Clean power for Devialet

[audio_engr]

...but do wonder about the virtue of a large mass element (marble slab) below your electronics as they could be, if you have a system capable of shaking the room, a storage device.  
....this is the argument/objection used by IsoAcoustics and others to mass elements...I recall the day when Linn, during their many days at the pinnacle of the stage, first proffered the use of a very light Ikea table for their turntable....limited mass so limited ability to store and back radiate energy (OK..well, less energy) from the system back into the device at hand ...these "Tower of London" spiked assemblies certainly look cool and sexy but are perhaps less optimally musical solutions.

Absolutely no comments ... Audio is subjective and each to his own ... Lets keep it that way .. 

And heck with what IsoAcoustics say .. so long it does the job what its meant to ..

[audio_engr]

Re using something like the Oreas with a 440: I think you might get better results placing the 2 amp units side by side with a single set of Oreas between them and your shelf or floor rather than stacking the amps on top of each other and using one set of Oreas between the 2 amps and another set between the bottom amp and the shelf/floor.

+1 ..

[Wdw]

+1 ..

-1. 

[David A]

Well, one +1 and one -1 :-)

I'll take that as meaning it could go either way and I'll agree with that, "Audio is subjective and each to his own" to quote audio–engr.

My experience was that I found that the results of stacking vibration control products was unpredictable, tended to reduce one problem at the cost of exacerbating another problem, and that the overall result of a combination was rarely better and usually worse than the result with whichever one of the stacked devices I preferred on its own. I have no doubt it's possible to find a situation in which stacking devices actually does deliver a better result overall but I can't remember finding such a situation when I was playing with this sort of product and I definitely didn't get around to trying every sort of combination of products possible in every sort of way they could be combined. Given the limited amount of information provided by the manufacturers of this sort of product we've usually got very little reliable information to assist us in working out which products might be good in combination so it comes down to trial and error and, given the number of products out there, you can go through a hell of a lot of trials before finding a successful combination and you may never find a successful combination because there's too many possible combinations of products for any single person to try them all.

I'm not going to try and stop anyone from trying combining different vibration control products, after all I spent a fair amount of time doing just that over several years. You can have fun playing with this sort of stuff and I learnt a lot from it, even from all of the failures. I learnt a lot about what aspects of the sound I was getting were important to me, what sorts of things about sound I liked and what sort of things I disliked. I became more skilled in listening critically and I learnt things like how much easier it was to make a mistake about whether or not something was an improvement if you were simply focussing on whether you'd reduced a particular problem rather than on what the overall sound quality was. A lot of what I learnt continues to be useful to me in everything to do with system setup when I make changes so I don't regret my time spent experimenting but I didn't find any really beneficial combinations of the products I experimented with. It wasn't wasted time because of what I learnt, but it also didn't produce the kind of outcome I was looking for.

YMMV.

[Wdw]

Well, this thread has gone a long way off topic from clean power to end up in vibration control.

I first got interested in vibration control years ago after reading an article called "Bad Vibes" by Shannon Dickson on Stereophile's website. Anyone interested can do a search for it there. It gives a very good run down of the basics on the 2 opposing techniques people use, isolation and coupling, which work in opposite ways. Despite what many people think, cones and spikes actually couple rather than isolate. Devices like the Orea isolate. Both can produce improvements but mostly in my system I tend to isolate.

I experimented with a lot of different devices of various sorts, designing and getting my own rack built to my specifications, tweaking that like mad for a couple of years, and eventually ended up simply buying a Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack with their Apex feet (ball bearing based feet allowing the rack to move). That was probably around 12 years ago now and I'm still using the Monaco and I'm still as happy with it as when I first got it. At various stages I've experimented with using various cones or isolation devices between components and the shelves and every time I've tried that I've ended up removing the cones or other devices and gone back very quickly to just placing the component on the shelf. Trying to add other devices to the mix just degrades sound quality, the Monaco really does do what it claims to do in my experience.

I think there's a fair bit of personal taste involved in whether one goes for isolation or coupling, and/or for other options such as high or low mass platforms/supports. If there's one conclusion I came to during my years of experimentation before getting the Monaco, however, it's this: stick to one device and don't start building multiple layers of isolation and/or coupling between the floor and a component. I think I once ended up with about 5 different layers made up of shelves, cones, soft dampers, and so on between a rack shelf and my CD player. I forget what I first put between the player and the shelf and it made an improvement but left me with something I didn't like in the sound so I added something else to fix that, noticed an improvement but still wasn't quite happy, added another device to the mix and kept on going. Each time I added something I did A/B testing between the new setup and the previous setup, each time I felt I had reduced the issue that was annoying me. At no time did I ever do comparisons of the new device instead of the old device. One day I started wondering just how the setup would sound if I removed everything I had ended up with between the shelf and the player so I removed the lot, stuck the player straight on the shelf, and it sounded better than with all of the things in between. What I ended up realising is that no single device is perfect and it's all to easy to find yourself focussing on fixing a particular problem in the sound rather than listening to see whether the sound improves overall. It's easy to fix one problem and create a new problem somewhere else when you keep adding layers of isolation and/of coupling between the floor or a shelf and your component but adding more layers actually seemed to degrade the sound when I finally got around to paying attention to the sound as a whole rather than just to the problem I wanted to fix at the time, and just using a single layer of isolation or coupling, whichever one I preferred most, between the floor or shelf and the component gave me my best results. It was never quite a perfect result but it was better than any combination of multiple devices. Take what you like from that.

Re using something like the Oreas with a 440: I think you might get better results placing the 2 amp units side by side with a single set of Oreas between them and your shelf or floor rather than stacking the amps on top of each other and using one set of Oreas between the 2 amps and another set between the bottom amp and the shelf/floor. I always found stacked isolation devices a worse solution than stacked coupling devices or stacking a coupling device with an isolation device.

This is one area where I found it was usually better to keep things as simple as possible.

I definitely recommend the "Bad Vibes" article. I think you'll probably have to read it a few times and spend some time thinking about what's being said in order to get a good grasp on the issues and theory but if you're going to go the DIY route or use commercial footers of some kind, I think the effort is worth it.

Long read but I finally worked up the stamina too carry on through to the end...great post!  I agree with most of your points and, incidentally, did wonder about stacking the two D's....don't currently have a second set of Bronze but will experiment at some point in the future...perhaps they are responding in identical modes so stacking may be advantageous...I certainly have no idea about most of this stuff but agree with your summary about simplifying the support structures by using one modality only, one or the other, so not mixing coupling and isolating systems. (as you posted).

[David A]

Re stacked Devialet's and Oreas (bear in mind that I have no experience with Oreas, I'm basing my comments on experience combining other devices in stacks):

You basically have 2 options:

1- stack the Devialets normally, one on top of the other, and put one set of Oreas between the bottom Devialet and whatever it's sitting on; or

2- as above but add a second set of Oreas between the 2 Devialets. The bottom set should be rated to handle the total mass of both amps, the top set rated to handle the mass of one amp.


The main thing you are probably trying to do is to prevent vibration transmission between the amps and the shelf or whatever they're sitting on. Option 1 above works to do that. There's no moving parts in a Devialet so there's going to be little if any vibration produced internally so little vibration transmission between one Devialet and the other. If you get a benefit from the Oreas I think you will find that the biggest benefit will be with them placed between the bottom amp and what it's sitting on. I think you'll find you get a lot less benefit from a set placed between the 2 Devialet's and it may not help at all if there is no vibration transmission from top to bottom Devialet because the Devialet's have little internal vibration to start with.

If you want to try it, start with a single set under both amps, live with that for a few days to get used to it, and then try adding the set between the 2 amps. Live with that for a few days also to get used to it and see what you think, and then also try removing the second set and going back to the original setup with only one set of Oreas. See which way you prefer it. I don't think things will be significantly worse with 2 sets of Oreas arranged as in my option 2, but the result may also not be significantly better than your result with a single set of Oreas as in option 1. Since you currently don't have the second set you need if you're going to try it, either borrow a second set to test or make sure you can return the second set if you have to buy them.

[Wdw]

Re stacked Devialet's and Oreas (bear in mind that I have no experience with Oreas, I'm basing my comments on experience combining other devices in stacks):

You basically have 2 options:

1- stack the Devialets normally, one on top of the other, and put one set of Oreas between the bottom Devialet and whatever it's sitting on; or

2- as above but add a second set of Oreas between the 2 Devialets. The bottom set should be rated to handle the total mass of both amps, the top set rated to handle the mass of one amp.


The main thing you are probably trying to do is to prevent vibration transmission between the amps and the shelf or whatever they're sitting on. Option 1 above works to do that. There's no moving parts in a Devialet so there's going to be little if any vibration produced internally so little vibration transmission between one Devialet and the other. If you get a benefit from the Oreas I think you will find that the biggest benefit will be with them placed between the bottom amp and what it's sitting on. I think you'll find you get a lot less benefit from a set placed between the 2 Devialet's and it may not help at all if there is no vibration transmission from top to bottom Devialet because the Devialet's have little internal vibration to start with.

If you want to try it, start with a single set under both amps, live with that for a few days to get used to it, and then try adding the set between the 2 amps. Live with that for a few days also to get used to it and see what you think, and then also try removing the second set and going back to the original setup with only one set of Oreas. See which way you prefer it. I don't think things will be significantly worse with 2 sets of Oreas arranged as in my option 2, but the result may also not be significantly better than your result with a single set of Oreas as in option 1. Since you currently don't have the second set you need if you're going to try it, either borrow a second set to test or make sure you can return the second set if you have to buy them.

David,
You have described the process that I followed when first using the a single set of Orea rated for the weight of two stacked Devialet and then a couple of weeks later adding the set between the two.  The second arrangement with two sets is far better than a single set below the stacked pair. You can see the pix on the Orea thread.

[Alve]

I have read somewhere - but unable to find it back - that this device works well on the input side (source and pre-amplifier). And on the power amplifier not: loss in dynamics and in a sense loss in 'musicality'. 

In another review about the Isotek Titan - especially designed for two mono-block power amplifiers - it was shown that this gives an improvement. But not on the side of pre-amplifier. 

So I wonder as well what happens when these devices are connected to a Devialet (in a sense a pre- and power-amp combined).

I have tried isotek titan 3 with my 220pro. All was great for the vocals, but it did harm the dynamics. On the advice of Raidho designer, I have made dedicated circuites and changed the aging floor to get a better result and saved a lot of money not buying the isotek)

[mmorrison55]

I have read somewhere - but unable to find it back - that this device works well on the input side (source and pre-amplifier). And on the power amplifier not: loss in dynamics and in a sense loss in 'musicality'. 

In another review about the Isotek Titan - especially designed for two mono-block power amplifiers - it was shown that this gives an improvement. But not on the side of pre-amplifier. 

So I wonder as well what happens when these devices are connected to a Devialet (in a sense a pre- and power-amp combined).

I have tried isotek titan 3 with my 220pro. All was great for the vocals, but it did harm the dynamics. On the advice of Raidho designer, I have made dedicated circuites and changed the aging floor to get a better result and saved a lot of money not buying the isotek)

Wow! New flooring and electrical  work for dedicated circuits was cheaper than the isotek? Those things must be ridiculously expensive!

[Alve]

Understand your doubt I’m in Russia, things cost differently here the titan was over 3000 euro. Circuit breakers and local wires were 400 euro; 300 euro for the sockets. 1000 euro for the floating floor and the labor here is significantly less than in Europe