Decoupling or vibration damping feet for Eversolo A6/A8

Hello.

I don't have a proper HiFi rack to isolate my components. Instead I have a high quality wooden piece of furniture with shelves and closing doors with bars that hide all the devices inside... A fair price to get the approval from my wife to have the HiFi in the living room...

In order to isolate my components there are mainly two options: vibration dampening rubbery feet like Vibrapods (recommended for spinning sources like turntables and CD/DVD/BR players) and decoupling solutions like spikes or aluminum foot with beads inside.

I have no experience on decoupling and my question is what do you think it would be more effective for an Eversolo A6/A8 given the fact that quite possibly the idea is to isolate it from external vibrations instead from internal ones.

Thanks in advance for your ideas.
Cheers.

 

What benefit do you think you will get from vibrationally isolating a solid-state device?

 

You could pick the unit up while it is playing the human body is a reasonably efficient isolator.
Keith

 

If it works as good as the vibration dampening feet I have under both my CD and BR, where there is an audible difference (to my ears) in clarity, I think it would be worth it. That is why I ask for opinions between the two options.

Cheers.

 

Really? That’s nice…

 

But there are no spinning mechanical parts to isolate from vibration in the A6/A8?

 

Keith is a (funny) guy (comedian)

 

You’re right but there are other internal vibrations caused by power supplies and electronic components that are supposed to affect audio devices. Additionally the external vibrations inside the same furniture, the ones coming from the speakers, the room, the building, street… I thought that that was the purpose of HiFi racks.

Cheers..

 

Hifi racks save you from bending over.
Keith

 

They don’t.
Keith

 

As Keith already mentioned, there is nothing like chip-vibration / capacitor-vibration / whateverelectronics-vibration (apart from the deliberately vibrating quartz cristals, of course, but they are a totally different story)
So, long story short: do not waste your money into such isolators / decouplers - there is no need.

 

Thanks Nutul.

Discarding the electronics vibrations and the ones generated by internal motors/rotors that clearly don’t apply here, what is your opinion on the vibrations coming from external sources like the speakers?

Cheers.

 

Irrelevant, unless:
1. you are playing a record on a turntable
2. the speakers are on furniture
3. you are playing at high volume
4. the turntable itself has absolutely no dump-feet (all of them have) and/or no platter suspension (all of them have, unless they are made out of a single granite block)
No jokes: the vibration thing (magic feet / pads...) is snake-oil...

 

Thanks a lot Nutul.

Clearly I only match condition #3 and only in certain moments.... Thank you for taking the time to explain.

Cheers.

 

I did the opposite to check it...

Played Alan Parsons I Robot at a middle power level, took my A6 in both hands and shaked it. Up and down, left and right, and around myself.

I made a few jumps with it in my hands too!

I Robot was not infected by that. It played perfect all the time.

So I can say, that nothing in my A6 is vibrating that could be infect the sound or something else.

I am very calm now and will sleep well tonight.

 

Wow Mister L. I thought no one could beat Keith! Well done!

 

Yes I haven’t seen that on an audio forum before!
Keith

 

I have isolation under my speakers, turntable, and CD transport, things which move/vibrate. I do question whether the isolation does anything at all. I guess I liked the eye candy of the IsoAcoustic devices but logic dictates that it is indeed snake oil.
I draw the line at solid state electronics as there is no vibration there.
There is no empirical data anywhere to prove that any of it makes a sonic difference to the music. Not one which the human ear can detect at least. It’s the same for $100 speaker cables vs $1000, $5000, $50000 cables. Snake oil.
My two cents worth.

 

There is sadly a huge tsunami of BS in the Hi-Fi world, even more sadly propagated by media ‘influencers’ and magazines.
ASR is the only BS free space on the internet.
Keith

 

Your turntable most likely does not vibrate, BUT, its motor could indeed induce some form of it, shall its axle be not perfectly balanced / centered (which would render your turntable a piece of junk straight away, so we leave it out for now)
Your speakers, OTOH, yes, the DO vibrate, and if your turntable (which does not vibrate... at least we hope so...) is on their very same surface, they could (and hence... would) transmit such vibrations to the turntable itself... to the tonearm, to the cartridge, to the stylus... all the way back to the amp.
Almost universally adopted solution: Isolate well your turntable:
1. solid block, heavy, aka: great mass == great dynamic inertia
2. a 5mm lead layer
3. 3 (three. not four, not two, not ten... just 3 - three) jelly-isolated feet.

Good to go.

P.S.
1. usually granite is your favorite material. Expensive, yes, but you are already on the wheel, right? 30 / 50 kg is the average weight
2. this is the most vibration-stopper of all materials. finding a 5 mm thick 50 x 50 cm sheet might be not the easiest thing to do, but this is it.
3. the three is for one and one only reason: one plane touches three, and only three points. Having less is like asking for wobble. Having more is asking for wiggle.

Everything else is, as already pointed out, useless. (to you... to the salesmen it is obviously not)

P.P.S.
I abandoned TT a long ago, when I understood:
- the FR in the bass area is poor (for mechanical reasons, of course)
- prone to vibrations
- prone to physical wear (the vinyl, of course, not the TT itself)
- the static (again, the vinyl)
- the dust crackles (the vynil, again)
- the audiophool awful prices (sometimes, I must admit, not always...)
- the stylus wear
- all the ritual of cleaning cleansing wiping... (but this is me now, I adore rituals... just tis, not so much)