I noticed whilst tinkering with my hifi that my Naim CD player has hard feet whilst my Naim amps have soft feet. Assuming that this is intentional (would be pretty surprised if it wasn't) does this give some clue as to the kind of mounting these components work best with? - i.e. CD needs to be rigidly supported to minimise vibrations, both external and internal, whilst amps should be allowed to move freely under their own vibration (albeit, dampened) whilst being isolated from surrounding vibrations.

Any clues....

Matthew

I experimented with sorbathane feet (soft) under my CD5. PR&t suffered, dynamics were muted and the soundstage shrank. Hey I should have left them there as I could at least hear a difference!

Matthew,

It is my understanding that Naim CDPs have hard metal feet to enable the transport (and circuit board where applicable) suspension systems to work correctly. A non-rigid coupling compromises this design aspect.

James

Resistance is Futile - You will be ASSIMILATED

Thanks James.

I will keep that in mind when sorting out the support for my CDX.

Steven, did you try the Sorbothane feet under your Amps (naim?)?

Matthew

No, I gave them to a friend with a Kenwood system, to separate his CD player from his amp. They seem to make a difference with mainstream gear. My old Rotel RCD 991 loved them!

Matthew;

I've been converted to wooden supports; and built my own in 'beech' faced chipboard.

Cheap de-coupling trick I find works well with my CDS: Get a board cut to the size of the player and put a mirror screw in each corner. (They have screw-in domed metal heads). Adjust as necessary to stop any rocking and you have a rigid; minimal contact de-coupled wooden support. (And it's cheap!)

I previously had my gear on steel spiked racks and much prefer the sound of wooden supports.

The hard feet on the player are there for a reason!

Per ardua ad astra.

Juan,

quote:

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I previously had my gear on steel spiked racks and much prefer the sound of wooden supports.

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I previously had my CD2 on wooden supports and much prefer the sound of glass and angle iron. Mind you, I had to install the little 3M feet to throttle back a measure of edginess. Ears (yours and mine) are the final arbiters to what is right or wrong musically.

James

Resistance is Futile - You will be ASSIMILATED

Have any of you tried a granite or marble shelf, stone doesn't 'sing' like glass or wood?

Matthew

Matthew,

I've discoverd with my system that massy supports tend to improve 'round earth' qualities, like bass weight, background silence, image size etc, at the expense of overall coherance of the sound. I mean that the Bass seems to take on a life of its own amd become detached from the rest of the musical message causing a 'slowing down' of the musical flow.

Peter

I agree with Peter, i tried to make double isolation for my cd3.5, putting another shelf on top using a big thumb tac (can't remember what exactly it was). the results are i've got more bass esp. the guitar bass, but the speed has been slowed. other parts improves a bit too, but i prefer without the extra isolation (to my ears).

I agree with Peter, i tried to make double isolation for my cd3.5, putting another shelf on top using a big thumb tac (can't remember what exactly it was). the results are i've got more bass esp. the guitar bass, but the speed has been slowed. other parts improves a bit too, but i prefer without the extra isolation (to my ears). I'm using soundstyle at the moment, I'll be upgrading to Mana when money permits. I was very impress by Mana when i first heart it at a friend's house.

I changed the wooden board that sat under my Transport (a Roksan DP-1) from the wooden board it came with to slate.

The improvement was wonderful in that the bass improved (yes even on my IBLs) but the music felt more focused. I'm not sure if people have tried different types of stone or stone verses glass etc. but if anyone has any observations I would be interested.