XXHighEnd

Guess most people are using spikes / feet already but I saw no earlier topic on it so I would like to mention it.

In my setup I noticed a clear improvement in sound quality when I did put the NOS1 DAC on 3 spikes.

Sound improvements are:
 - improved space around instruments / voices, they are more seperated
 - better bass definition, uncanny realism & detail in double bass jazz rifs.
 - broader & deeper soundstage

The H shape of the DAC makes it a bit difficult to use only 3 spikes, 4 would be more stable. I used perspex spikes, not the metal ones.
A brand of these kind of spikes I came across is Quadraspire (I have no commercial interest), however I use small cylinders made from perspex. I did never compared these with the original Quadraspires that gave me the idea to use this material...

Dear Bigear,

I use (three) Ebony spikes under all my equipment: it gives a fantastic warm sound (and further the same characteristics as you describe). I learned it from someone who builds violins and violincellos. You can buy them at several places (around 60 euros per four; not cheap but definitely worth a try).

Kind regards,

Hein

Hi Hein,

thanks for the suggestion. Having listened some longer time with more various material I discovered that the 'spikes' I use give the described improvements but also tend to make the sound somewhat artificial, a bit more digital. So I ordered the 'original'  Quadraspire feet to see if that would improve this. If that's not working I will try the Ebony one's.... Is that the same result as with the Harmonix discs?

Cheers,
  Quint

Whatever you choose, three of them should be better.
And indeed, not so easy to apply on this case ...

I use decoupling bearings for some time already which is not a problem using three of them with 2 at the right side (under the transformer and the front) and the one in the middle of the left "leg". Very stable (for resonances) and cleaner sound (less "noise") as result.

Bert

Spikes (usually made of metal) is a double edged sword.
Often you get a cleaner, tighter bas and a more "rythmic" feel to the music. On the flip side of the coin you get a hardness and a coloration in the midrange. (Try piano, vocal music or massed strings to hear the negative effects).
-The explaination is because spikes doesnt remove any vibrations, they only move them up in frequency...

Something soft or springy is theoretically better, providing a 1st order low-pass filter. With the "optimum" softness, the cut of frequency will be very low.

Here is a seller of such rubber feet tailored for Hi-Fi equipment: SONIC DESIGN link: http://www.sonicdesign.se/sdfeet.html (http://www.sonicdesign.se/sdfeet.html)

I agree and thus spikes are only good for bass enclosures (loudspeakers).

For overall improvement such rubber feet can be better but to my experience is real decoupling the best compromise.

The bearings I use have a resonance frequency below 2Hz and thus of no negative influence...

SSC is a nice way to do things too...  ;)

Bert

If you want cheap and have nice results try some turned wooden doorknobs. Quite nice, especially for the money. No mf/hf hardness and a noticible increase in definition and space. You could even experiment with some laquer for full tone. I use it under all my digital sources (even the pc).

The drawback with these "spikes" is that the topsurface is quite small and thus not so super stable. (even less stable than a commercial grade threesome)

I'd say all this decouplingstuff sounds like how you would literally describe it.

Regards, Coen

A maybe totally superfluous remark from my side :

Doing this well for something like a DAC is not so easy. It can be done, but costs crazy money. Except for one special material (I recall it is listed on the TNT Audio side, but not sure anymore), which ... was specially produced by someone in the US many years ago. But he quit this activity. The site is still there,  but no responses to email - plus it looks dead anyway. But IMO it was the best (for less than 100 euros for 3 or 4).

Anyway, this is the exact reason we don't supply any feet at all. They are no good anyway unless the DAC is 300++ more expensive.

I must really look it up again, because the material itself just exists (and is fairly new for a chemical substance). It is the same as the unbreakable drinking cups are made off (transparent in various colours). It is used by an artist (here in the neighbourhood - could be Swedish) as well.

Nice Friday's quest maybe to guess what the heck I'm talking about. :swoon:

Peter

Hi Peter, have a nice weekend, this is the first attempt to find out about what you´re talking about:

http://www.polycrystal.com/pc-mainframe.htm (http://www.polycrystal.com/pc-mainframe.htm)

And this could be the TNT review (four parts):

http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt1_e.html
 (http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt1_e.html)
http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt2_e.html (http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt2_e.html)

http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt3_e.html (http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt3_e.html)

http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt4_e.html (http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt4_e.html)

If it´s not what you are talking about it´s very interesting to read anyway.

Juan

Completely "Friday Night Bingo!" on the Polycrystal ...

So, this would have been my choice for the NOS1, but it looks like I must first let produce it myself now ...

I never really tried it of course.

Nice work Juan. Interesting reading.

It's always puzzled me why people 'couple' their speakers to the foor/room with spikes. I myself use Townshend pneumatic speaker platforms (and actually his hifi stands as well). Max Townshend is utterly mad. When everyone else on the planet was promoting metal spikes for speakers, he went totally against the trend and went for pneumatic platforms with low resonant frequencies - so what if the speakers are not kept totally rigid and are actually allowed to move... as long as it's ~2Hz, who cares?

Crazy guy (whom I've met in person). Kind of reminds me of at least one other person on this forum...

Mani.

Interesting discussion.. The definition of this material is:


Sounds like a sort of concrete to me. Once had a speaker made of concrete. It had a very well defined sound... until it dropped once and scattered...

Hi,

spikes plus Harmonix.

www.combak.net

Joachim

Just in case some of you don´t know other points of view, mostly about different materials and even no boxes at all, here they go:

From Altman Mirco Machines:

http://www.mother-of-tone.com/vibration.htm (http://www.mother-of-tone.com/vibration.htm)

http://www.mother-of-tone.com/mother.htm (http://www.mother-of-tone.com/mother.htm)

http://www.mother-of-tone.com/lacquer.htm (http://www.mother-of-tone.com/lacquer.htm)

Talking about lacquer we all know that the good concert pianos are finished with many lacquer layers. My speakers also follow this path and they have several lacquer layers applied.
 

Reading the previous TNT reviews I´ve found this interesting article, "Wood is good":

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/box_clever_e.html (http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/box_clever_e.html)

Juan

Well, why not these ones:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/sblocks1e.html
 :prankster:

Hi,

another interesting link to vibrations.

http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/vibration.html

Joachim

Tuning resonances for audio can be a lifestyle, where spikes are only the beginning:

http://www.michaelgreenaudio.com/ (http://www.michaelgreenaudio.com/)

Enjoy!

Hi GerardA

Went this morning to the grocery to get these blocks and did a huge investment of 7 Euro for 3 of them.
Must say the first impression is very good, much more musical then the perspex cylinders I used before.

Thanks for the posting!

I am not sure (again, never tested it), but my second option was about those 7 euro for 3 blocks. Maybe they are not the same, but they can be easily produced (to my likings I mean).

So if this really is a good thing ...

Interesting thread - my NOS1 is supported on string. Well to be more exact it is on a shelf made of pieces of balsa glued together and veneered and that shelf sits on tensioned (but not too highly) chord. I bought this equipment rack primarily for a record deck (pre NOS1 ha ha) and the improvement in sound quality was huge it sounded like the deck had been upgraded to a much more expensive model. That deck had previously been sitting on a very highly regarded shelf on spikes on a concrete floor.

So Mani check out the feet below - I was told at the time that speakers with spikes mounted into four of these feet sound much better. Shame on me I never tried it but looks a bit like Mad Max T's theory.

I have not tried mounting my NOS1 on a normal shelf to compare but I will do and I will also try my speakers mounted on the feet and let you know how it goes. Certainly when I had an AN DAC it sounded much better on "string".

Shown below is the "string" arrangement below each shelf and a "foot" which accepts a spike in the middle (hidden in the picture). The guy who makes these shelves started supplying to the home market and now mostly supplies professional recording studios.

Paul

Here you can read a review where TNT Stoneblocks are tested against Polychrystal and others:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt8_e.html (http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt8_e.html)

Juan

Now I am going to tell the obvious ...

Let's say a DAC is a sensitive device to (micro) vibrations. I myself would not know which part of it may be subject to the influence (most), so we (or at least I) can only think about how the impact goes :

1. Sound pressure onto the chassis;
2. Vibrations from its stand.

Ad 1.
Should be related to the sound waves in the room.
It can just as well be that the impact is at the level and frequencies we hear ourselves, and beyond.

Ad 2.
Must come from coupling of the loudspeakers, although to a certain degree it may come from sound pressure hammering on the walls and floor.

#1 can work out for the worse, when there's no stiff coupling to something very big. Possibly self-resonance will occur.

Resonance may be a problem in the first place; when the sound (via #1 or #2) impacts the chassis, that causing the sound to worsten, the frequency coming from this (through the loudspeakers) may be influencing the sound again. This is a sort of resonance (and should be a worst type of sound influence).

The chassis of the NOS1 is fairly sturdy, but that does not mean the material absorbs vibration (possibly the contrary). This means that impact from whatever side may make the whole chassis vibrate, and since impact will be from more sides there could even be a fight going on (the vibration can't be guided away).


I could think of a few more relevant things (and if someone else can, please go ahead !), but this is what we are dealing with.
Btw, an amplifier will be under te same influences as a DAC, although the DAC me be more fragile at some points. May be.

To understand better what will be happening, think turntables;
A first thing I ever back planned was putting my turntable in another room. Especially not a room on the same floor. For me, back then, it was my basement. Today I still can do that and probably I will, but it is a somewhat tedious thing with all the testing. Ok, I might loose some weight.
Anyway, no vibrations from the floor should enter the DAC (or amps) and no impact from SPL through air should;
both would be solved when those devices are in that other room on another floor.

When this came across, now think loudspeakers. Think of *why* you would use spikes, or why you would use a soft coupling (up to magnetic). Two directions exist I think : make the loudspeaker cabinet more stiff (could be the spikes) or make the floor less vibrate for a couple of other arguments (the loose coupling). Both would counteract eachother.

With some intelligent approach you should be able to achieve your best solution. It will be different for everybody. It will depend on the stiffness of your floor as well. The floor could even resonate in logitudenale direction at certain lower bass frequencies. Here too, think about what happens in that case. -> The floor will move and the diaphragm will stand still. That means no sound.
Uncoupled, the speaker's cabinet will do this, but at much higher frequencies. But same thing : no sound.

I can think of a few solutions to "stiffen" the loudspeaker's cabinet, but they are dangerous because if all is right the design of the speaker('s sound) took into account just how it is (and especially don't touch open baffles !).

Maybe others have good ideas ?
Peter

Well, there seem to be a couple of mechanisms of the mechanics that might influence sound.
1. Macro vibrations, so long wave vibrations that cause the whole case and cables to vibrate, causing movement of wiring and parts and thereby causing 'some' electromechanical effect.
Resonance can occur depending on the coupling between speakers and cabinet, so room factors, positioning, decoupling etc. have effect here. Normally this will be a low frequency effect.

2. Micro vibrations that make the housing resonate in their Eigenfrequencies. Material choice and construction (stiffness) of the housing will be of influence here. Overall room resonance can occur here too and effects will be mid/high frequency range.
As the housing has more then one dimension, you will have more frequencies, waves & knots. (When you tap the housing you will hear the tone of these frequencies). Spikes help to 'break' the size of the cabinet (think of a string)  and will thereby make these frequencies higher.

Would be interesting to analyze the mechanical construction with some finite element package to see if these frequencies are in the audible area and what to do in order to suppress them... I might be able to help here.

Within itself I am all open to this (plus I can estimate your capabilities on this terrain !).

However, as usual I'm a bit differently oriented - also in this area. Could be too ignorant, but let's say good things may spring from it.
Ok, here is my latest experience, which is only from last night - that's why this specific example; It should tell us that as always other things are first, when it is about audio :


With this topic in mind, I thought "why not put the material under the NOS1 you see in the below picture". And so I did;

My own NOS1 is plain on the floor for "years" by now, with the main reason of comfortably testing. The cover is not on, which may matter for my today's little story.
There is carpet on the floor with some percentage of wool (could be something like 80%). Under the four legs of the NOS1 there's this pink anti static material, known to those who bought the original NOS1 (we always delivered four pieces with it; in a later stage they became white).
This material was my explicit choice because of its structure - never mind everybody will think it is cr*p (which it is by itself of course). Now :

During playback, under each leg I put two of those white pieces from the picture below on to the pink pieces (the latter are ~10x10cm). Of course I imagined an immediate difference, but I learned to almost explicitly not pay attention to it; in a week or so I would know the result (let unconsiousness flow).

After I had applied this, I maybe played for another hour, then dinner was ready and sound was shutoff.
"Hey dad, there's a buzz, man !"
What the f... ?

It was so loud I really had to disconnect the interlinks before any dinner attempt.

After dinner I continued on it, and there was a clear 50Hz mains rattle. What the heck did I do to incur for this ? I didn't do a thing !

To the left of my NOS1 there was another NOS1 connected, which I tested earlier the afternoon. It was still under power, so I shut that off. Didn't help a thing. Removed the interlinks to the analyser. Didn't help. Checked the other nest of cabling - nothing. I just couldn't get it. This never happened before.

So, that other NOS1 (a black one), did not have any feet under it yet (yes, these days we ship with cheap normal little feet), so it could be shifted more towards the left, and away from my blue NOS1. What ? that helped ! Huh ?
When the power is off (which it was), both neutral and phase are cut, but protective earth keeps connected. So, something must be radiating or working as a(n unfinished !) antenna.
Now I took out the black NOS1 to another aera in the room, and ... hum got less again. But still not gone.
This didn't fit, because dozens of NOS1's had been there. Left, right, in front, more to the left. And in various colours too. Never there's hum. I don't want hum and I have officially banned it.
Aha.

I rearranged all the cabling once again (moved interlinks away from power cords etc.), but it didn't help a thing.

In beteen lines again : this is all about paying attention. I may be fairly good at it inherently, but it is also a matter of training yourself. Never let a change just go. Sort out what really happened, and try to explain the why of it. I know, for audio this should be somewhat more easy for me, but for everybody should count : be more explicit about it.

Ok, so this left that added white material under the legs for a reason. It already was suspicious to me, but first I had to be certain that all was in the state I'm used to, and nothing was overlooked so combinations of happenings/arrangements could be counted out;

With all under normal power (music not playing) I started with lifting one leg, and find the two white pieces under there. This is a kind of being careful operation because without cover the chassis is not as stiff of course, and PCBs might get wrenched.
The two white pieces where shoveled away from under there, and I carefully let sink the leg onto the pink material.
BANG. The sound of a small (very transient) firecracker emerged. Hmm ...
Did the second leg, and exactly the same happened. The third leg (now as carefully sinking the leg as I could do it) - same thing. Only at the fourth leg nothing happened anymore.

It was clear. This was electric discharge. But, not sure how it actually worked, because I sank the legs onto the ESD protective material. But, this material by now was some 4mm thick, originating from the ever 10mm. It flattends throughout time. Also, it is known that over time this (pink) material looses its protective capabilities to some extend (possibly all). Still it didn't feel like a discharge through it towards the woolen carpet. I merely envision a kind of lightning flash travelling over the underside of the bottom towards one of the other legs. And mind the last leg not "flahsing" anymore ...

Of course I can only try to think of what could have happened; I see some giant electric field under the bottom, there circling some 12 mm above the floor, caught by flat steel plate above it. How the white material encurs for it, apart from creating this ~8mm more distance compared to normal, I don't know. However it looks like a giant impact on how loaded (charged) electricity *was* guided away, and that this means changed completely (up to not working at all) with the white stuff under it.

Of course I don't need to tell you that the hum was gone after this ...

The moral :
How the chassis of an electrical apparatus connects to its surface is of vast importance. What the surface is, is therewith of evenly great importance;
When this is not done right (and sadly again this will differ per each of your situations), you close to *will* be confronted with a thing like my story above. And again (also see Paul's topic about similar), see the complexity in order. An *other* device - put next to the device in question - creates most of the hum, and it is not even powered on. It will do something to the antenna working though, and antennas will be everywhere in your room (sadly). While in this case that other NOS1 made it worse, it can just as well work out for the better; think transmitting antennas need a receptor, or otherwise your interlinks (etc.) will be just that.

This is why audio feet are important for quite another reason, and don't ask me the general guideline (I don't think it will exist). If this is not solved adequately first, I don't think there will be much sense in preventing sonic impacts as talked through in the before post. In the end, yes of course, but :

But you may wonder what it actually is when "a" material presents you better sound. I mean, nobody needs to tell me that my hum will have created better sound, and might one doubt : I tell you that it will have made it worse. But what was there to notice ? For you ? most probably a sheer nothing, because you wouldn't have heard the hum anyway, or you accepted it long ago. Besides you may use a preamp, and it won't be a problem ever.

Ah, is that so ...

Peter

Plastic in  hifi electronics is bad for the sound. Plastic stores static electicity that is bad for the sound.

Have you tried to build NOS1 withoute plastic? (for example removeing plastic cap over capacitors, plastic in RCA connector etc.)

Well, the H shape reminds me on a segment of a YAGI antenna, so maybe putting some NOS1 dacs in a row will improve the reception.  :grin:
Just like the old days when I got 'radio Moskou' on my phono inputs.


Beewax, silk and wood seem to improve sound. Here's a (unfortunately Dutch) review of some DIY audiophiles that made a wooden enclosure around their elcaps. http://www.dhtrob.com/impressies/elna_inhout.shtml (http://www.dhtrob.com/impressies/elna_inhout.shtml)

And companies that sell wooden plugs http://nfo.dhtrob.com/ (http://nfo.dhtrob.com/) and natural material cables http://www.phy-hp.com/English/Products/Products.html (http://www.phy-hp.com/English/Products/Products.html)

Yes, nice. I must have read this already many years back. Nothing for real production though (way too (much labor) expensive).

Btw, this too will be about (inside cap) resonance ...

Indeed, a capacitor should not resonate or vibrate (internally by the signal or externally by mechanical resonances) as this affects the sound.

This does not mean that it can't sound nicer though...

Bert

My recent experience (and big surprise) was that cheap bare copper speaker wire (& enamelled twisted) performed much much better than expensive ptfe coated copper speaker wire that was of excellent construction (properly Litzendraht wound) and high quality copper. So the only real difference between the two was the PTFE coating on the copper strands in the expensive speaker cable. But PTFE dielectric constant is about as good as you can get in plastic. Maybe there is some other mechanism at work?.

Certainly these guys  http://www.ocellia.com/Anglais/a-welcome.html  (check out the section under "Cables" "MDI" http://www.ocellia.com/Anglais/a-mdi.html ) seem to think so and they use only natural materials rather than plastic of any type.

Paul

Steen Duelund about plastic: As I hear it, it must have a kind of memory - much like the effect
known from capacitors, and thereby works as an active element in the
dimension of time, where it should be silent. This effect explains why
it sounds of more than is measured.

http://www.steenduelund.dk/download/kabler%20intro.pdf

Hi Tore - Good article and very interesting the author seems to have the same rigour to his testing as does someone else around here that I can think of  :) some really interesting points though.

I have not tried them myself but some say that quantum purifiers substantially remove/reduce the difference between different types and materials of speaker cables so maybe they address a fundamental problem in the transmission of the signal along the cable. It would be great to have the time to make a thorough investigation with a "golden eared" listening panel. It seems that for all the fancy prices of speaker cable on the market that the suppliers have not really investigated the fundamentals.

I am not sure about "MDI" its only a theory and the technical paper is not technical at all. It is interesting that my original teflon coated speaker cables took some burning in but the bare copper cables and the lacquer coated cables needed no burning in. Also as far as I could tell bare copper and lacquer coated sounded the same. If the MDI theory worked then maybe we could expect the lacquer coated cables to sound as bad as teflon coated. So maybe there is another reason but for sure plastic appears to be a bad thing.
Paul

Shure there must be a mechanical difference between pfte (or other plastic) and a laquer coating causing a different mechanical resonance. Think of a violin coated with pfte, though copper is much less resonant than wood of course.

Regards, Coen

FWIW I think the plastic is responsible for the memoryeffect and colouration like a bad capacitor. (Even teflon does not give the best capacitors). The resonance gets less if the cable is stiff and when you twist some bare cables together they get more stiff.
It's good to hear the enamel does not alter the sound.
I did not try really bare wire since this is going to be oxidized to quickely!

For who is interested and to come back to the topic, I compared the plexiglass Quadraspire QX feets with the the Ebony wood spikes recommended by Hein (thanks  :) ). The Quadraspires sounded more spacious, however the Ebony spikes more natural.

Latest upgrade on the spike front... African Blackwood cubes (I bought them at Musical Affairs), put below the NOS1 gives a significant improvement in sound. A huge soundstage and improved instrument/voice seperation. Voices and instruments get more 'body', an effect I have not heard before when using spikes.
A great bang for the buck....IMHO. :)