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mapleshade heavyfoot vs. bicycle tire


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After writing the Gingko review for EnjoyTheMusic.com, I prefer the one racquet ball per 10 pounds, with added weight if necessary, to huge air spaces that might muddy the mid-range-

IMO, the more isolation used at the front end of the audio chain (the CD) the better, this means not just rubber and air, but also weight2.gif

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Racquetballs and tennis balls are not the same. I think you'll find racquetballs will cause the lower bass response to be a little rubbery, while using tennis balls will result in sort of a woolly sound.

Did you got this information from your crystal ball or the Woolly Mammoth?3.gif

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Since Gingkos research showed smaller racquet-size balls to be better, those are the ones I would use. Their advice is to weigh the front-end components and then use one ball for every ten pounds. So if the receiver weighs 15 and the CD player is five pounds, that is twenty pounds or two balls. Obviously two balls under the front-end equipment is NOT stable, so at least a third ball is required. That means however, that ten pounds of weight should be added as a platform between the units and the balls. A small $3 paving stone is dense and weighs about 20 pounds, meaning that with four balls (40/4), the combination makes a vibration isolation platform similar to the Vibraplane and the one I wrote a few years ago.

In an article for EnjoyTheMusic.com, Save $1680, Simple to make platform isolates vibrations:

Brings out details for CD and record players, on Tweak Page One (http://enjoythemusic.com/tweaks/), I detailed how air and rubber isolation improve the sound of front-end equipment. Mass also helps. The weight of the stone and components lowers the resonance of low energy waves, the bottom component of human hearing range.

The front-end equipment should be coupled to each other, with space for air between the units, and the heavy platform. Blutack or sticky rubber is good.

Racquet or tennis balls, cut in half are also popular with tweaking audiophiles. Personal correspondence with a reader last year indicated that large bubble wrap under a thick maple platform had bass extension almost the equal in measurement to the inner tube under a marble slab, with no bass hump at all. Bass was extended and taut. Vertical and lateral stability were second only to the small bubble wrap.

So yes, four racquet balls under a 40 pound load seems to be the recommended ratio.

tell me if you hear a difference at moderate to loud levels

10.gif

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I've never used racquet or tennis balls, but my experience with air and spongy isolation is. . . wiggling. . . not the best sound available.

After a lot of experimentation I tried the Mapleshade Triplepoint, maple platform and Isoblock set up under my cd player and . . . well. . . it was the best I had ever heard and I did the same thing under my monoblock amps which again increased sonic benefit. . . . And ultimately a year later after saving up I bought the Samson rack from Mapleshade and I'm one happy happy listener!

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I don't think the wiggling has an effect I enjoy.

I find it does matter what you use as a weight for the sound, I like to use wood. . . .

Bottom line: every room and system is so different that there is hardly an absolute answer for this type of thing. I've found that the Mapleshade system works best for my system, my room, my tastes--that I can safely say.

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