 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
89.133.22.201
In Reply to: RE: This is an elegant tweak. Thanks for sharing it. posted by Al Sekela on February 17, 2010 at 14:41:20
In my system the binding posts (both inside the amplifier and on the speaker) benefit the most from these washers. I remember others use rubber washers on binding posts as a damping tweak.
As my Teflon washers are very small, I suppose they cannot really dampen a heavy case. I tend to think they may (also) have an electromagnetic effect?
Follow Ups:
Damping the binding posts would reduce vibrations conducted from the speakers into the amps by the speaker cables. Cables may be more or less flexible for side-to-side motion, but are very stiff for motion along their axes. I've found it helpful to support my cables with stiff paper cylinders that are damped against their own acoustic resonances. The cables are dressed with gentle curves so that speaker vibrations are not transmitted directly into the amps. Every little bit helps, so I'm not surprised by your findings.
Materials used as acoustic dampers have dielectric properties. Teflon sounds good to me, but others do not care for its sonic character. It is an excellent vibration damper as long as you don't put it under severe compression (it flows slowly). I use Teflon thread-seal tape to damp the cable lifters and AC plug blades in my system.
Cotton also sounds good, and some who don't like Teflon find cotton is an excellent dielectric. Cotton batting can be used for acoustic damping, but is not as easy to work with as Teflon. You can find 100% cotton batting in fabric stores that sell quilting materials. Be careful, as a lot of cotton batting has polyester in it.
Thank you for the explanation.
However, what I find strange is that a few very small washers could reduce vibrations of a large and heavy case, resulting in a significant improvement – I am not speaking of the relatively large washers needed for the binding posts. I suppose that the phenomenon might rather be attributed to isolating two different conductive materials – which would help reducing undesired electromagnetic effects.
Anyway, I try to eliminate direct contacts of different metals. For cable damping I apply cotton and wool as well.
BTW, I have been using cable lifters based on your recipe, and find them very effective. A few months ago, I think I managed to improve the paper cylinders a little bit, and in their current form they give better support to my heavy speaker cables. I will take a photo and post it.
Vibrations are a fact of life in audio gear. Where we get the most trouble is when the equipment exhibits resonance. Think of the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, where the suspension bridge design was made so light and without bracing that it exhibited a rocking resonance. Things were fine until a strong wind set up eddies in the air flow that happened to match the bridge resonance frequency, and the bridge was destroyed. The film of this is posted online in several places. See link for one of them.
A little damping in critical locations can kill the resonances for most vibration circumstances. This could be why you found a large effect with installation of what seemed to be insignificant amounts of damping.
George Cardas has made avoidance of overlapping resonant modes a fundamental design principle. Overlapping modes are more difficult to damp. His setup advice for speakers is a good way to start (look under his Insights page).
Electrical isolation is also possible but I think it is unlikely, as most stuff attached to the chassis is grounded in several ways.
I'll look forward to your photos, thanks.
Thank you for the information.
Post a Followup:
| FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
