Topic: Vibrapods?

[chitaper]

Chitaper, with all these wierd tweaks you are posting, are you suggesting that vibrapods are a scam?

There is loads and loads of audiophile BS out there. Stereophile magazine will fluff any product that will advertise in their mag, no matter how goofy and silly it is. Same for many stereo review mags or sites.

Now, if someone here can explain to me how a vibrapod will prevent a 0 transforming into a 1, or a 1 into a 0, please do. Or make any measurable change in the signal going to your speakers. Let's just say my BS detector was bouncing around when I read about it.

In fact, they may even qualify for the $1 million challenge. Just be able to tell the difference in a double-blind test, and you get the prize. $1 million can make you the ultimate gear slut!

[pfife]

Have you ever once done a head to head comparison with multiple $1500 power cables? I have. And this was in a system with a dedicated lead from the Edison transformer to his wall receptacle, an ultimately pricy proposition. This is much more efficient than a dedicated circuit from the circuit breaker. This required a second meter and second billing, just for his stereo.
You can hear differences, and some are glaring.

bet his MP3's sounded awesome!!!

  thats really pretty crazy!

[jpschust]

the 0/1 rationale is silly.

it doesn't take into account anything that includes jitter or anything after it passes through your analog stage.

tell you what.  if you want to sometime, come on over and we will put my 2900 on the ground and let people walk around the house while you listen.  then we can put it up on walker points with the center discs properly aligned, with people still shuffling around.  you can hear the difference.  hell even a really good sub will cause significant vibration that should be isolated against.  would i say you need to vibrapod everything?  no.  but certainly your phono stage (god help me if i have to explain this one) and your transports.

[zowie]

Shake a CD player without a buffer.  What happens?  That's right.  The disc skips.  We also know from people's reports on the R-4 that vibrations do effect the 1s and 0s.  With the CD player, there's oversampling and error correction, but it seems reasonable that when there's errors that have to be corrected the sound degrades from when the disc is beng read without errors (or that's the theory anyhow -- I do not have independent knowledge)

And don't forget that CD players (as most people use them) have analogue output stages.

I had the famed and subsequently defamed Optimus 3400 running in my system when they were in vogue around '93.  Vibration damping DID make a difference to the sound of that lightweight plasticy box.  I also followed the prevailing advice and got an external D-A converter for it, and of course had to buy a digital cable.  And then an X-10D (i think it was called) analogue tube buffer, which required extra analogue cables.  Each of these things noticeably improved the sound as promised.  I also put those clip on things on all of the cabling but didn't hear the difference Sam Telig promised.  I passed on getting the custom DC power supply and NOS tube.

Then I sold the three boxes and, for less than all of that stuff had cost, got a Sony ES series CD player that sounded as good or better (a questionr of individual taste), and also had a remote, more functions, was built like a tank, didn't require extra damping, and replaced a mess of cables, power cords, tweeks, and extra boxes.  Wish I upgraded to it in the first place instead of screwing around with tweaks.

As I wrote earlier, I agree that there is a ton of BS out there about tweeks.  Some do work.  But they are not necessarily the most cost-efficient way of upgrade your sound, especially when you factor in the money you throw away trying different stuff before you find the ones that work.

[chitaper]

you can diss em all you want. I can very easily hear a major difference in acoustic music when my mics are on carpet, which easily transmit audience member foot shuffling as a low freq rumble. The vibrapods isolate from that.

What does this have to do with playback? Microphones are designed to record such things, of course it makes sense to isolate them as much as possible. We're talking about playing a cd or dvd here.

[chitaper]

Shake a CD player without a buffer.  What happens?

Shake a cd player with vibrapods on it. What happens? Your point is...?

[jpschust]

Shake a CD player without a buffer.  What happens?

Shake a cd player with vibrapods on it. What happens? Your point is...?

how about a better experiment.  walk around the room with a cd player without any sort of vibration dampening, also, run your bass up high.

now try the same thing with the cd player on vibrapods.

there is a difference.

[chitaper]

how about a better experiment.  walk around the room with a cd player without any sort of vibration dampening, also, run your bass up high.

now try the same thing with the cd player on vibrapods.

there is a difference.

The jitter from any vibrations coming from the ground are infintesimal compared to the jitter generated from the cd player itself. Unless, perhaps, you live next to a busy freight train line.

[pfife]

you can diss em all you want. I can very easily hear a major difference in acoustic music when my mics are on carpet, which easily transmit audience member foot shuffling as a low freq rumble. The vibrapods isolate from that.

What does this have to do with playback? Microphones are designed to record such things, of course it makes sense to isolate them as much as possible. We're talking about playing a cd or dvd here.

Look at what the thread title is.

Are we really talking about cd players and dvd players, or are we talking about vibrapods?

f skalinders opinion of vibrapods

[jpschust]

how about a better experiment.  walk around the room with a cd player without any sort of vibration dampening, also, run your bass up high.

now try the same thing with the cd player on vibrapods.

there is a difference.

The jitter from any vibrations coming from the ground are infintesimal compared to the jitter generated from the cd player itself. Unless, perhaps, you live next to a busy freight train line.

ok listen, if you are gonig to doubt without trying, it's not my system, so whatever. 

but if you are interested in trying, come on down to my place any day and we will do a side by side test.

otherwise i don't know what to tell you.

[pfife]

how about a better experiment.  walk around the room with a cd player without any sort of vibration dampening, also, run your bass up high.

now try the same thing with the cd player on vibrapods.

there is a difference.

The jitter from any vibrations coming from the ground are infintesimal compared to the jitter generated from the cd player itself. Unless, perhaps, you live next to a busy freight train line.

ok listen, if you are gonig to doubt without trying, it's not my system, so whatever. 

but if you are interested in trying, come on down to my place any day and we will do a side by side test.

otherwise i don't know what to tell you.

f belmontradiators opinon of vibrapods

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

there is actually a very large body of anecdotal evidence to support the use of coupling and isolation in playback systems.  Vibrapods are just one possible way to achieve isolation. Wander over to AudioAsylum and do some searches on the topic.  There is a great deal of discussion regarding coupling and isolation schemes and there is a lot of discussion about why coupling and isolation have their effects on different gear.

My own experience with this is using carbon fiber cones beneath my tube amp and preamp.  There was a not so subtle change in the characteristic of the sound.  The sound went from smooth to brittle and when I removed the cones the sound returned to it's previous smoothness.  That wasn't the result I hoped for but it was an audible result. 

[chitaper]

Look at what the thread title is.

Are we really talking about cd players and dvd players, or are we talking about vibrapods?

Moke, I would never claim (nor would anyone else here) vibrations from a crowded floor aren't going to show up in a recording from microphones on a stand on said floor. I'm sure vibrapods would do fine under a mic stand.

Hey, they're only $25, so it's not going to bust any budgets if they buy vibrapods. I just don't think they'd make much of a difference in the sound.

[chitaper]

ok listen, if you are gonig to doubt without trying, it's not my system, so whatever. 

but if you are interested in trying, come on down to my place any day and we will do a side by side test.

otherwise i don't know what to tell you.

Oops, forgot who I was replying to there. jpschst, where are you located?

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

with a bag of leadshot on top.

I used a 10lb iron plate on top of my CDRW700 and it tighten the image a little more.  I think a stamped chassis will tend to resonate.