Shelf isolation products.

Posted by: Popeye on 03 January 2019

Hi Guys

Do any of you have any experience with isolation products that would work well under my black boxes?

obviously I would love to have my setup on a Fraim but due to lounge layout this isn’t possible and so currently my naim boxes are sat on purpose made MDF shelf between my chimney breast and solid wall. 

Thinking about getting dedicated isolation bases for the 3 black boxes or just using isolation feet beneath like Stilpoints for example. 

Any advice be much appreciated as always ????

 

cheers popeye

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by spurrier sucks

I’ve seen Quadraspire feet but gave no experience with them. 3 different levels but all seem rather expensive to me. However if those are not expensive enough then you have offerings from Nordost and Ansuz to empty your wallet with. 

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by RaceTripper

Have a look at isoAcoustics and/or Harmonic Resolution Systems (HRS). Both companies products work quite well. I use isoAcoustics Gaia II feet under my speakers and HRS Nimbus assemblies under my turntable. All my components sit on Fraim so I'm not using anything additional there.

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by Bob the Builder

John Mana Acoustics designer is selling his Sound bases on eBay which are very highly thought of I believe.

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by Jonners

A cost effective solution would be steel Naim cup and balls with a piece of glass. Buy 3 cups and balls ( 2 at the front, 1 at the rear) from any Naim dealer for about £45. Get a 10mm thick piece of glass made to measure to go on top. That is a neat isolation solution for your black boxes IMHO. Of course, your shelves will need to bear the 10kg per shelf but if they can then I reckon its the best budget solution for your scenario.

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by bsmark

I have similar shelf space limitations.   I just bought a Symposium Acoustics Svelte Shelf that I placed under a Nova.  Definite sound improvement.  The shelves come in a variety of sizes and thicknesses.  Due to my 6” shelf height I used the thinnest shelf - only 5/8ths inch height.  Shelves can act as either an isolation platform that you place directly on top of existing shelf or can replace the shelf entirely.  For reference a 19 x 14 inch shelf (Svelte Model) costs around US $399.  Highly recommended.  

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by Folkman

Having recently played about with various types of isolation under my Rega Isis the only thing that made a significant improvement was the Townshend Seismic Platform.  So good I have another one on order for my Rega Osiris.

What I would suggest is to do a bit of research into the different types and effectiveness of isolation , especially Seismic isolation . Plenty of info/articles on the www.

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by feeling_zen

I use the Quadraspire Qplus Evo under my UQ2 where a full rack is not possible. 

They seem to work as described. However, I use much lower cost generic spike and cup machined steel isolators under my desktop speakers with adhesive damping pads. They were about $20 for 8 and seemed to make more difference under the speakers than the Qplus did under the UQ2 at 5 times the cost. Overall, I'm happy with both. 

The Quadraspire have no moving parts and dampen by materials and shape alone so are very easy to work with. Spike and cup designs, on the other hand, can be very fiddly to get lined up right. Place feet on them even slightly wonky and a spike can slip out from under. They are cheap and effective but fiddly and you must get ones that are smaller than the feet of the unit they support. I can't stress that enough. If the feet have a smaller diameter to the top of the spike then even a misalignment of 0.5mm from dead centre will cause the spike to slip in the cup. 

For VFM, the generic spike and cups with optional dampening pads get my vote. But I am happy with performance of the Qplus.

 

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by docmark

I, too, have space constraints.  I am using several sets of  Thixar Silent Feet, even under my Chord Dave.  Great isoltion, look good.  Kind of pricey but I think worthwhile.

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by Iver van de Zand

Good thread ! Is there anybody using the SSC isolation bases? (hifi-ssc dot de) .. I have a dealer who uses them in combination (!) with Quadraspire racks

Posted on: 03 January 2019 by Obsydian

I looked at various solutions for localized support (i..e just feet or mini stands), ebay Fraim copies (single platform), GAIA, Townsend, Base, Michell, the best being the make shift Fraim glass and balls, but then i swapped to SR MIG 2.0, at first took them as a marginal improvement, sent them back (where a dealer demo pair), within a week purchased them and never looked back, 3 small cones, nice, neat and effective

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by GraemeH

I use a now discontinued Atacama Static Stage Isolation Platform under my 272. Had it for years under the CDS3 and use it more as an insurance policy now. 

G

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by alanbass1

I have Audiophilebase Stratabase isolation platforms under all my black boxes and the improvement using an Atacama rack is significant.  I trialled a Fraimlite and much preferred my current set up 

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by Dan Steel
Jonners posted:

A cost effective solution would be steel Naim cup and balls with a piece of glass. Buy 3 cups and balls ( 2 at the front, 1 at the rear) from any Naim dealer for about £45. Get a 10mm thick piece of glass made to measure to go on top. That is a neat isolation solution for your black boxes IMHO. Of course, your shelves will need to bear the 10kg per shelf but if they can then I reckon its the best budget solution for your scenario.

Don’t forget to m/c the shelf to house the cups. A friend of mine severely damaged his Sondek and rack when the cups slid. 

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by djh1697

I found that, and this is my personal experience, that electronics without any mechanical moving parts do not sound that much different when they are on spikes, my Turntable, and previously CD player did have an improvement to sound when isolated with spikes. Speakers are a must to have spikes on. These is my personal experiences. A Quadrasphire turntable shelf was a definite upgrade to my system. 

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by Richard Dane
djh1697 posted:

I found that, and this is my personal experience, that electronics without any mechanical moving parts do not sound that much different when they are on spikes, my Turntable, and previously CD player did have an improvement to sound when isolated with spikes. Speakers are a must to have spikes on. These is my personal experiences. A Quadrasphire turntable shelf was a definite upgrade to my system. 

Take something like a Naim pre-amp and its attendant power supply though and I'd be really surprised if you couldn't hear changes from different support solutions, including with or without spikes in the equation.

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by Loki

Seconded.

Support makes a huge difference. Russ Andrews used to demo a CD player, first played on a cushion and then played on a  rack. The difference was somewhat noticeable!

Jonners posted:

A cost effective solution would be steel Naim cup and balls with a piece of glass. Buy 3 cups and balls ( 2 at the front, 1 at the rear) from any Naim dealer for about £45. Get a 10mm thick piece of glass made to measure to go on top. That is a neat isolation solution for your black boxes IMHO. Of course, your shelves will need to bear the 10kg per shelf but if they can then I reckon its the best budget solution for your scenario.

Plus one for the Naim Fraim on a budget method, although I would recommend you get the Naim glass: it as chosen for its acoustic properties. I was lucky to get an extra 3 glass shelves and ball bearings and cups with my Fraim and have thus used one between my Audiotech shelf and LP12. Not only sounds better, but ties in visually too.

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by Loki
Dan Steel posted:
Jonners posted:

A cost effective solution would be steel Naim cup and balls with a piece of glass. Buy 3 cups and balls ( 2 at the front, 1 at the rear) from any Naim dealer for about £45. Get a 10mm thick piece of glass made to measure to go on top. That is a neat isolation solution for your black boxes IMHO. Of course, your shelves will need to bear the 10kg per shelf but if they can then I reckon its the best budget solution for your scenario.

Don’t forget to m/c the shelf to house the cups. A friend of mine severely damaged his Sondek and rack when the cups slid. 

I haven't bothered with my Auditech top shelf. The LP12 has enough mass to keep all in place, but I admit that a careless knock can displace it more easily, and I have had to re-centre it all a couple of times.

Posted on: 04 January 2019 by SamClaus
alanbass1 posted:

I have Audiophilebase Stratabase isolation platforms under all my black boxes and the improvement using an Atacama rack is significant.  I trialled a Fraimlite and much preferred my current set up 

Same here - I'm surprised more people don't use them.