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Barry, you have a slight problem...

You said "Then again, something either isolates or it doesn't. Partial isolation reminds me of partial silence."

In that case, nothing isolates. Perfect isolation is not achievable. Your Hip Joints and rack do not isolate down to zero Hz - they do have a frequency below which they don't isolate and actually magnify the vibration passing through them. You can set that frequency quite low, even as low as 1 or 2 Hz, but you can't get it down to zero.

Above that, the degree of isolation achieved increases with frequency but still never achieves complete isolation. We can get things down to levels we regard as inaudible but I don't think anyone claims complete isolation at all frequencies, and not even at all frequencies in the device's bandwidth which is a much more limited claim.

All we can ever achieve is partial isolation, but that doesn't mean that it's ineffective isolation. Get the bandwidth and the effectiveness within the bandwidth right and the results of the residual vibration reaching components will be inaudible to us. Even if we don't get things down to complete inaudibility, we can get them down low enough to make a huge positive difference to what we hear, and that justifies the effort anyway.

Partial isolation is fine, as long as it makes an audible improvement. More can be better still, but I think chasing perfect isolation is setting an unachievable target and claiming it is simply wishful thinking.

Still, it would be very nice, very very nice...

David Aiken

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