Alan C

Sugden are big fans of wooden isolation.

So instead of 100 year old Russian Beech @£180 for my Sugden system, I'm going to try a simple but decent chopping board and some open cell packing foam (raved on as a superb isolator in a few Hi End valve amp manufacturers) underneath the board on to my Glass shelving... review to follow...

BTW... a quick back to the top! When are we going to get a hifi forum?

Mj.. wood appears to be a familiar theme..

hades

I'd guess from the playing that I've done and my half-formed theories, that you'll find the wood/foam system slightly warm, nicely controlled, fairly deep bass, less prone to sibilance than the glass shelving, but probably down in ultimate timing, clarity and separation compared to a good glass or aluminium based solutions. If your system is slightly over bright, dry or clinical, it might be exactly what it needs, but won't necessarily suit everyone.

That's my guess; call it an open public test to myself and others of whether I have got a vague understanding of this stuff. Be interested to hear whether you agree with my predictions?

Alan C

Cheers mate. Will do.

You post with some degree of skill and relevance to the subject, so anything you do post will not be taken with a pinch of salt.. I'll keep an ear out for the signature you've mentioned and let you know what I think.

The Sugden is very warm, organic and natural anyway, but as the amp runs VERY hot (Very close to being too hot to touch) the wood may not be the best isolator in this case.. so I'm going to use some wood on the CD & some granite (chopping surface) for the Amp. Both isolated with some slo-foam.

I'll no doubt swap them over to test them back to back... as I'd be very intersted to hear any differences...

mart360

I tried the spikes on my tannoys, 2kg of lead shot in each base as well

sounded fantastic with spikes, sounded fantastic without spikes!!!


some of it is a little bit "emperors new clothes"

i,m surprised no one has mentioned brasso ing mains plugs, or scribing the contacts!!!


snake oil £50 per botttle dampen any harmonics!!!


Mart

tiggers

Great thread this one - don't know how I'd missed it before.

To the sceptics I'd say this. If you've not heard a system tuned with some form of isolation supports then you can't really comment. If you have and you heard no diference then fair enough. Even then it doesn't mean there isn't a difference - just not one that *you* can hear.

The spiked stands for speakers is one that I can hear a very clear difference with - so can nearly everyone I demo it to. Other tweaks such as isolated amps are I guess less noticeable.

At the end of the day it's a case of each to their own. If I can tweak something on my system and the sound (to me) improves then I don't really care what others think as it's my system, my time and my money.

Just my 2 cents worth.

tiggers.

New To Scoob

Deffo on the sound bytes, used this on my stands a while ago, worked great, thightened the bass up no end, downside is now each stand weighs about 1 KG each

John.

Alan C

Does anyone have the web address for Soundbytes?

Vegescoob

So put sources and amps in separate room from speakers. Anyone ever tried that? Me I use a steel and glass shelf stand. However I like a forward ,tending to bright,even raw sound. For me that best replicates live sound. I don't like warm and smooth.
I wonder if the rest of you, like me, place your components symmetrically on your support systems. I have thought about whether asymmetrical placing and at an angle would influence the sound but haven't tried it yet.

dba

I dare not answer your questions Vegescoob because i am sure you are taking the p1ss

asymettrical placing? brilliant

TelBoy

LOL, even i've never tried asymmetrical placing!! But i do have all my amplifiers on a separate rack to the source components, even though i'd be the first to admit that the difference that this makes is probably marginal at best! I'd be astounded if racking them unevenly made any perceptible difference!

Can't find a Soundbytes website - many of the hi-fi sites do reviews of this stuff though. There isn't much to say, however - it's just ballast which gives weight to a speaker's sound.

brickboy

Lead shot from a gunsmith is far cheaper than Soundbytes, and it **does** improve sound no end ... and as said, each stand weighs a couple of kilos more too

Alan C

For those interested I have some preliminary comments from the isolation tests with a 1/2" Granite slab and 3" thick wooden block.

My Sugden kit is a very warm, organic sounding system from valve o/p stages in the Amp & CD.

Placing the granite under the amp and the wood under the CD made a simply unbelievable difference. The sound went extremely bright, forward & harsh. Voices had a sharp and unlistenable edge. My good lady who's very happy with a £2.99 Matsui radio on AM for her 'HIFI' could instantly tell the difference.. I was shocked at how noticeable it was. This was definitely a granite sound..

Swapping them round calmed things down but muddled everything. There was some definition and separation improvement, but the sound was still edgy and all the warmth was still missing.

Wood under the CD alone made no perceptible difference.

Granite under the CD alone improved resolution. I could hear a previously barely imperceptible 'swish' of a snare drum on a Sara MClachlan track (thanks Dave ) with some clarity. This was a definite improvement and the sound had some energy to it, but still had some Sugden life & soul missing. Very similar to a friends MF 3.2 CD feeding my Amp the other day on a test.. Energetic but clinical is probably the terms.

De-coupling the glass shelf with the amp on with some slo-foam (medium density) and placing the granite ON TOP of the CD was an instant hit. The clarity & resolution was even better. The warmth returned and there was a noticeable separation of voices and instruments on several tracks. It initially sounded 'odd', but after I worked out that the instruments & voices were clearly separated (certainly more than I'd heard before) it became apparent that this was a natural staging effect that this combination had heightened.

Telboy mentioned earlier about placing a brick on the top of the CD player to kill any box resonance and this gave me the idea. The slab is slightly bigger than the box size, so covers the whole thing. Add the de-coupling of the amp and this has tightened up the bass and vocals and brought them into a noticeable sharper focus.. The warmth and 'Sugden sound' that attracted me to this system is still there, but more focused and purposeful, freeing up resolution and staging; even going quite some way beyond the horizontal box confines.

The wooden block's going back.. and the granite is staying put.. may try a bit more foam to de-couple the CD and amp some more... but It won't need much tweaking, if at all...

One very happy chap....

dba

I can't do that,on the A21 you have ventilation holes in the top plate although it does double up as another radiator

Alan C

The slab is on the CD not the Amp...


If i covered up the vent holes on the amp.. the damn thing would go into meltdown...

corradoboy

After seeing some of the titles in your collection, I think this is the area of investment you should be looking into Next session we should forget the equipment and deal specifically with taste

Seriously though, you'll have to demonstrate the differences to me Al, as you know, I am very sceptical about such things

Alan C

David, my friend. Do not force me to utter the L(uddite) word..

The Granite was utterly noticeable and completely destroyed the sound.. Even you would be taken back by the difference. You can obviously extrapolate the findings from that as it proves such changes DO make a difference. The other changes may be less obvious and more subjective (the wooden board made no apparant difference to the CD), so when we come to testing the speakers.. you may be surprised

I can also say that Isolating the Amp from Chris's expensive & now burnt laminate floor would have tightened everything up.... But we'll see................

I admit that some of the titles do leave a little to be desired, especially considering the large age gap between titles, but at the rate I'm buying them now it won't be long before I've doubled the collection..

Sticky Stuff

Does that mean you'l have twice as much 'dubious' stuff?

Nice driving earlier BTW. I'll get to work on a skin for you shortly

Alan C

Even Kylie, Ronan & 5ive have some decently engineered stuff.. and I can't help what my Kids and good lady buys.. the amount of grief I get from them for playing 'boring old' KD lang stuff is similar to the grief I got from Dave for playing 'Ain't No Sunshine' sung by Tunde (Lighthouse Family).. superb voice and reasonably engineered to me.. 'Dull, dull. dull' (unquote) to Dave