy flow of energy from the equipment into the rack but a high resistance to energy trying to flow from the rack to the equipment. This energy has to go somewhere. With Mana, it appears to be sunk to ground (either the floor or a series of SoundStages). Again, a good rack would prevent this energy returning back into the rack.

Would standing the equipment on a high mass dissipate this energy ? I doubt it, I suspect the high mass would look like a relatively high resistance path for energy to travel into (so a lot of it would remain in the equipment), and what did get into the high mass may well just hang about and decay slowly, allowing some to return from where it came from.

Allan