Vibration Control on Speakers Devialets and Clocks

[ray1234]

Recently did some tweaks related to vibration control and wanted to share them:

1. My speakers have spiked feet with adjustable heights. I raised the speakers to the maximum height. They were at the lowest height before. That definitely made a positive difference. Bass tightened up and soundstage became more even.

2. I am using an external DDC (Singxer SU-6) which basically acts as a clock to my Devialets. I put some books on top of it, and wow it improved the soundstage and highs. I guess digital clocks are very sensitive to vibrations. If you have an external clock or DAC, might be worth trying some dampening if you haven't.

3. This next tweak is going to sound weird. I placed a few Ikea HEAT cork mats on top of the Devialet Pros, covering the open window in the middle. I have the 250 Pro / 1000 Pro units with the bigger window on top. Shockingly it changed the sound. It smoothened the highs a bit. Easy to test, just remove the mats and it sounds a bit brighter and more open. Put the mats on and it sounds smoother. The window on the 250 Pro is directly above the "ADH" part of the amplifier. I prefer the more open sound without the cork mat, but the tweak could be useful if your system sounds too harsh.

Now it's making me consider more vibration dampening tweaks.

1. speakers always have an optimal height under a particular listening environment. The factory settings only give you a rough starting point, adjusting the height to optimum can benefit all aspects of the sound, this applies to all speakers, be it bookshelf or tower. Bigger floor standers however is less sensitive to height as it is already that big.

2. putting something on top of any equipment always have some effects, some positive some negative. In general terms, imaging and mids become more stable when damped with something on top of an equipment. Also in general, there may be less airy treble if something is on top of equipment. Different materials also have different damping effect and produces different sound. Usually, I prefer this damping trick only on a few equipment, otherwise one may have changed the tone of the whole system over-dampening all equipment.