Confirmed : PC Damping

[PeterSt]

Yeah, now what.

Some people claim that a PC playing audio should be nicely damped just the same. Well, I have not seen those claims very explicit, but the subject passes by in between the lines some times and it always comes across to me a "I had some spare special footers so I put them under the PC".
Nice.
Nice, but how can it ever matter. I am not like that.

Yesterday because of a visitor implying the same ("it helps !") I was sort of forced to try it. More honestly, the person in question I regard to have fine ears (like my own but better shaped). So why wouldn't he be right on this; We agreed about everything else, so let's try something.

Ahum.

Let's say in general that a couple of different footers under the PC implies as much of a change as different footers for the NOS1a. Now that.
Ok, apparently many will know already, and it is only that the subject hasn't been passed explicitly in this forum that I know of, why I now like to make an explicit subject of this. So done.

Yea, but, ehm, no no, there's a 1 minute thought which went in advance of trialling this myself for this first time. And *that* goes a bit further than footers alone ...

Mobo main clock replacement....
That.

So you know, of course I don't believe sh*t of this. "Of course" because in my view (and happy to be the only one) this is such an out of control tweak - as it seems. Also happy to tell you that all my sensors pop out from everywhere, telling me that whatever happens is coincience, of course is not for the better in the end, and all the blahblahblah as usual from my hand (avoid my mouth !). Still, I 100% believe - and also always - that such a thing matters no matter who claims it in this forum. So matters, yes, but having it under our control for the better is yet to see. Same in this (Nick's) case. Want to believe, but there's nothing to really hold on.

And then there was this visitor telling about the footers, and there was the click in me - jitter !
eh ...

Well sure. If we first are able to proove that a thing like changing the clock of a MoBo makes a difference (for better or for worse does not matter) - and I reckon Nick did just that - then all I can think of is that this must be somehow jitter related. Mind you, in-PC only (for now). It is also not so difficult for me to think like this from the technical realm, because there's much "cleaning" going on in a PC and the processor. This is already needed to keep the clock edges stable, so the "de-skewing" as such process (circuitry) is named is a real time thing, continuously happening.

And so what my mind suddenly was capable of yesterday, was seeing the relation between Nick's clock endeavours and damping the PC for similar "clock jitter" reasons.
And weren't it that the past weeks I have been experimenting with clock damping in general, I might still not have received that "click".

But now this is going to be so far beyond of what we always thought about, that it's almost beyond belief of possibilities. So let's prepare for some new era ? See next post.

[manisandher]

So the fact that my PC and NOS1a are in a room totally isolated from the listening room is probably a very good thing, no? I mean, no speaker coupling whatsoever. But this has only really become possible, with no hit on SQ, since the Blaxius cables came on the scene. 10m lengths? No problem.

I now use Windows RDC to control the PC with a laptop via wifi. The PC itself has no wifi, just a LAN connection. (Actually, it doesn't even have a graphics card.) I would strongly recommend anyone to try this... BUT you have to have a NOS1a to ensure no SQ degradation using the LAN.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

So the fact that my PC and NOS1a are in a room totally isolated from the listening room is probably a very good thing, no?

Hey Mani - No. Or "almost no". But it requires my next post. Not all so much time for it at this moment.

Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

Watch out :
Read down to the end before jumping to (my) conclusions.


If we start looking at the normal audio oscillators, I must now "admit" that I have been experimenting with ultra-low jitter clocks. Think 27fs of RMS jitter (with adjacent superb low phase noise response, so for real).
I couldn't get this working. but let's look at two pictures from a while back :

So what was this about ?
The difference in jitter on the audio clock(s) while being silent (first picture) and while doing some "excersises" on the floor.
All with the notice that the first picture actually shows the scope's limits for time resolution (shows 13ps of peak-peak jitter) and the second picture shows jitter of 36ps which is NOT beyond the scope's limit. IOW, the 13ps will in practice be (way) lower, while the 36ps is for real.

What I want to say with this is that moving a bit up and down on the floor causes (max) 36ps of peak to peak jitter.
Ok, don't move, or bring the lot down to the basement we'd say.

Back to the start of this post - please do recognize that what I had at hand there was around 1000 times less of jitter (not completely comparable because the 27fs is "RMS" which implies more peak to peak than 27fs. But make that 100fs and it is still 250 times less.

Now the crux : this is totally out of control. Or at least that was my conclusion of it, not being able to "create" a decent sound, merely meaning : a consistent sound. One of which I could "see" which direction to go to improve where it wasn't right. And this is not so normal (for me).

What really happens is that while any base higher jitter is just that, but can be influenced to some degree by movement of the floor and such, this is only a relative "somewhat". To understand this : if the first picture already would have shown 36ps, the movement of the floor would not have shown more, but the distribution of the jitter would have changed. Will be audible as well, but not so much (as how I envision it). With the 27fs as the base though, breathing at 1m distance could already be influencing. So whatever happens, the ultra low jitter gets way higher and this undoubtedly in some oscillating fahsion. So think the music (sound pressure) hammering on to the clock, that influencing the clock, that influencing the music, that influencing the clock. Oscillation.

Bring it to the basement and you're good.
Yes ?

Let's think PC now;
Pull out your screwdrivers, hold the pin to the PC chassis and put your ear on the other end (better try not to put the screwdriver the other way around). What do you hear ?
"Sound" you may say. Ya ya, but sound is vibration. Period. So you hear vibration.

Of course, when there's no single fan in there, and only SSDs and no, ehm, transformers, then all should be completely vibration free. But maybe take out the capacitors as well.
Oh.

So you see, if I really can relate this to the audio clock experience, on which I completely gave up (which such crazy super detail in all kind of (inconsistent) aspects), then go figure.

And thus, all we need to do is map this phenomenon on to the MoBo's oscillator(s) - or the one on the USB card for that matter - and ... then what.

First we need to "think" is that the jitter the vibration and everything implies (including that from the listening room, the PC now assumed to be in there which is the case for most of us) is high enough to change the sound for whatever further reason.
Remember, I still assume that mangling that clock (per Nick's ideas) do influence the sound indeed, so from there it is logical to to think that just jitter does - no matter for now how (but see first post about (de-)skewing).

So yes, I have seen pictures of people having their spinning disks in rubber bands outside of the PC's cabinet. That sort of thing would be required. But more generally, and as already said, no moving parts are to be around.
Nice PeterSt, "Eureka". Yeah, well, I don't care, but it would be nice when "we" would be able to find the reason, instead of just following other's noses and be still out of control. So if the sheer reason is the influencing oscillators (crystals) then maybe we can do something about *that*.
How ? yes, nice question.

After the only few experiments we ran through yesterday, it (very preliminary) looks like the PC needs a sort of opposite damping as the DAC. Ok, can't avoid to be general (but like to) - and need to mention something such as the NOS1a. And let's make that "a" specific, because of the way better jitter specs than the normal NOS1. Anyway :

Say, generally, that the NOS1a requires a stiff damping, think hard wood-like. "Requires" ? well, to my liking for the accuracy and e.g. no stumping fuzzy bass. Make that rubber and the latter happens. Now put the same wood-like under the PC and all gets gray and with less bass. Easily audible. Music doesn't work any more either; things get flat.
Now put rubber under there and the very opposite would happen from doing that under the NOS1a : transients improve, bass is right
I know, not exactly the opposite as what happens for the NOS1a, but mere opposite from the wood vs the rubber under the PC and what I would expect from it.
And please watch out, because the situation will be very specific to mine and where the PC recides in the first place (floor, rack, closet, etc. etc.).

And yes, my PC has a running fan for the CPU cooling and contains one (2.5") spinning disk. Not more. Ah, active power supply cooling (fan). Yes.

Especially because these kind of vibrations are high frequency, I can expect that to be more hammering on "jitter" than the floor-excersise experiment. So worse.

I can extend the whole thing to the PC nicely vibrating in the cabinet (say my audio rack) while the NOS1a is in that same cabinet. Now things get more complex because what I did with the rubber under the PC is decoupling it from the DAC.

Ha ! So now we are confused. Bring your PC and DAC down to the basement and you achieved nothing.


Being at this stage of reasoning, I now tend to believe more in the PC influencing the DAC than the PC influencing itself for SQ reasons. So what would be more logical or easy to believe ?
a. The vibrations of the PC influencing the normal audio clock that causing additinal jitter;
b. The vibrations of the PC influencing its own clock that causing jitter (which would be true) to further reason out that it can influence sound.

Ad b.
I took this for granted because of Nick's experiments. Do notice though that it almost takes "nothing" to change a vibration situation towards the DAC. And might it be difficult to envision how : a USB connecting cable, that being not sufficiently free-floating, will couple the both; things in this realm will change the most easily after turning a screw or whatever change, just because you don't take them into account. So do in the future. Sound waves onto the USB cable, or interlink for that matter, already couple (to say, the DAC). And to understand and believe this, all it really takes is to try such 27fs RMS jitter clock and see that all suddenly matters like day and night. As "we" (NOS1a) have it, it is only less influencing because the jitter base is higher. So still under control, but we must think carefully how.

Now I hope this expands to something valuable some time.
Peter

[christoffe]

First we need to "think" is that the jitter the vibration and everything implies (including that from the listening room, the PC now assumed to be in there which is the case for most of us) is high enough to change the sound for whatever further reason.

-------------------------

Bring your PC and DAC down to the basement and you achieved nothing.

Hi,

with less acoustic vibrations (from the listening room) you get
less jitter and
the SQ improves from both units located in the basement
(PC + DAC)

Joachim

[PeterSt]

Hi Joachim,

I'm afraid I have been totally unclear. Anyway, while what you just said is valid, it is not related at all to what I tried to bring across (or what this topic is about for that matter).

But OK !
Peter

[manisandher]

Hey Peter, really interesting - thanks for sharing.

Of course, when there's no single fan in there, and only SSDs and no, ehm, transformers, then all should be completely vibration free. But maybe take out the capacitors as well.

So, should we be aiming for totally vibration-free PCs? ... And then take them into the basement ;-)

Mani.

[christoffe]

Being at this stage of reasoning, I now tend to believe more in the PC influencing the DAC than the PC influencing itself for SQ reasons. So what would be more logical or easy to believe ?
a. The vibrations of the PC influencing the normal audio clock that causing additinal jitter;
b. The vibrations of the PC influencing its own clock that causing jitter (which would be true) to further reason out that it can influence sound.


Now I hope this expands to something valuable some time.
Peter

Hi,

Brians improvised layout is a good starting point for tests.

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3062.msg33261#msg33261

No rotating parts (inducing vibrations) are inside the cabinet.

Joachim

P.S. The best location for an AUDIO PC + DAC is "always" outside of the listening room (and the other gear too, if possible).
It would be interesting to hear/evaluate the differences in SQ between Michaels fanless PC and the XXH PC.

[PeterSt]

So, should we be aiming for totally vibration-free PCs? ... And then take them into the basement ;-)

Not too quickly perhaps. Remember, I only chose for option "b" because it seems more logical to me (PC influences DAC). So requires more testing and it is one of these things I am quite fed up with. Envision that I again have way better sound (as I think on day 2) and now already I must try out other things. But people can try themselves as long as you understand what could be happening. So or PC influences itself or PC influences DAC, or both.
But advice : try the softest under the PC vs the hardest (latter equal to nothing I'd say). The difference over here equals the difference for the same under the DAC.

Especially for you Mani such test is interesting, because you already *have* the lot in the basement. But when you encounter a clear difference like here it doesn't tell much, apart that no sound pressure is influencing the PC. So not sure.
(yes, better would be to bring up the PC to the listening room or at least elsewhere from the DAC - I know, no lust - haha)

Peter


PS: Thank you Joachim.

[PeterSt]

Btw, maybe unbelievable but the most easy thing for me to do would be let now float the PC on water. All other implies easy mistakes with different mains and grounding and what not. Plus of course my poor USB cable is too short.
And when the sound is suddenly poor with the PC on water I can always drink the water instead of beer.

But I like to do that really (no, not drinking the water).
Crazy stuff.

[Scroobius]

Make that rubber and the latter happens. Now put the same wood-like under the PC and all gets gray and with less bass

Interestingly I have some "hard things" with little holes in them that were under my NOS1a -ha ha. Recently removed from service and replaced with rubber feet (actually halves of racketball balls - and they are even blue to match NOS1a).

Maybe some experimentation is in order!!!

[PeterSt]

Not too quickly perhaps. Remember, I only chose for option "b" because it seems more logical to me (PC influences DAC).

F*ck. I chose for option "a" !
Text (above) belong to that. Sorry ...

Peter

[Nick]

Peter

b. The vibrations of the PC influencing its own clock that causing jitter (which would be true) to further reason out that it can influence sound.

What a result, it's very exciting to see the traces above quantitatively linking the PC's "operation" to DAC jitter with vibration as the stimulus.  I'v also played around a little with vibration and EMI isolation here (eg moved the PC from the area of bass speakers, and placed clocks into enclosures etc) and it changed sound here too sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

There are the hardware level processes within the PC that have far greater linkage to sound quality, the PC's hardware "operations" massively influence sound quality. Certainly this is the case when using a DAC as transparent as the NOS1a but I'm reasonably sure now that virtually any DAC that uses a USB, Firewire or PCIe based interfaces will be very strongly influenced by PC's hardware.

Things have been slowed a little waiting for parts but lots of work is happening and more posts to follow 

Regards,

Nick.

[acg]

Hi Peter,

Interesting!  But I really really don't want to be thinking about this stuff, and perhaps neither do you, the number of combinations and permutations are staggering and I think that getting to the 'basics' or essence of the issue will be very important here without getting sidetracked.

So, first question regarding your jitter images in post #3 above.  Can you be sure that your exercises did not affect the measuring equipment as well as well as the dac?  Or perhaps one more than the other?

Cheers,

Anthony

[boleary]

Hi,

Brians improvised layout is a good starting point for tests.

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3062.msg33261#msg33261

No rotating parts (inducing vibrations) are inside the cabinet.

Joachim

And Ya'll thought I was  crazy.....   Anyway, here are a few more pictures. In the first picture ( I hope its first) are the various footers I've settled on. Moving left to right, the first footer is cork/rubber and four of them are under the PC power supply, which is outside the case, the next are little gizmos that were $25 for three from China and three of them sit under the spinning HD- also outside the case, the next are Daruma3-II (no longer sold) and the are under the NOS1 next to Peters little rubber pads, and the last is a Stillpoint Ultra Mini (see: http://www.stillpoints.us/). They are pricey (around $300 for three). I have three of them under Berts amp, 3 under the PC and three under the granite slab that the PC power supply and hardrive sit on. (Okay, now you can call me crazy again.) The Stillpoints absolutely transformed the sound in my room.

In the second photo you can see that I have the DAC and amp on 3" thick maple blocks (Timbernation.com). The blocks have 4 attached brass cones that pierce the carpet and rest on the floorboards.

Regarding the footers I have tried all possible combinations, including rubber vibrapads, not shown. The cork/rubber I consider my soft ones. They did not sound good under the PC or the DAC, both of which preferred the hard Ultra Mini and Daruma III's respectively. Interestingly the DAC sounded terrible with the Ultra minis.

Off course, all of my testing was unscientific, trial and error---Peter's worst nightmare. But, in the end, the sound in my room is really pretty incredible.

One last thing. The round "thing" on the DAC is a 5 lb granite skull my brother got me for Christmas one year. It helps too!

[PeterSt]

Brian, I now can see why your wife moved you to upstairs.

More seriously it looks like you only recently started this hobby ! and you could do that because you had the opportunity to move to upstairs. I mean, such things in the living room ?


PS: Strange to see "live" photos coming up while I am actually staring at the same NOS1 right at this moment over here. We'll Blax it !

[PeterSt]

So, first question regarding your jitter images in post #3 above.  Can you be sure that your exercises did not affect the measuring equipment as well as well as the dac?  Or perhaps one more than the other?

Hi Anthony - very good point. And of course I can't tell with 100% guarantee. All I know is that the scope was on a very large kuschen for the purpose.

Keep 'm coming because mistakes are made so easily !
Peter

[Nick]

So, first question regarding your jitter images in post #3 above.  Can you be sure that your exercises did not affect the measuring equipment as well as well as the dac?  Or perhaps one more than the other?

Hi Anthony - very good point. And of course I can't tell with 100% guarantee. All I know is that the scope was on a very large kuschen for the purpose.

Keep 'm coming because mistakes are made so easily !
Peter

Peter hi,

Could you set up so that you are playing music from the PC into the NOS1a but without your speakers switched on. Then try tapping the PCs chassis whilst watching the audio clock waveform to see if the taps on the PCs case / Mobo produce a transient spreading of the audio clock's trace line.

If vibration levels in the PC is linked to the audio clock jitter trying this might eliminate unintended variables between tests, and would really demonstrate a link between vibration stimulus of the PC and audio clock jitter in the DAC.

Regards,

Nick.

[PeterSt]

Nick,

Virtually impossible. We will be talking about sub-ps differences here and that at 45M cycles per second. So think like that refresh rate and then what.
So no, sorry.

Peter

[Nick]

We will be talking about sub-ps differences here and that at 45M cycles per second. So think like that refresh rate and then what.

Hi Peter,

See what you mean, the scope is fast and could overwrite a transient response to the tap given the 25m refresh.

My thinking was that stimulus of a "tap" to the chassis is going to last for ~0.1 - 0.2 seconds (or you could drum your fingers continually).

Even with the exceptionally high refresh rate refresh there should be a good chance of seeing some transient reaction on the scope if the change in audio clock jitter performance is related to vibration within the PC.  The stimulus of drumming on the PC case should be large compared to vibration based feedback from playing of music, so if the jitter is vibration related you would think it would show itself.

Regards,

Nick.

[juanpmar]

Besides the isolation feet under the audio PC and the NOS1 maybe you should consider also to isolate the NOS1 plates as I did when upgrading to Blaxius. Although I couldn´t test it yet maybe it would be something to consider.

Juan

[Nick]

Peter hi

I came across this paper on the relationship of environmental vibration on oscillators. Its fascinating reading.

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/5975.pdf

Take a look at Fig 1 (PDF page 3), the figure and explanation are linking environmental vibration of an oscillator to increased phase noise at a phase noise offset frequency of the environmental vibration. Just look at the 100hz side bands in that plot ! So vibrate the crystal at 100hz and see the phase noise performance of the crystal get worse at 100hz offset. Or put another way audio or any frequency vibration results in similar frequency phase noise.

The paper is using high vibration G levels to prove the relationship but says it’s possible to work out a vibration susceptibility level which can be used to predict phase noise response to lower vibration G levels.

I'm not saying that the damping jitter effect is defiantly linked to oscillator vibration, there are plenty of other components in the PC that might be impacted leading to the jitter, but it’s interesting to see this. I guess also that the environmental vibration issue the paper discussed holds for any oscillator, so the audio oscillator in the DAC as well as the PC.

Now where did I put those isolation feet ? 

Regards,

Nick.

[PeterSt]

Nick, I don't know what needs to happen before I read and understood this all ... ! pfff.
But yes.
And seems to go beyond floating on water. Haha.

Will try to digest it !
Thanks,
Peter

[acg]

So, first question regarding your jitter images in post #3 above.  Can you be sure that your exercises did not affect the measuring equipment as well as well as the dac?  Or perhaps one more than the other?

Hi Anthony - very good point. And of course I can't tell with 100% guarantee. All I know is that the scope was on a very large kuschen for the purpose.

Keep 'm coming because mistakes are made so easily !
Peter

Second question Peter.  Is it possible to "measure" the jitter for the different PC damping solutions to get some idea about the relative contribution of various vibrations to the change? Such as the two images you posted above...although it would be ideal to be able to generate a histogram on the jitter spectra rather than rely on the fuzziness of the line on the scope.

Perhaps change one variable at a time: usb cable routing and type; proximity to the soundroom; various types of "damping" et cetera.  I know that is a lot of work, but it is a nice linear workflow that may be able to shed light on which vibrations matter.

As as aside, your observation that softer damping of the PC works best seems to correlate with the idea of removing or minimising low frequency vibrations from the floor/rack.  Softer damping generally means that lower frequencies are absorbed by the damping.  Harder footers probably serve more of a "tuning" function and in my opinion based on my limited knowledge of this subject those sorts of "tuning" footers are "tweaks" rather than solutions. 

Cheers,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Hi Anthony,

Measuring of jitter as you suggest of course is possible, *if* I had the gear for it. And I have not; too expensive (think 150K+ euros for the jitter levels we talk about here).
Otherwise I am under the limits of the scope I use for it (3ps) so nothing much more to do at his moment but listen.

In my view you are correct about the footers and when they become "tweaks". This is why I never like to experiment (still did not change a thing since) and rather reason out the exact "how". Well, you know. But I really can't do all at the same time so we must be patient somewhat.

Thanks and regards,
Peter

[acg]

Ok, I understand that but what is the way forward?  Just stuff and stressed "sandwich" under the pc and some soft springs under the sandwich to damp frequencies under 5hz or so?

Is listening the only way to quantify a change in SQ?

[PeterSt]

Anthony - Yes, I'm afraid so. But what's the difference with damping/footers under the DAC and other gear ? Persoanlly I think we shouldn't be hyped because now I started with this and created a topic for it. Of course, I try to have some reasoning along with it, but I surely shouldn't be regarded as someone who found something new and it now needs further exploration. All I say is that it matters (even quite a lot) plus that I don't know how to control it. Or at least not in general fashion (working out for everybody I mean).

Meanwhile my change from now over a week ago is still in and I still hear the virtues of it. Btw I think it is on the edge of too much snappyness but I wouldn't know how to make that less (or more for that matter). Of course all it takes is putting some different matererial under it but since I don't see the sense of that (which could be telling you what to do), why do it. May come across as too negative but it is and remains so that I never do anything for myself only here and I rather not create a "Yahoo!" for myself because I would have psychological problems with not being able to share.

But isn't it enough if you guys yourself know that you can experiment ? Or did you but didn't hear a difference (and don't tell about it ) ?

During typing another (related) experiment slipped into my mind. So maybe I will apply that and report about it ...

Regards,
Peter

[acg]

I just came across this article in AudioBeats using Ikea bamboo cutting boards.  It is worth a read...

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/blog/ikea_aptitlig.htm

The suggestion is basically to couple the equipment to a mass that randomly resonates (the layered bamboo).  We don't have an Ikea anywhere near us here but it might be something to try.

[PeterSt]

The suggestion is basically to couple the equipment to a mass that randomly resonates

Hi Anthony, Yes, that would be my idea about such things; must be as random as possible.

No bamboo either out there ?

Thanks !
Peter

[acg]

Well you would not credit this timing, but a mate gave me a call out of the blue today from of all places Ikea.  I said "how about you spring me a couple of bamboo cutting boards, the big 3 layer ones".  He says "you would not believe it, I'm standing right next to them"

So I have two on the way!

[juanpmar]

 

Juan

[AlainGr]

[PeterSt]

Juan, I like your audio rack as well !

Anthony, seems impossible ... But some times ...

[acg]

Juan, I like your audio rack as well !

Anthony, seems impossible ... But some times ...

It does seem impossible.  My mate was having his car serviced had and walked down the road to Ikea to kill some time.  Thought he would give me a call...

[PeterSt]

What is not so impossible is that I just sent out the brigades to Ikea, hunting for all sorts of Bamboo stuff. Due in an hour to my estimation.

Easy : Hey, don't you need to go to Ikea by now ? seems long ago !
Didn't take a minute for something was found. And then I handed my list.

[PeterSt]

Peter
(but Juan was first)

[Michel]

Well I'm going to try. I drive every day along the Ikea on the A9.
(Amsterdam)

It looks a bit strange tho. No WAF factor at all.

Regards,
Michel

[PeterSt]

Of course you must not leave on any onions on it.

[acg]

Seems to be the things to do...

[PeterSt]

So why not a first small report;

Put the larger one (see my picture in a previous post) under the NOS1a. My situation : Sturdy cabinet of 2m60 or so wide, flat on the floor (hard to lift with two people). In there glass plates (= not the best) and on that the equipment like the NOS1a. And that on "special" footers.

Put the bambo plank with the slits upside (dunno why, but one has to chose something). Already used footers and NOS1a on that.

Turned on the music which was a next track from the album I played the day before, where I left off.
Grabbed the plastic wrap from the plank to throw it away a few doors further in the house and when I left the room the first "hit" of the music gave me a "more bass".

With this in my mind I came back in the room and within a second or two a "more bass !" was thrown at me from our new born audiophile.
"How the heck do you know that, because you never heard this track". -> Well I do.
Oh.
After 10 seconds more a "more thinkling highs" was put forward. And yes I agreed.

Yes, for sure it was all over different. And for the better I'd say, merely derived from those more tinkling highs. Elsewhere I would have decribed it as "more bells again".

With a doze of opportunism, already after half an hour I thought "what the heck, let's do the PC too".
PC is in same fashion in that cabinet and it has its own footers (the Silverstone cabinet). Side note : I removed the other footers as was the subject of this topic, already two weeks or so ago. So with 2-3 weeks of them I didn't like it any more. Say a too shrill sound. Highs too much emphasized or something. Maybe not wrong as such, but brought a slight flavor and I don't like flavors.

Knowing that it is far from the best to apply such a 2nd change so quickly (I better had not done that), from there it was down hill. So, same plank (I bought two of everything), in the same position (slits up).

The highs now went towards explicitly silky. I estimate that most of you will shout "huray !" but for me it was too nice. Reminded me of the first time I applied a i2s interface to the Juli@ which was in-PC back then, instead of SPDIF. Super silky.
But the remainder of the evening I found myself in the midst of too few dynamical sound. Cymbal hits were not that any more. Nice maybe but not so realistic.

Of course it is impossible to judge this right, especially because I listened to the "NOS1a only" for no more than 30 minutes. Anyway, tonight the PC plank is going to be exchanged with one of the other appliances (carefully selected of course for their different perceived properties ) and then we'll see again. Or hear.

Peter

[acg]

Hi Peter,

Care to share what your "special footers" are yet?  A photo of your setup would be nice just so it is clear in our minds just what you are doing.

I've not tried my boards yet.  I have not one single audio style footer of any type in the house...never ever tried them.

Cheers,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Hi there Anthony,

Thought about a photo, but nothing much special. Anyway, here it is.

The footers ? home made and secret. But actually this bares some history and while I thought that all would be in the open automatically, that never happened. So, nice opportunity to let that work out now. So :

We remember the NOS1 floating on water, right ? We also remember who whon that little (for us over here) friday evening game ? it was Coen.
So we sent him his prize without further outlay or anything.

And you know what ? he never even responded to it. Not one word. Actually this bugs me somewhat. On the other hand, I can imagine that he never recognized what it was and what it was for.

And so, today it is a nice opportunity so see some red cheeks, or maybe not and just Coen's description of what he thought of his actually beautiful prize.

Peter

[michaeljeger]

So why not a first small report;

Put the larger one (see my picture in a previous post) under the NOS1a. My situation : Sturdy cabinet of 2m60 or so wide, flat on the floor (hard to lift with two people). In there glass plates (= not the best) and on that the equipment like the NOS1a. And that on "special" footers.

Put the bambo plank with the slits upside (dunno why, but one has to chose something). Already used footers and NOS1a on that.

Turned on the music which was a next track from the album I played the day before, where I left off.
Grabbed the plastic wrap from the plank to throw it away a few doors further in the house and when I left the room the first "hit" of the music gave me a "more bass".

With this in my mind I came back in the room and within a second or two a "more bass !" was thrown at me from our new born audiophile.
"How the heck do you know that, because you never heard this track". -> Well I do.
Oh.
After 10 seconds more a "more thinkling highs" was put forward. And yes I agreed.

Yes, for sure it was all over different. And for the better I'd say, merely derived from those more tinkling highs. Elsewhere I would have decribed it as "more bells again".

With a doze of opportunism, already after half an hour I thought "what the heck, let's do the PC too".
PC is in same fashion in that cabinet and it has its own footers (the Silverstone cabinet). Side note : I removed the other footers as was the subject of this topic, already two weeks or so ago. So with 2-3 weeks of them I didn't like it any more. Say a too shrill sound. Highs too much emphasized or something. Maybe not wrong as such, but brought a slight flavor and I don't like flavors.

Knowing that it is far from the best to apply such a 2nd change so quickly (I better had not done that), from there it was down hill. So, same plank (I bought two of everything), in the same position (slits up).

The highs now went towards explicitly silky. I estimate that most of you will shout "huray !" but for me it was too nice. Reminded me of the first time I applied a i2s interface to the Juli@ which was in-PC back then, instead of SPDIF. Super silky.
But the remainder of the evening I found myself in the midst of too few dynamical sound. Cymbal hits were not that any more. Nice maybe but not so realistic.

Of course it is impossible to judge this right, especially because I listened to the "NOS1a only" for no more than 30 minutes. Anyway, tonight the PC plank is going to be exchanged with one of the other appliances (carefully selected of course for their different perceived properties ) and then we'll see again. Or hear.

Peter

Maybe Swiss Oak might be the better wood here to use.

[PeterSt]

Depends on the altitude.

[juanpmar]

While Peter reveals his secret  here you have the bamboo footers (2.5cm x 3.7cm and 3.7cm x 3.7cm). They are cut from the mid size board.

Juan

[PeterSt]

Juan,

Now drill some 2mm holes in them. Take the down-right one as example. One hole in the exact middle (from top to bottom) and two pairs from the the left-under side (as you see it in the picture). Say 1cm from the side edges.

Of course you make three of these footers. Put under your NOS1a and not under the footers you have there (next to them or remove the footers if you can).

Start out with positioning them all the same. Listen a bit, get a little crazy perhaps and now twist one 90 degrees.

Whether the "one hole" is from top to bottom or at the side, pick your own idea about it. As how you have them (not real cubes) you have one additional option only so you don't need a beer *that* fast. But if you'd had cubes ...

Have fun.
Peter

[juanpmar]

Peter, before downing the first beer I have to have some things clearer, otherwise it is going to be really difficult to know what I'm doing 

Ok, I take the piece down right on the previous picture to use as an example. I make a hole in the center and two holes on the side (see photos). Is that what you say? The question is, why the holes?, are they just to remember the position or have any special effect on the sound?

Juan

[PeterSt]

Exactly like that Juan.
And of course it is about the sound. And as I see you have a million of these, so you can even compare to those without the holes. Don't ask me whether those ink/pencil spots will make a difference.


Regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

Don't ask me whether those ink/pencil spots will make a difference.

Hi,

I'm sure, they do!

Joachim

[juanpmar]

Don't ask me whether those ink/pencil spots will make a difference.


Regards,
Peter

This does depend on the amount of beer for sure

 

Juan

[PeterSt]

I can't say that I am happy with this bamboo sound;

I only tried the large cutting board so far (under NOS1a, the one under PC was removed after one day already).

Envision raw bamboo in its thicker (older) form. If you tick on it with a finger nail there is a certain sound bouncing from it. Well, that is how the music seems to sound now. But as usual hard to explain.

I can summarize it in one very small sentence : Explicitly digital.
Or maybe poor W8 sound ^2.

The latter would be my description from 3 days not being able to find anything that produces music as such. So about old W8 nasty habbit : Robots^2.

Now I may wonder how others perceive good results (not seen on our own forum yet).
Also, if I see/feel the material I wouldn't say at all that it can be any good. It is too plain hard. Next, because it is so hard, how can it damp in good fashion. And if I envision the fiber-like structure (but look at the raw bamboo) then I'd say it isn't even organized in a fashion I would like. It would be resonating within itself ...

Maybe it is personal and it can well be that it highly depends on the situation as I have it, but 3 annoying evenings is enough for me. So out it will be.

Peter

[juanpmar]

Maybe some blu-tack used as footers could help to damp the bamboo board

Juan

[christoffe]

Hi,

when I have a look to the rack from Roy Gregory, I see some little soft pads glued on the metal "frame".

Joachim

[juanpmar]

I used an Exoteric Rack from Artesania Audio, the tandem one, although not right now because I have not room enough. This rack is composed of two racks, one is suspended inside the other one. The system components are also suspended in small arms terminated on footer pads. It is a kind of floating system and of course can be used also with platforms or boards. What I mean is that it is necessary the combination of different isolation systems to get a really well isolated system.
Now, with the bamboo boards, could be that the board itself be a good isolating platform but maybe needs some other elements to perform really well. Among the accessories that I also use often are the dampers (see pic), I´ll try them also with the bamboo boards and see what happens.

A.A. web: http://www.artesaniaaudio.com/

A.A. Racks: http://www.artesaniaaudio.com/images/artesania_english/catalogos/EXOTERYC%20RACK.pdf

A.A. Dampers, platforms, etc: http://www.artesaniaaudio.com/images/artesania_english/catalogos/accesories.pdf

Juan

[christoffe]

www.artesaniaaudio.com/images/artesania_english/catalogos/accesories.pdf

Juan

Hey Juan,

this is a SOTA rack, great!

The no. 10) isolation discs might be/is a starting basis.

Joachim

[juanpmar]

www.artesaniaaudio.com/images/artesania_english/catalogos/accesories.pdf

Juan

Hey Juan,

this is a SOTA rack, great!

The no. 10) isolation discs might be/is a starting basis.

Joachim

Yes Joachim, this Artesania Audio are really first class. The isolation discs you mention have a slit where goes the spike but could be placed directly on a board. However it is important to see the system as a whole. In the case of the bamboo boards if I woud use some kind of damper I´d use the metal discs with a felt underneath (Dampers from A.A.)

Another home made solution that I have used successfully with other Ikea boards is to place between two boards several Allsop Mouse Pad covering the entire surface, that way there is a layer of rubber between the two boards that serves as a damper. You can also try it between the two bamboo boards.

Allsop Mouse Pad: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Allsop-Raindrop-Mouse-Pad-Black/dp/B00I5MQOO6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1423228461&sr=8-6&keywords=Allsop

Juan

P.S. For those going to Munich High End 2015 make you a favor and take a look to Artesania Audio wherever they are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cBX0CjcP1g

[christoffe]

Another home made solution that I have used successfully with other Ikea boards is to place between two boards several Allsop Mouse Pad covering the entire surface, that way there is a layer of rubber between the two boards that serves as a dumper. You can also try it between the two bamboo boards.

Allsop Mouse Pad: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Allsop-Raindrop-Mouse-Pad-Black/dp/B00I5MQOO6/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1423228461&sr=8-6&keywords=Allsop

Juan

 

[christoffe]

Here is something similar to Peters idea- floating platforms -

found here:
http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/vibration.htm

---------------------
Roll your own

In order to provide a means of sampling what seismic isolation can do for your system, what follows are instructions for making your own equipment supports.  Items 3, 6, 7 and 8 pertain to roller bearings.  These can be used without air bearings to provide horizontal and rotational isolation only.  Air bearings can be used to provide vertical isolation only, as in those commercial racks and platforms which use air bearings.  Best results however, will be attained by using a combination of these to achieve multiple-axis seismic isolation.

1. Get yourself a bicycle tire inner tube for about $1.99.  I use 18" inner tubes.  The larger the circle described by the inner tube, the easier it is to balance the gear atop it.

2. Obtain a piece of plywood an IKEA board to use as a platform on top of the inner tube.  I use 1" maple ply measuring 20" by 20".

3. Go to a crafts store and purchase 3 wooden, usually pine, Easter egg holders and some marbles for a total of less than $2.

4. Place the inner tube on your shelf.  Inflate it only enough to hold the component up off the shelf.  Too much air and you won't get the benefits.

5. Place the plywood on top of the inner tube.

6. Place the three Easter egg holders on the plywood platform in the largest equilateral triangle that will fit under the gear you are going to support.  I suggest trying your CD player first, though the benefits will add up as you float your other components as well.

7. Place a marble, or even better, a ½" steel ball bearing, in each of the Easter egg holders.

8. Carefully place your component atop the marbles, so they alone support it, holding it up so its own feet do not make contact with the plywood platform.

Joachim

EDIT: The main idea is to get the vibrations into the IKEA board.

[juanpmar]

Ok Joachim, now this  is for you.

May I help? Here you go:

Continuing with Ikea products (I think we deserve some discount on the next purchase) here is the possible egg holder: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/60209474/

And the steel ball bearing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/10mm-Diameter-Grade-100-Hardened-AISI-420-Stainless-Steel-Ball-Bearings-/131408860399?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item1e989414ef

 

Juan

[juanpmar]

I've seen too late you've crossed the egg cup and the balls of steel

Juan

[christoffe]

Ok Joachim, now this  is for you.

May I help? Here you go:

Continuing with Ikea products (I think we deserve some discount on the next purchase) here is the possible egg holder: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/60209474/

And the steel ball bearing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/10mm-Diameter-Grade-100-Hardened-AISI-420-Stainless-Steel-Ball-Bearings-/131408860399?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item1e989414ef

 

Juan

Hi Juan,

thanx for the links.

We remember Peters "water bath" support/platform for the NOS1, and the idea to place an 18" inner tube under the IKEA board, when possible, is not so bad.

Joachim

[juanpmar]

We remember Peters "water bath" support/platform for the NOS1, and the idea to place an 18" inner tube under the IKEA board is not so bad.

Joachim

I have a couple of bikes bicycles , so while the warm weather arrives I can give them a better use  

Juan

[christoffe]

We remember Peters "water bath" support/platform for the NOS1, and the idea to place an 18" inner tube under the IKEA board is not so bad.

Joachim

I have a couple of bikes, so while the warm weather arrives I can give them a better use  

Juan

  Ha, Ha

are you talking about motorcycles  or bicycles ?

Joachim

[PeterSt]

Here is something similar to Peters idea- floating platforms -

found here:
http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/vibration.htm

Hi Joachim,

I think Barry Diament's base for that is this :
http://www.townshendaudio.com/hi-fi-home-cinema-equipment-vibration-isolation/hi-fi-home-cinema-vibration-isolation-equipment-stand-rack/

Regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

Here is something similar to Peters idea- floating platforms -

found here:
http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/vibration.htm

Hi Joachim,

I think Barry Diament's base for that is this :
http://www.townshendaudio.com/hi-fi-home-cinema-equipment-vibration-isolation/hi-fi-home-cinema-vibration-isolation-equipment-stand-rack/

Regards,
Peter

Oho,
nice racks. There is more behind vibrations, horizontal and vertical forces have to be eleminated.

Thanx Peter. I found the link on CA, where a thread about the IKEA boards is running too.

Joachim

[PeterSt]

FYI and FWIW :

Instead of taking out the board I gave it a last chance by putting footers under it - the same as normally under my NOS1a (and which are still there). It is only that I positioned the three of them "opposite" to those under the NOS1a (so where under a NOS1a leg are two, under the board is one, and the other way around).

And now I am fed up with 4 days of being totally annoyed with the sound.

[PeterSt]

Hi,

All back to normal yesterday evening.
I think I souldn't be doing these things because it only brings annoyance.

Indirectly it also shows like this :
When all is OK, one after the other track goes into the Demo Gallery. Or find some new albums for Nice Stuff. But nothing of either the past few days; only selection of albums of which you hope they can play all the way instead of (also annoyingly) looking for a next after the first track already.

Peter

[Arjan]

Hi,
I also tried the ikea board, off course. It is easy to test.
Only the board did something, not sure all for the better. But the barrydiamond idea with the bicycle tyre - ikea board - bearing really did it. Most stunning improvement it the depth of the soundstage. Unbelievable nice now. Will try the same with my amplifiers this week.
For the bearings I use magic dreams of omicron. The tyre is a 14" innertube.

Regards, Arjan

[christoffe]

But the barrydiamond idea with the bicycle tyre - ikea board - bearing really did it. Most stunning improvement it the depth of the soundstage. Unbelievable nice now. Will try the same with my amplifiers this week.
For the bearings I use magic dreams of omicron. The tyre is a 14" innertube.

Regards, Arjan

Hi,

  , when a water bath works ......., and now the suspension is adjustable! 

Joachim

[PeterSt]

and now the suspension is adjustable!

Yes ... very nice.
Small downside : So you *will* adjust it. And watch out for flat tyres ! (or blown ones )

Anyway, I could hear when I needed to add water (vaporized too much).

Thank you for sharing Arjan.
Peter

[vrao]

Coincidentally

NEW METHODS FOR QUANTIFYING SONIC PERFORMANCE: PART TWO
Part Two: How to Use Subjective and Objective Methods to Quantify System Performance
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/new-methods-for-quantifying-sonic-performance-part-two/

I've not read the whole article as yet, and can't comment ....

[juanpmar]

After some time without the possibility to listen music I returned today to my home and placed the NOS1a in the bamboo boards. The first thing I noticed was that the sound was not as smooth as the previous time when I first listened the Blaxius. Now the sound seems to be more like the real thing, less euphonic. However I´m not sure if the sound now is less smooth due to the boards. What I´m sure is that when the phase is changed (the NOS1a came with the outputs changed) the sound perceived is smoother than with the correct phase. That same effect happened also other times before when I changed the outputs of a dac. It may be that one is accustomed to hearing the music in a way and with the phase changed the effect surprises.
I have to play however with the boards and footers. Take a look to the picture to see how I placed the boards and footers. Two bamboo boards on top of other Ikea board. The footers are the ones Peter advised with holes, I put two feet in each place, one in top of the other. The sound now is at least as good as the best moments I can remember. Can it be any better? Sure, allways can be better but I could easily live forever with this sound.... I mean, If I were not as I am 

Juan

[AlainGr]

Hi Juan,

My question will sound silly, but the holes that you drilled, they go all the way through the piece right ?

I am curious to hear about the differences that you may hear depending how you turn them. Do you align the holes in the same direction for all of them ?

Regards,

Alain

[Tore]

I`m using Sonic Design damping feet under my NOS1 and amp

http://www.sonicdesign.se/sdfeet.html


Tore

[juanpmar]

Hi Alain, I have not make changes with the feet so far. I placed two feet in place of one just for intuition and placed the holes 90º turned from the one in the base to the upper one, if you look at carefully the previous picture you can see the different position of the holes. What I can say is that the sound this way is great with a really wide soundstage, good and defined bass and very realistic voices with an almost intimidating presence. If it is due to the Blaxius or the bamboo boards or both I really don´t know. I´ll try in the next days some variants to see if I can hear any difference.

Tore hi, those footers at least are cheap. I take the question that made me Alain and I sent it to you. Any difference?

Regards,
Juan

[Tore]

It is many vibrometer apps, i`m using this one :

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.maxcom.vibrometer&hl=en

It is less vibration with the Sonic Design but it is difficult to tell what it is doing with the sq.

But i have a super sq here and i think all small things is helping

Tore

[juanpmar]

Thanks Tore,  I'll check that vibrometer with and without the boards and footers

Juan

[juanpmar]

This afternoon I have been testing the feet. First I used only one, three in total. The sound was great. The next thing I did was placing a piece of rubber conglomerate in between two bamboo feet, this rubber is the kind of the ones that are used under washing machines to prevent vibration, the sound this time was also great. After that I tested the rubber feet alone, not bad but worse then with the other ones. In the end I used again the two feet of bamboo as before, one above the other, I placed them well away towards the extreme ends of the rear legs and well advanced in the center. This time the sound was fantastic, I could easily hear the difference.
So, for now I leave it this way. I wouldn´t like to change it but... The truth is that the way it is now makes me repeat: DO NOT TOUCH IT!

Juan

[AlainGr]

Hi Juan,

Thanks for the reports about the tests you did. This is really interesting (thanks to Peter also, but all that participate in this hobby for the best possible sound)

I will follow this thread very attentively, as I have thought about isolating each component, but as I understand it, some need "absorption", while others will sound better with the reverse effect ?

Alain

[michaeljeger]

Just thinking out of the box.

Has anybody ever tried the opposite?

Basically apply active vibriation to the equipment?

Something like little speakers with no sound.

[juanpmar]

Alain and Michael, as far as I know there is no magic bullet (except perhaps the mysterious feet made by Peter ). I think it is rather to try to find the most suitable system for each solution. As I mentioned in other posts before, I used diferent racks (e.g. Artesanía Audio), home forniture or Ikea boards, not only the bamboo ones. As feet I used different metal spikes, Vibrapods, balls of iron, balls of rubber, pieces of conglomerate rubber, blu-tack, gel bags, etc. What I can say is that the sound that I have now is the best I've ever had, even with my current speakers, that in theory are worse than other ones I had before. To be fair and do not seem exaggerated I´d say that the sound now is at least as in the best of times, maybe even better (I can not resist saying it  ).
But...I have to say that all those test were made with other dacs and with the NOS1 and now I have the NOS1a-Blaxius. It is true that I tried the NOS1a-Blaxius with and without the bamboo boards and in my opinion the sound is better with the bamboo boards, the way I have it now, including the feet. As you know, Peter is not satisfied with these boards, proving once again that the solution depends largely on each system and even on personal tastes.

Juan

[michaeljeger]

Well

Reading all of this here, it will come down to personal taste.

For some, a specific rack or damping hardware will be an improvement, for some it will be not.

But I doupt if anybody can say it is really improved.

Probably similar discussion as with the USB cables or cables in general.

Michael

[PeterSt]

Reading all of this here, it will come down to personal taste.

No way - in my view.
So on these matters I still have to run into the first person who doesn't judge exactly the same as I do and the other way around. We may think that all is subjective, but it really is not. But, be in the same room when discussing it.

That my footers/damping etc. WILL work out completely different than at "your" place, seems a fact too ...
But now there is so much related that this is actually very obvious.

Peter

[juanpmar]

Well

But I doupt if anybody can say it is really improved.

Michael

Michael, related to sound the words "improved", "better" or the "best ever" are always relative terms used in a personal context. Speaking in absolute terms what is better for me "can´t be" better for you because we have different systems and different tastes.
I´m not trying to direct this question to the philosophical or semantic fields   Of course one cable or one board or even one dac could be "better" or "the best" for many people with different tastes in many different systems. That validates the use of that words imho.
On the other hand would be boring if we can not give an opinion because the absolute truth does not exist, is it not?

Kind regards,
Juan

[christoffe]

Hi,

here is a different possibility  to us the “Aptitlig” board, described in the German HighEnd paper  “Fidelity”, Issue 16, page 136.

The author used the board upside down (the grooved surface downwards) with 3 pcs ceramic balls/bullets for the groove and “RDC buttons” to protect the surface of the rack/cabinet with good results.

The component on top of the “Aptitlig” board should be tested with or without footers.

Joachim

Edit:
 
There are SQ differences with bullets made of alumina/silicon nitride and  beads (insider info) and with various diameters too.
 
(Possible applications for glass beads are:
in ball bearings, as mixing beads for insulin, ball valves in dosing pumps and dispensers, crystal balls in the food industry)
www.schaeferglas.com/produkte/glaskugeln/

[PeterSt]

related to sound the words "improved", "better" or the "best ever" are always relative terms used in a personal context. Speaking in absolute terms what is better for me "can´t be" better for you because we have different systems and different tastes.

Hey Juan - this is a far better response or explanation etc. than my poor attempt.

So yes, I think we are allowed to express a "more nasty" or "less sibilant" or even a "more stiff bass" up to a "better bass" - and regarding the latter, once we know the person very well who says it.
But a "better" in general is not an appropriate term because it "works" over all the aspects together and while I might say "better" because of less nastyness but more poor bass at the same time, it won't tell about either. And so I would say : less nasytyness but also not the solution because my bass has gone.

And regarding the bamboo ... well, there I said I was annoyed for 4 days because I just was.
I think another just as well is allowed to say to be in extasy during 4 days.
But tells nothing much though because it's almost explicit taking distance from the real merit, which will be different for everybody. Well, for these things like damping and such.

Now I am waiting for Juan's verdict about his footers. I mean, the real one. Something like more or less accurate.
haha

Regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

Hey Juan - this is a far better response or explanation etc. than my poor attempt.

 

So yes, I think we are allowed to express a "more nasty" or "less sibilant" or even a "more stiff bass" up to a "better bass" - and regarding the latter, once we know the person very well who says it.
But a "better" in general is not an appropriate term because it "works" over all the aspects together and while I might say "better" because of less nastyness but more poor bass at the same time, it won't tell about either. And so I would say : less nasytyness but also not the solution because my bass has gone.

That's a good clarification

And regarding the bamboo ... well, there I said I was annoyed for 4 days because I just was.
I think another just as well is allowed to say to be in extasy during 4 days.
But tells nothing much though because it's almost explicit taking distance from the real merit, which will be different for everybody. Well, for these things like damping and such.

Now I am waiting for Juan's verdict about his footers. I mean, the real one. Something like more or less accurate.
haha

Regards,
Peter

Peter, "more or less accurate" is an oxymoron. Anyway, I don´t have the way to be accurate, I don´t have the tools and neither I´m a kind of accurate guy myself. So, I´ll try to take the "more or less" side, 

I always use the same music to test one component and, contrary to other ways to test, I do it quite fast. This is because I trust more the very first impression then if I spend days listening. That way usually works for me. Could be, and usually is, that after some days I find something in the sound that I don´t like, but usually I do not return to the settings that I dismissed at first. So far, I'm only on the third day, I´m using the boards and feet as in the picture I posted before.

Is the sound more accurate? well, in my subjective appreciation yes, it is more accurate in the sense that the sound seems to be more like the real thing. I use a record from a Spanish singer I know very well, the singer and the record, I saw this guy in concert several times and listened the recording hundreds of times. The sound I´m hearing now seems the closest thing to what I can remember in a live performance of this person. I said before that that voice seems to be almost intimidating, I can´t think of better word to define the presence, so real, of that voice in my room.

What about the other parts of the recording? The instruments sound very very real e.g. the acoustic guitar on which I always pay attention. If you play an acoustic guitar and let each string vibrate the sound lasts almost forever, well, it sounds here like that but it also has that "presence" again the word that come to my mind all the time. The bass also has different tones that are clearly perceived and for the 12 inches woofer of my speakers the bass has now a deepness that it is really surprising.

Analyzed as a whole, I think the instruments are well integrated with each other and also with the voice.

Two points though. The first one is that I began to feel some sense of sharpness or edginess, something like if the sound is too clear. It might be me with my morbid anxiety about the perfect sound. This time, though, the sound seems to me so good that I´ll try to not touch anything for as long as possible and after I listen many different kinds of music.

The second thing I want to say is that I firmly believe that most of the merit of the sound I hear now, is mainly due to the NOS1a-Blaxius and not to the boards or feet. Although I have got the NOS1a-Blaxius since some time ago I have not had the opportunity to listen it for too long, so I'm still impressed by its sound. However, as I also said before, I tested different feet in the NOS1a-Blaxius and I like the sound with the bamboo feet the way I have it now.

Was it an accurate analysis? I´m afraid that only "more or less"

Regards,
Juan

[juanpmar]

Someway this morning when I turned on the pc I found that the charm in my sound was gone, so I've been forced to try some other position for the feet.

I was lucky and placing the pieces in vertical, the back a little obliquely, I've got again the sound I like, now even a bit more balanced, equally clear but not at all brilliant. This time I used only three pieces.

Juan

[PeterSt]

Two points though. The first one is that I began to feel some sense of sharpness or edginess, something like if the sound is too clear. It might be me with my morbid anxiety about the perfect sound. This time, though, the sound seems to me so good that I´ll try to not touch anything for as long as possible and after I listen many different kinds of music.

Was it an accurate analysis? I´m afraid that only "more or less"

It sure was Juan !
And btw, about the accuracy I should have said : more, or less. I think you will get the difference in the nuance ...

But as it looks it didn't last all that long at your side. Well, good. As long as it is detected. But now about my "accuracy" (and just saying, this is not at all related to your last post, as you will see) :

What those footers will do (with the holes in them) is spread the sound. I didn't even read back on your post about them, but in my opinion they create a huge sound stage, and a more evenly spread SPL in the whole room. So, the originally more "point sourced" sound is now spread more. This, for me, has to be an indication about accuracy already. But, only stupid theory and for me only made up after I found how it changes the sound. And, this is just "less accurate". Ok ...

This is about how very pinpointed sounds at first (without those footers) now are not that any more. So, after I heard that, the reasoning of such a sharp boundaried sound (could be a small bell etc. etc.) now becomes larger. Because, easy, that tiny sound too has spread.

I don't recall that this explicitly exhibited a smeared or more grey sound, but the literal accuracy disappeared. And this, of course, is what the NOS1(a) should bring us. And it stopped doing that, for me.
Otherwise you'll envision yourself to be in a church easily, where otherwise (other footers) this does not happen, relatively spoken. For me the real downside was (and probably still is) that I got a sort of mad of it. Completely drunk while I actually did not drink (too much ). An uncomfortable feeling which in the end I could not stand.

This latter can be personal and which was the reason to take them out (after maybe 4 days but I forgot), and when I did that, I noticed how much of the accuracy I had lost.

Best regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

Peter, certainly the soundstage is huge, at first I thought it was just wider, like other people said about the NOS1a, but lately I noticed it was also bigger in the other dimensions. I have not yet tested the feet without holes but I will do it to see if it loses accuracy. Here, I think the sounds are well in place and are clearly defined, but of course, depending on how they compare. As I say I will test the feet without holes in exactly the same position that they are now.

Juan

[juanpmar]

Hey Peter, maybe after finishing the test with the Clairixia you could give another opportunity to the bamboo boards. The clarity that seems to bring your cable could help to define better the effects of the board. But let's be patient ...

Juan

[PeterSt]

Juan, yes, that has slipped my mind for sure.

Thanks,
Peter

[goskers]

Hello,

Newer member and owner here but want to start adding to topics when possible.

What is our goal here in regards to dampening/isolation besides better sound?  More specifically, are we trying to dampen vibrations induced onto the nos1a chassis?  Are we hoping to isolate the device from structural occurrences from a rack or supporting device?

These are two different problems but I might offer up some possible solutions with solid physics behind them.

1) To dampen chassis vibration best would be done with the usage of constrained layer dampening techniques.  The ideal would be to use the same material type and thickness as to which the chassis is constructed from.  Keeping the material stiffness properties the same is the ideal.  Using this matterial one would apply a mastic or non-hardening adhesive between the layers.  Only a fraction of the surface area needs to be covered to be effective.  This technique is commonly used in luxury automobiles to reduce cabin noise across a wide frequency range.

2) There has been a technique which I heard about for isolating a device from structures that might be able to be implemented here.  Suspending a device with the use of woven nylon rope.  What? Nylon rope is made from many, many individual fibers.  These fibers actually rub against each other thereby disipatting energy transfer. 

My thoughts would be to take smaller pieces of the same gauge steel and attach them to the nos1a chassis using Liquid Nails subfloor adhesive.  This will provide CLD for the chassis.  Using the same wooden cutting board that's others seem to like here I would build a small structure to span over the nos1a.  Braided nylon rope would the be used to attach the cutting board to the overhead structure.  The dac would then sit on the cutting board held off the ground by the rope.  If one would want to take it another step then you could take two cutting boards and make a CLD sandwich from them.

Just my initial thoughts here from a guy who tends to hate tweaks.

Regards,
Joel

[PeterSt]

Hey Joel, thanks for that. Looks pretty decent to me.
And welcome aboard !

The problem is more complicated, I'm afraid;

We must look from two main angles, and both fight each other :
1. Decoupling of the room vibrations (but think floor for comfort);
2. Decoupling from acoustical vibrations.

Ad 2.
This is actually a "DAC cabinet" problem (or PC cabinet if you like, since the topic originally was about the PC).

This is how both fight each other :
The more the DAC is free in the air, the more it will be decoupled from the room, but the more it will be under the inflience of the acoustical (through air) vibrations.
and
The more the DAC is fixed to a very large surface (think floor) the less the acoustical vibrations will "let vibrate" the cabinet.

So do notice that I performed an experiment a couple of months ago where I completely detached the clock assembly from the DAC's chassis and all, and hung it in adjustable rubber bands (plain rope could have been better).
Sound was totally strange.

So if we look at the clock (oscillator(s)) as the main source of the problem (to solve) then it is easy to see that this clock actually has to be super-fixed to a large surface so its own vibration isn't turning into self-vibration with oscillations (read : harmonics emerge at distinct frequencies and they will influence the good clock signal).

I don't know whether you tried it, but find two completely different types of footer material for under your NOS1a. You will be shocked about the difference. You will see that the stiffer material will emphasize accuracy. Or that the softer *but* bouncing material (e.g. rubber) will go the exact other way and implies more bass (and fuzzyness).


Last week someone sent me a PM and wondered how good a cushen might be. Well, actually that could be the perfect "footer" as how I think;
Small self-vibrations will hardly have a chance, acoustical hammering will be damped perfectly and room/floor vibrations will also be damped perfectly.
To me it looks better than the floating on water I also tried (and which was very good but tedious).

The cushen must be of the "loose feather" type, so if you put your fist in it, the imprint of that stays.
I didn't try it myself, with the notice that we have such a cushen on the floor, only 1 meter from where the NOS1a is.

Regards and thanks,
Peter

[christoffe]

Hi

Read in the HiFiplus 124 that there is a new bamboo plinth for the Linn LP12 turntable on the market with a great SQ impact.

Based on this I made the first modification on my system.
The big IKEA tablet (with Harmonix footers) went under the laptop.
Second: Somebody on CA recommended to use pressured bicycle tyres tubes as footers, and I bought foam insulation for pipings for € 3,50 and installed them under the NOS1 and the NSWPS. (See pictures)
First impressions after two hours listening to Stanley Clarke and Brian Bromberg tracks: amazing, best bass with a very realistic timbre I ever heard in my room, more details and smoother highs. 

Joachim

[PeterSt]

Hey Joachim,

Yes, I know that foam material and I tell you : this feels exactly right.

Also : I think that you, as one of the earlier NOS1 buyers, received this pink pads for footers. Do you remember ? this material feels quite the same and I think this is still a very good option. If you still have those pads you could try that (again ?).

Otherwise, the other day - with Windows 10 - I again tried the Ikea Bamboo. But it still didn't work for me. Of course this will also be related to the footers under it.

Thank you for sharing ...
Peter

[christoffe]

Also : I think that you, as one of the earlier NOS1 buyers, received this pink pads for footers. Do you remember ?

Hi Peter,

no, I didn't use them at that time, and they are somewhere in our ..... .

Joachim

[christoffe]

Otherwise, the other day - with Windows 10 - I again tried the Ikea Bamboo. But it still didn't work for me. Of course this will also be related to the footers under it.

Hi,

I tested the Ikea board with the same configuration under the NOS1, where it didn't work, but under the laptop it's perfect.

You might test the board (with the foam pads underneath) with your XXH PC.

Joachim

[juanpmar]

I liked the idea of Joachim foam footers so I couldn´t resist to try it. When I went to buy the foam I squeezed it with my fingers and I thought that it was too soft for the weight of the NOS1. Then I saw next to the foam a corrugated plastic tube which was also flexible, not only longitudinally but also vertically. I thought that putting the tube into the foam may harden a bit what could be an excessive softness without losing flexibility.

I tested first the foam without the corrugated tube, the same way did Joachim, and I noticed that the sound lost the excessive emphasis on the upper midrange that gave the bamboo footers, but at the same time the sharpness of the bamboo footers was lost in some degree. Then I put the blue tube (seems made especially for NOS1 ;-) within the foam and the sound was much more balanced, recovering the sharpness but in this case without apparent distortion or the overemphasis that I saw in the upper mids.

I´m using under the NOS1a two bamboo boards and one ikea board (I think is beech) and the bamboo footers on the floor. Hey!, I love this kind of tweaks. The cost of the foam footers including the "NOS1a blue" tube can be about 3€ and I´am convinced that can rival other audiophiles footers of bizarre prices.

So, congratulations Joachim for your idea and I hope the little sophistication added by me is useful as well.

Juan

[PeterSt]

I wonder what would happen if we got REALLY creative with this all. Fact is that it matters a LOT. Or better put : it is crucial to have this "right".
Whatever that might be.

Thanks !
Peter

[christoffe]

Hi Juan,

good idea.
Will try it with the inner pipe too.

The foam I used has a relative high density.
The outer dia is 42mm, the inner dia is 18mm= wallthickness is 12mm.

Joachim

Edit: Tested the foam pipe under the power amp too, and there it is not working. "All the power is gone", thin sound, my wife said immediately.