Suggestion For Amir Youtube Video - Testing Vibration Effects On Components!

[MattHooper]

As per the thread title:

Vibration-damping products have really come to huge prominence in the audiophile community. It's not just Isoacoustics and their competitors in the speaker footer realm. It's everywhere.

There are ever more products - footers, platforms, whole equipment racks - that claim to increase sound quality when you place them under any number of components - amps, preamps, DACs, my god even under power conditioners! And it's all on the pretext that "vibrations in this equipment will have audible consequences, obscuring detail, lowering sound quality. EVERYTHING IS AFFECTED BY VIBRATIONS AND IT'S AUDIBLE!"

Given how prominent this has become in the high end audio world, I'd love to see Amir address these claims in a video.

For instance, here we see Hans Beekhuyzen making some claims about how vibration can affect different types of audio electronics. The "explanations" start at "But Why Isolation" at 3:42 in to the video:

It's one thing for ASR forum members to declare the BS, but it would be great to see @amirm on his much wider youtube platform take on these type of ideas and either explain, or even better with some demonstrations, show why the claims are or are not plausible.

Whaddya think?

 

[Doodski]

One of my favorite stress testing tool for bad connections and microphonics is a long #2 screwdriver. Beat the chassis and watch the oscilloscope and listen to the sine wave or audio and determine if sustaining impacts or vibration is affecting the amplifier or whatever it is being tested. If a unit has been properly repaired and serviced they are not affected by vibration and sustaining sharp edged impacts. Those vibration things are snake oil.

 

[Purité Audio]

Good idea he can measure loudspeaker isolation at the same time, kill two lame ducks with one stone.
Keith

 

[Philbo King]

As per the thread title:

Vibration-damping products have really come to huge prominence in the audiophile community. It's not just Isoacoustics and their competitors in the speaker footer realm. It's everywhere.
There are ever more products - footers, platforms, whole equipment racks - that claim to increase sound quality when you place them under any number of components - amps, preamps, DACs, my god even under power conditioners! And it's all on the pretext that "vibrations in this equipment will have audible consequences, obscuring detail, lowering sound quality. EVERYTHING IS AFFECTED BY VIBRATIONS AND IT'S AUDIBLE!"

Given how prominent this has become in the high end audio world, I'd love to see Amir address these claims in a video.

For instance, here we see Hans Beekhuyzen making some claims about how vibration can affect different types of audio electronics. The "explanations" start at "But Why Isolation" at 3:42 in to the video:

It's one thing for ASR forum members to declare the BS, but it would be great to see Amir on his much wider youtube platform take on these type of ideas and either explain, or even better with some demonstrations, show why the claims are or are not plausible.

Whaddya think?

I worked for a time in a vibration lab. It had a 250KW shaker table. Equipment under test would be mounted to it and subjected to (typically) 2G-4G random accelerations, as monitored by accellerometers bonded to the gear with Tacpac (superglue). This would be repeated for X, Y and Z axes. It was incredibly loud; ear protection was mandatory and the entire area was more or less sound-proofed.

One night one of the techs fed a feed from a cassette deck into the line input, and played Stairway To Heaven through it. It might possibly be a world record for the most powerful single amp that ever played Zepplin.

This wasn't about audible effects from vibration though. It was more about survivability, verifying the product was physically robust.

 

[pseudoid]

I am guessing that video would be about.... well... as long as @amirm stating "Take two aspirins and call me in the morning after your ill-conceived anxiety is over!"

 

[pseudoid]

I worked a time in a vibration lab. It had a 250KW shaker table.

Air Force used to have a mandatory accelarated air-frame worthiness (of sorts) test, where the aircraft would be strapped-down and (hydraulically) stress/stretch/shake/push/pull/yank (3D) the whole airframe and wings/tail non-stop 24/7. As I recall, the Warthog was on its 2.5X of it's contractual 'design lifetime'.

 

[radix]

Manage Quartz Crystals Under High Vibration

Crystal oscillators can suffer higher-than-expected levels of noise under high vibration.

www.mwrf.com

While the overall frequency stability of the different types of oscillators may vary by more than 10,000 to 1, the acceleration sensitivity of any type of crystal oscillator will rarely vary from 1 ppb/g by more than a factor of 4 (ranging from around 0.25 ppb/g for some selection of specialized crystals to as high as 4 ppb/g for some typical standard low-cost crystals.

 

[amirm]

This has been on my todo list since i started the forum! The blocking item is a vibration mechanism with predictive response so I can look for its response in the gear measurement. I thought about a custom one or using a subwoofer. If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

 

[amirm]

To be clear, I want to produce specific frequencies of vibration and then look for that in the output of the gear.

 

[Killingbeans]

If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

Dayton Audio - DAEX25X4-4 Bullfrog Vented Disc Spider 25 mm x 4 Exciter 320 mm Cable and Connectors 40W 8 Ohm

DAEX25X4-4 Bullfrog Vented Disc Spider 25 mm x 4 Exciter 320 mm Cable and Connectors 40W 8 Ohm

www.daytonaudio.com

Dayton Audio - BST-1 High Power Pro Tactile Bass Shaker 50 Watts

BST-1 High Power Pro Tactile Bass Shaker 50 Watts

www.daytonaudio.com

 

[restorer-john]

What about a bass-shaker driven by a powerful class D?

 

[radix]

To be clear, I want to produce specific frequencies of vibration and then look for that in the output of the gear.

I though there were quite a few vibration testing platforms in the 15-60 Hz range that can accomodate 50+ kg and go up to 14g or so. Some go up to 100Hz or even 400 Hz.

example:

Economic Vibration Tester

vertical mechanical shaker table, vibration test table, vibration shaker table, vibration bench, laboratory test equipment,Economic Vibration Tester

www.labvibrationtest.com

I have no experience using these.

 

[Chrispy]

I don't think much of the vibration control nonsense of "audiophiles", particularly for solid state electronics, has much going for it in the first place...but wouldn't mind seeing some definitive testing. I do like the idea of using some tactile transducers mounted to gear racks, tho.

 

[radix]

The military did spend quite a bit of effort on the effects of acceleration on crystals and other components back in the 80s (maybe earlier?). But they are worried about things like 10+g accelerations for time sources for guiding missiles or aircraft. Yes, there are parts that can change their behavior due to acceleration, but I really doubt it makes audible difference for minuscule forces in the home. But I don't have anything definitive on that.

That said, there are specialized low-g and vibration isolated oscillators.

 

[Chrispy]

We could also test claims by "audiophiles" with various resonance gimmicks in the form of dots/cubes placed around the room (or tibetan bowls or whatever).

 

[Keith_W]

Actually, I would be very interested to know if vibration affects tubes. There is a lot of lore that says that they do, so I would like to know how much (if at all!).

 

[amirm]

I though there were quite a few vibration testing platforms in the 15-60 Hz range that can accomodate 50+ kg and go up to 14g or so. Some go up to 100Hz or even 400 Hz.

example:

Economic Vibration Tester

vertical mechanical shaker table, vibration test table, vibration shaker table, vibration bench, laboratory test equipment,Economic Vibration Tester

www.labvibrationtest.com

I have no experience using these.

Thanks. That is pretty industrial weighing some 250 pounds! Audio gear doesn't get subjected to any vibration that is even visible so I don't think we need something that massive. I found this machine that is made for people to stand on but seems to also work for this application: https://www.vibrationtherapeutic.com/vibration-plate-vt007.html

It is only $400. Has programmable frequency of 15 to 40 Hz and even a remote! I would also need to source a vibrometer to see what gear gets subjected to with real speakers.

 

[amirm]

I should say that I did a crude test once with a Schiit and a topping (?) headphone amp. Tapping the table underneath caused corresponding output of the amp! I traced this to the volume control.

 

[amirm]

Cheap vibrometers also go for $300 and change. So we are talking about $800 plus my time. Is it worth it?

 

[diddley]

HvB has got another product to push, i refuse to watch the video