Home Tweakers' Asylum

Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Tweakers' Asylum ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

Re: Vibration and isolation

Barry,

You said: "My first thought upon reading this was that even if we achieved a situation where there is no relative motion between any of the objects in the room, seismic vibrations could (and therefore would) still enter components and do their damage."

Not so if coupling gets taken to the extreme. If the floor is coupled to the earth then everything that is coupled to the floor is also coupled to the earth so components would not be moving relative to the earth and there would be no problems from seismic vibration. The whole shebang - component, rack, floor, earth - will all be moving in unison. Airborne vibration (sound waves) will impact on the components, rack and room surfaces but all of that would still come into unison with the earth through coupling provided it was good enough.

In principle perfect coupling is ideal but perfect coupling is not achievable.

Isolation stops vibration reaching the components via conduction, but still leaves the component vibrating from its own operation and from airborne vibration. You can't isolate a component from it's own vibration - you can only damp that vibration - so isolation isn't an answer on its own either, and we can't get perfect isolation just like we can't get perfect coupling.

In practice we can get very good levels of isolation, coupling and damping - more than enough to make very significant differences as we both know. It shouldn't be surprising that starting from different points in different environments and with different materials available we both end up using different strategies but those strategies still come from the same 3 basics. Think of how many different sorts of bread you can make with slightly different combinations of the same ingredients yet they're all bread and they all work (ie provide nourishment). Some work better than others but there are still an awful lot that work as well as each other but taste different and which of them is best? That question really doesn't make sense - which do you prefer or which is easiest or most appropriate in your circumstances makes a lot more sense when alternatives work as well as each other or the differences are minor rather than major.

I like what I've achieved in my system and I'm quite happy to help others do similar things, but I can't imagine many people wanting to duplicate it exactly and I wonder, given differences in room and gear, whether that would always be the most effective strategy anyway or even the most appropriate to their needs. Hell, without trying every other option, and I'm not about to do that, I can't even be certain that I've achieved the most cost effective result for what I've spent but I am certain that I haven't got the most effective result in absolute terms. I can say, however, that I've reached the point where I no longer feel the need to tinker with what I've done in this area for the moment. That's always subject to change with component upgrades, house moves, or even just a startlingly new and attractive idea that just happens to grip my fancy but I seem to run out of those ideas around 18 months ago when my current configuration fell into place.

There is one thing I'm certain of. We're all better off with a well developed range of options to share and the opportunity to wonder whether the next person has done it better to keep us on our toes and questioning our individual levels of success.

David Aiken

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Parts Connexion  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]