wondering how good the oladra feet are - due to temp accommodation my oladra is sitting on the floor and i dont have any height to put a rack in so wondering whether i should invest in some isolators or an isolation base like these Nimbus System | Chassis Noise Reduction | HRS - or are the oladra feet already doing a good job?
Thatās my understanding. Iā,m assuming that when my updated K50 comes back, the team at Antipodes would have fitted the best feet they believe are possible and I have no reason to doubt them.
Stick with what Antipodes have fitted.
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The criteria by which ābestā is determined may not be the same for everyone. Most determinations of ābestā are bound by some fixed constraints - like around cost or practical considerations. I canāt imagine that Antipodes would have gone as far, for example, as including feet that would have caused them to have to raise the retail price by a considerable amount. That leaves open the possibility that other highly regarded solutions, like those from HRS or Stillpoints, might still offer better performance. I think we will have to wait to hear from what users report about these.
The surface on which we place these footers also has a say in which footer might work ābestā. Thus, we might expect that circumstances where the Oladra feet prove to be great on some surfaces while another product might work better on others. Weāll just have to see.
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Not a good idea to have it sitting directly on the floor - especially if itās carpeted. A bamboo cutting board would be a good low-cost solution for it to sit on. I do this now with one of my power conditioners.
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Excellent suggestions. I have also used some granite pieces I acquired from countertop installers that were squared that I used for some amps. A place like Home Depot may have some of these as well. I then added some of the Herbieās Tenderfeet under the amps, which would not be needed with the Antipodes feet supplied with the upgrades. I also used some Herbieās Audio Labs Superior Decoupling Spikes under the granite pieces to the carpet.
The goal should be to select a material that dissipates energy without converting it into a single resonant frequency. Granite pieces will ring at a particular frequency.
Bamboo is actually nearly perfect for audio, as Roy Gregory points out so well in the following. This is what lead me to selecting a Quadraspire rack with bamboo shelves. I also stock-piled these Aptitlig cutting boards at one time.
Hereās a quote:
āWhat makes bamboo so effective in the audio world is its structure and the process that allows us to turn what is basically a massive fibrous grass into a flat board. The bamboo itself is formed from long bundles of cellulose fibers, bound together by lignin, a natural thermoplastic resin. The closer to the surface you get, the greater the density of those fibers. The result is not unlike natural carbon fiber, but considerably heavier. Take that structure and cut it into strips that can then be stacked face to face to create a single flat board and you have a random, composite, variable-density material ā which is just about ideal for dissipating mechanical energy effectively without converting it into a single, dominant resonant frequency the way that glass or MDF does. Great in theory ā how does it work in practice? Better than you are going to believe ā which is exactly why Atacama and Quadraspire have made it central to their product lines.ā
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Like an itch that was impossible not to scratch, I eventually put some Center Stage 2M feet under the Oldara, and there was a marginal improvement. The Oladra sits on an Audiophile Base rack, for now. When I can shift things around, a Quadraspire Reference rack, with its bamboo shelves, as @kennyb123 suggests, might be better still. Whether the 2M feet then still offer some improvement, I donāt know.
But I would seriously question value for money with such a venture, and imagine a focus on mains quality, cables and, with G4, grounding may give much more of a return. But when seeking perfection, you sometimes just have to bite the bullet and do stupid things.
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This mirrors my observations when placing Stillpoints under my K30. The improvement didnāt justify the price as well as I had come to expect from Stillpoints. Fortunately I had gotten a good deal on a used set.
I do make purchases with the long term view that future upgrades may make some choices make even more sense down the road. I will revisit the Stillpoints when I have the new feet to compare them to. My system ās transparency has increased quite a bit since the last comparison so I think thereās a chance the Stillpoints might better justify their cost.
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I think you have them already, there is nothing to lose in trying them again. But it is defintely a ātry before you buyā situation if you donāt have them already.
Worth noting that in the Stereophile review JVS got some improvement from trying some other feet (canāt remember which ones, now), and I imagine his system is pretty transparent.
Christiaan Punter does a very thorough job of evaluating some of the HRS products. He mentions how the Oladra responds to their footers when used with an HRS rack:
On the last page, Christiaan talks about the HRS damping plates. I have a few of these and like how well they work in conjunction with Stillpoints underneath the component. Downside is that the material can leave a mark. I had used a damping plate on top of an Innuos Zenith Mk3 and struggled to get the mark removed until my dealer suggested something that did the trick.
This same dealer also carries Artesania so I might inquire about their damper.
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