In praise of........ Sorbothane feet
Posted by: ursus262 on 09 October 2018
How may of my fellow Naimers/audiophiles use Sorbothane? I have to say I think it's amazing stuff. My previous house had a suspended floor. I abandoned spikes and eschewed the trick of screwing into the floor to site the speakers. Sorbothane feet completely solved the problem of the floor vibrating and the sound was perfect. I've put a noisy NAS drive on Sorbothane feet, and the noise from the unit when it spins up has been completely eliminated. Just love it.
I use a cork/rubber mix under spike shoes on suspended floors and it makes a massive difference for a very small sum of money. Not tried sorbothane but it is probably a similar affect.
I think you have to be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water when using sorbothane...
Japtimscarlet posted:I think you have to be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water when using sorbothane...
Why is that?
I'm an old sorbothane fan; I used 19mm half hemispheres (balls) inside my CDX2 feet, the feet were hollow & the 19mm balls fitted perfectly & under the weight of the CDX2 they compressed down to fully fill the feet leaving aprx a 1mm pad for the CDX2 to wobble on. SQ definitely improved on my wood shelved rack, but others have said it was not an improvement on glass shelves.
I used sorbothane for a while under my Rega Planer 3 but this was not an improvement.
The CDX2 has gone & the Naim bits I have now can't take sorbothane without looking ugly, & I can't get my head around sorbothane improving the SQ on solid state equipment like amps & streamers. I do have the 19mm half balls under my Synology NAS, not so much for SQ, but it kills all the HDD noise rumbling into its cabinet floor.
I used it under one of my naim boxes for about 5 minutes. Found it to suck the life out of the fun. Luckily it works for you in your situation. ????
I used to use sorbothane cups for my CDX2 on a wooden shelf... however when I later changed to full fat Fraim there really was no comparison.
Simon
Mike-B posted:I can't get my head around sorbothane improving the SQ on solid state equipment like amps & streamers.
I quess it’s down to reducing the effects of vibrations. Naims hi end CD players/pre amp have floating/sprung PCBs, the 62 makes do with a large pad of sorbothane under the PCB.
Many years ago, I went to town on my Rotel RCD Limited edition/discrete. Sorbothane under the PCB, sorbothane on the opposite side of the PCB to the DAC and sorbothane wedged between any pairs of capacitors that where close enough to do so. It definitely improved sound quality, but that’s not to say in other applications it could ruin the sound. Also, sorbothane comes in different forms, a soft sorbothane may be suitable for an application where a harder sorbothane is not.
I now use it under my turntable, and it sounds excellent, far better than hard spikes.
I have found sorbothane to work great in some situations, and not in others. When it doesn't work, it sucks a bit of life out of the music. It works great under the Mac Mini I use to store music. I also put small hemispheres under my iPad in each corner. It helps with the grip, and makes it easier to lift the iPad off of the table.
ursus262 posted:Japtimscarlet posted:I think you have to be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water when using sorbothane...
Why is that?
I think others have now already answered that one
It can drain the musicality out of the sound in SOME situations ..not all ...hence try sorbothane for a period of time ...then take it away...if you miss it ... question answered!
I used a Mission Isoplat many years ago, loved it on non an then Naim gear, then realised moving to Mana and other supports, it sucked the life and dynamics from the music.
fatcat posted:Mike-B posted:I can't get my head around sorbothane improving the SQ on solid state equipment like amps & streamers.
I quess it’s down to reducing the effects of vibrations. Naims hi end CD players/pre amp have floating/sprung PCBs, the 62 makes do with a large pad of sorbothane under the PCB.
Yes agreed, but with already hard mounted PCB's (i.e. my NDX & Supernait) & 'floating' the whole alloy box & its significant weight is where I don't agree, What resonant frequency is that whole unit weight on whatever sorbothane is used, does that frequency enhance or cause problems to the PCB's as an assembly or each of the individual components on the PCB. - answers not required.
To go further on the positive effects of sorbothane, a number of years ago I made a significant improvement to my old Marantz CD63. Transformer vibration caused the whole player case to vibrate, a light finger touch gave a tingling effect. My concern was if/how it affected laser accuracy/stability so I set about trying to fix it. I removed the cross member that is supposed to clamp the transformer top, but it hardly touched it so was not effective. I fitted a 5mm layer of sorbothane between the cross member clamp down point to the transformer. I also added a layer under the traffo base. The sorbothane squished down fully under the traffo base & the cross member bent up aprx 1mm against the sorbothane when refitted. I added sorbothane cut strips to fit into the cross member section (shape) to suppress whatever ringing might be there. I also used sorbothane to suppress the open metal case areas & other stuff. The change was extremely positive, it completely fixed the case vibration & the SQ took a significant step up.