Herzan/Table Stable "Active" Isolation table.

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,604
5,413
1,278
E. England
Mike, re Jazdoc's passive v active comparison on the Herzan - was this an a-b on the shelf in the same session, or Jazdoc recalling passive in the past v active only at this session? From what I gather, the shelf can be switched simply btwn passive and active mode and back again.
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
7,097
412
1,210
Northern NY
So $12K buys you some lipstick and makeup that adds up to a small improvement?

when you are on the bleeding edge of audio fidelity, what may seem small to you is not the case (speaking) for me. As always, everyone's mileage may vary. In my system, the improvement, at least with the turntable was significant and I am sure I will experience tangible positives under the amps that makes the cost of admission worth it to me.
 

LL21

Well-Known Member
Dec 26, 2010
14,411
2,509
1,448
Of all the Stillpoints passive treatment I have done to all my components, the power amps got the most benefit. I have Ultra 5's under them now. I think I will be ordering a pair of TS 150's in the near future. The power supply chassis' certainly generate vibration as can be heard from the low hum of the large transformers when I put my ear up to them.

I have not consciously sat back to consider which 'isolation sandwich' (one for each component) has actually made the most difference in my system. What I can say is that I was truly surprised when I stuck an Auralex isolation platform under my Gryphon. It was sorta by 'accident'. When Auralex made a larger isolation platform, i ended up buying it because the one i had was actually too short, and the feet of the Velodyne were half on/half off...

...when I got the bigger one, I figured since I had the smaller one...to use it somewhere in the system. The amp was the only item not isolated from the floor. Wow...I was very surprised and actually doubted what I was hearing for a day or two, but it was so consistent i realized that the floor really did transfer into even fairly inert and heavy (and solidly built) equipment like the 176lb Gryphon.

I had read so many people write this before me...I assumed it must have had some truth to it...but did not fully appreciate it until I heard it for myself in my own system. I have now added the 'top of the isolation sandwich' to the Gryphon (Artesania damping plate with 20kg of brass wt on top to add mass)...and it is quite a nice improvement.
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,604
5,413
1,278
E. England
You gotta love the Sharon Stone analogies/euphemisms. Personally, I suspect the amount of sweating I'll be doing running two OTT 70w/ch SET monoblocks in my room will be akin to the effect she had on me whencrossing her legs in the police interrogation scene in Basic Instinct :p ! If i can get more of that for $12k with a Herzan, it'll be a BARGAIN :eek: !
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
Christian-I have no idea whether the difference using the Herzan table is big or small as I have never heard it. Jazzdoc spent 3 hours at Mike's house listening to his system and his comment was the Herzan made a small improvement that was musically significant in Mike's system.
 

mep

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
9,481
17
0
By the way, I just received a new Music Direct catalog yesterday in the mail and I see that PS Audio has a dual device which provides power conditioning and vibration control and supports up to 100 lbs. It's called the PerfectWave PowerBase and it retails for $995. Although I'm sure it's not in the same league as the Herzan, it may have some promise.

http://www.psaudio.com/shop/perfectwave-powerbase/
 

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
7,097
412
1,210
Northern NY
Christian-I have no idea whether the difference using the Herzan table is big or small as I have never heard it. Jazzdoc spent 3 hours at Mike's house listening to his system and his comment was the Herzan made a small improvement that was musically significant in Mike's system.

How much time has he spent really listening to his system with the current config of amps and speakers ? Audio memories are relatively brief. If mike said it was big... I believe him as I experienced the same big change. The best ears are the one's who have heard the system most...the owners.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
12,468
11,363
4,410
this is not about choosing sides.

jazdoc is not wrong about his perspectives.

but our systems are quite different, our music focus is quite different. our sonic compasses are quite different. when I go to his system I don't always appreciate the subtlety and significance of his system changes and the same with jazdoc in my system.

so when he comes to my system with his sensibilities there is a disconnect to some extent. he hears what is important to him and I hear what I hear.

and he lives with his system every day and knows the slightest small change, as I do mine.

when he comes to my system, hears changes, he has a steep learning curve to process what I've processed hours a day. how can he 'get' anywhere close to what I 'get' about the differences?

mostly our differences about what the Herzan is doing are in degree, not in the specific things that are different. it's really the only way it can be.

he is correct about how he sees things based on his perceptions, sonic compass and familiarity.
 
Last edited:

microstrip

VIP/Donor
May 30, 2010
20,806
4,698
2,790
Portugal
(...) and he lives with his system every day and knows the slightest small change, as I do mine.

when he comes to my system, hears changes, he has a steep learning curve to process what I've processed hours a day. how can he 'get' anywhere close to what I 'get' about the differences?

I think you are referring a very important aspect - the learning phase. When I make a change in my system sometimes it seems very small at the first listening sessions, only after some time I start noticing that some recordings show different aspects or even that some features I was used to are no more there.

BTW, I can easily accept that the DartZeeel preamplifier reacts positively to the TS140 isolation - the NHB18NS uses a many optocouplers directly in the path and in the volume control and these devices could easily be sensitive to vibrations.
 

beaur

Fleetwood Sound
Oct 12, 2011
459
165
950
60
Brooklyn
No, the effect was additive. The passive isolation was, IMO, the greatest contributor. Things improved further in the active mode.

Not too surprising. Herzan has a video on their site illustrating this (look for the jackhammer video). The actuators are the same but with the active mode engaged they tend to correct faster.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
this is not about choosing sides.

jazdoc is not wrong about his perspectives.

but our systems are quite different, our music focus is quite different. our sonic compasses are quite different. when I go to his system I don't always appreciate the subtlety and significance of his system changes and the same with jazdoc in my system.

so when he comes to my system with his sensibilities there is a disconnect to some extent. he hears what is important to him and I hear what I hear.

and he lives with his system every day and knows the slightest small change, as I do mine.

when he comes to my system, hears changes, he has a steep learning curve to process what I've processed hours a day. how can he 'get' anywhere close to what I 'get' about the differences?

mostly our differences about what the Herzan is doing are in degree, not in the specific things that are different. it's really the only way it can be.

he is correct about how he sees things based on his perceptions, sonic compass and familiarity.

Mike this is what you posted in the first evening of listening so it must have been very dramatic to you....


my Herzan TS-140 active isolation shelf arrived yesterday, and I installed it last evening.

I had been looking forward to this since 2005 when a reviewer from Positive Feedback brought over a Halcyonics for me to try. 3 years ago I switched from Grand Prix Audio Monaco decoupling shelves to the Adona 'grounded' racks to be able to optimize isolation devices such as the Herzan. when you combine isolation systems both systems are compromised. back in 2005 we had placed the Halcyonics on top of my GPA Monaco decoupling rack, yet it still sounded wonderful. how might it do when given the chance to work as designed?

no doubt I had big expectations. however; I also thought there was a chance that there might be take-aways that might compromise the benefits. with isolation devices my experience had been there are no absolutes. I did not know anyone who had tried one of these on a SOTA turntable. might it soften the sound?

it turns out it far exceeded my expectations. and I think besides the grounded, mass loaded Adona rack it sits on......and the 6" of concrete the Adona is spiked to, the NVS tt is an ideal match for the Herzan since it's designed to work with it's own isolation shelf. and Wave Kinetics started out as an isolation device builder.

i'll start out with the areas of my concerns, which I need not have had. the snap, impact, and weight of transients and bass is on a level I've never heard before. a huge improvement. and those things were already amazing. now they are 'real'. detail and focus is improved for everything, there is more density, texture, and harmonic sparkle......a vivid 'live-ness' that is hard to describe. the separation of every individual aspect of the presentation is another large improvement.

but really, the important thing is that music is more involving and compelling, there is a greater sense of the playing together, and the emotional content is much greater. I cannot stop listening.

I am astonished at what i'm hearing.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
12,468
11,363
4,410
Mike

what did you hear differently that jazdoc didn't? Shouldn't magnitudes of difference be heard by everyone? Just my thought of course

if i'm reading your question correctly, i don't think we had any differences in our perceptions, other than jazdoc felt that the Herzan affect on the dart pre affected digital more than vinyl, I saw it the other way (and I may not have interpreted his post correctly). he described things he heard on various cuts which I agreed with. then it's a matter of how one interprets the degree of improvement he described.

I've already addressed my perspective on our relative perceptions of differing magnitude of improvement from the Herzan.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
12,468
11,363
4,410
Mike this is what you posted in the first evening of listening so it must have been very dramatic to you....

it was very dramatic for me. my use of the word 'astonishing' referred to the way the Herzan mostly eliminated speaker feedback in the bass and how that made a big difference for me in my system.

initially I played lots music with big bass and I was and am still astonished by what the Herzan does with high octane music on vinyl, which my system and some others (like Christian's) here can do too.

earlier in the thread I talked about that here;

another whole subject that has been uncovered with the Herzan TS-140 is the judgment of record pressings.

you might have an opinion about particular MFSL pressings having boomy bass because that is what you are hearing. but the Herzan will expose that what was happening was that the full proper bass on the MFSL was causing feedback thru your speakers into your rack and muddying up the bass. once your tt is properly isolated and the feedback eliminated the cleaned up bass is wonderful. so be suspicious of any pressing with boomy bass. don't blame the pressing for your bass feedback.

is the pressing bass boomy thru headphones with the speakers muted? likely not.

what about clarity on musical peaks? a pressing issue? a cartridge or set-up issue? the Herzan will expose the truth of that. I've been learning a lot these last few days about true cause and effect.

it's humbling to realize how for off my assumptions have been on many things.

and here;

i can tell you that low frequency isolation has real benefit on a turntable in my system. i have bass towers that are -3db at 7 hz, and -6db at 3hz. i'm not saying that there is much if any musical information down there, but systems do throw off low frequencies for various reasons that becomes part of the noise floor, and stuff down there will definitely feed back thru the rack if it gets a chance. the change in my bass performance with the Herzan is nothing short of astonishing, and i feel i've got my full money's worth in this area.

and here I added a warning about the how the Herzan might do in other systems until more of them are out there.

Peter,

i will give your questions some thought and respond later. i'm at work and it will require a bit of reflection to do the issues justice.

i will add that in the interests of all i think i should step back and maybe not get so gung ho just yet about active isolation. i don't want to push people into it until more people have it in various types of systems and there is feedback from those systems. after thinking here for a little while, i have to stay respectful that my system is amazingly high resolution, and that the degree of change might be more varible than i think.

and Christian may feel the same, i can't speak for him.

i guess i will just warn that YMMV, it's just one crazy guy (maybe 2 crazy guys) that has his ears on fire and all that.

my belief has not changed, i just don't want to spend anyone else's money.

hopefully; there will be a few more brave souls who will dive in here and give us more broad feedback than just myself and Christian.

it's interesting that today with jazdoc we played almost zero of what I would refer to as high octane music, and that is most certainly not a big focus for jazdoc (or my get-togethers with him) and his system is not really set up to optimize or focus on that.

so this most significant aspect of what the Herzan does was not really a big part of the picture today.
 

PeterA

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2011
12,522
10,688
3,515
USA
Of all the Stillpoints passive treatment I have done to all my components, the power amps got the most benefit. I have Ultra 5's under them now. I think I will be ordering a pair of TS 150's in the near future. The power supply chassis' certainly generate vibration as can be heard from the low hum of the large transformers when I put my ear up to them.

Christian, if you intend to buy two TS 150's for those monster Pass XS 150 amps, you may be in for a real shocker. As you know, I have a pre-loaded Vibraplane under each of my Pass XA160.5s. The improvement was about 2/3 of what I hear with a Vibraplane under my turntable. I would have a really hard time going back. Do you plan to also use the Stillpoints? I suppose you could try both ways. Please report your findings. Wow.
 

PeterA

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2011
12,522
10,688
3,515
USA
Mike, I have the impression that you are listening much more to vinyl these days with the addition of the Herzan. A while back, I think around the time you upgraded from the Talea to the Telos, you mentioned that your vinyl was now sounding much more like your R2R tapes and actually sounded close to "master tape" quality. Perhaps it was the length of the arm and other refinements that made it sound more "continuous" or tape-like. I don't remember the exact quote, but I was certainly impressed by your sense of elation. At the time you referred to your tapes as your personal reference.

Now, with many more upgrades to your analog front end and most recently the two Herzan isolation tables, do you feel that you have you surpassed the sound of your R2R? Have you gone back to listen to your tapes recently and have you considered a Herzan for your R2R? I know that Albert Porter has a Vibraplane under both his turntable and R2R and he reports similarly significant improvements.

Which would you now consider your reference, tape or LP?
 
Last edited:

rockitman

Member Sponsor
Sep 20, 2011
7,097
412
1,210
Northern NY
That is an interesting query Peter. Speaking for myself, I think the lines between tape and vinyl are becoming more blurred as a result of active isolation for my system. That said, tape still the edge, most of the time when we talk safety master playback on a well sorted 15 ips deck.
 

About us

  • What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. This is THE place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss vintage, contemporary and new audio products, music servers, music streamers, computer audio, digital-to-analog converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel-to-reel tape machines, speakers, headphones and tube and solid-state amplification. Founded in 2010 What’s Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals, we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people, and participating in spirited debates.

Quick Navigation

User Menu

Steve Williams
Site Founder | Site Owner | Administrator
Ron Resnick
Site Co-Owner | Administrator
Julian (The Fixer)
Website Build | Marketing Managersing