PSA free zone 
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Never a good idea to throw away the boxes for your hi end audio gear.They’re expensive to replace, and not having the proper box when getting ready to sell hurts the resale value.
Label on the triple box shipping carton for my soon to be sold Ayon CD player.
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Same here. I have all my boxes .
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$400 for a box is nuts. I get the point of a stern warning, but this is absurd, even hostile.
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It all boils down to real estate…
Better to have the warning than to be uninformed, and out $400.
That’s probably not their actual cost for replacing the box, but of course they’re adding their usual mark up. There are custom molded foam top and bottom inserts that sandwich the player, plus a total of 3 boxes. So I wouldn’t be surprised if their cost is well over $200.
M-pods fastened to M-stand, that’s the easy part. Next step is far more difficult and requires an assistant. The pins are much harder to pull out of the M-pods than hand grenade pins! The engineering of the assembled stand is very impressive, and heavy.
So are the M-pods and M-stand designed to isolate the speakers vs couple them to the floor?
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They channel vibration out of the speaker enclosure and dissipate that energy as heat within the constrained layers of the M-pod.
And I assume the M-pods also isolate the stand from floor vibrations. With speakers, it is important to have an avenue for cabinet vibration to drain and dissipate. Coupling is step one. I think there is a lot of misinformation out there about speaker isolation, which is certainly important with a floor in motion, but there needs to be coupling to something in order to deal with the movement generated by the speaker drivers themselves.
From the Magico website"
“Operating under massive weight the MPOD is a noise channeling system that effectively dissipates resonance while maintaining ultimate coupling properties to the floor resulting in remarkable sonic results. M3’s ordered with the MPOD 3-Pt Stand come with a beautifully appointed case that includes six MPOD’s and a professional grade torque wrench that allows for periodic maintenance of the internal tension rods.”
This is an odd statement. The coupling would be: Cabinet-to-Metal Base, then Metal-Base to M-Pod Footers (top half) where vibrations would then be converted/dissipated within the M-Pod as heat as you mentioned.
Conversely, the above-described system would be ISOLATED (not coupled) from the floor by the internals of the M-Pods in the very same way. In other words, any floor vibrations would be absorbed by the bases of the M-Pod footers and subsequently converted/dissipated by the internals of the M-Pod.
Unless the floor itself is part of the cabinet vibration dissipation system, it seems unlikely the M-Pods are coupled to the floor. If that was the case, whatever floor vibrations were present, would then transfer to the speaker cabinets. I have to believe the M-Pod bases ISOLATE the speakers from the floor based on the stated design of the individual M-Pod footers.
Magico say what they said about it…
Huh? Maybe a typo but not sure what you are saying here. If you mean that statement is authored by Magico and not you, I understand that from your post. I was referring to Magico’s description which still seems ambiguous/inaccurate.
My point being is this… If the intent is to couple the speakers to the floor, the directional energy generated by the drivers would need the ability to continue its journey to the cabinets, then the speaker bases, then the floor. That means the M-Pods would be transferring/conducting the energy to the floor, not converting/dissipating it within. If “coupling” to the floor is truly the design intent, a solid metal footer would be better suited.
Yeah sure…Magico have reasons for doing what they do, and what they say. I understand your reasoning, but trust what they say even though I don’t quite understand.
Hi Jeff,
The claims made by manufacturers of decoupling devices that energy is turned into heat could be nothing more than a fallacy. I wonder if they can measure it. Of course manufacturers have to fit feet - especially so with record decks, where the equipment has to include some form of isolation from footfall and from vibrations within the room. And - yes, the differences between different materials alters the sonic performance of the music. Energy like water running downhill will flow into a higher mass, if it can, and rubber or some other high tech approach prevents this from happening because they are decouplers that form a higher resistance to the flow of energy trapping it in the equipment and/or the feet or devices themselves. If it is rubber or some other pliable substance the equipment just sits there and wobbles along with the music. It is extremely difficult to turn energy from one form into another and the process is very inefficient.
I used to own a Well Tempered record deck - which was an excellent sounding deck, said deck used squash balls for support and isolation… I asked about the requirements of using squash balls and the old pony was trundled out about energy converted to heat so I asked what percentage was turned into heat. After a long silence, I was informed that they didn’t know because they hadn’t actually measured it !? Then I asked what grade of squash ball was the best, most efficient, because there are different grades or bounce rates of squash balls ? Another long silence/ dead air and they couldn’t provide definitive proof one way or the other.
Sitting equipment on squash balls or half squash balls - same as hitting the squash racket in simple terms the energy has changed down in frequency to the resonant frequency of the rubber. Every object or substance converts energy into it’s resonant frequency and hence stores vast amounts of energy. We don’t want the energy trapped, just sitting there trapped in the equipment with no escape route, we want the energy flowing away from the equipment as quick as possible . Where I am lucky in this respect is that my house is built completely from engineering bricks - with all internal walls and cupboards constructed the same way - there are no stud partition or drylining, plasterboard walls used in the construction of my house. I have my equipment in a cupboard which is built like a bunker ‘as is the house. All the equipment sit on individual, heavy birch ply shelves bolted to a 3 foot thick solid brick wall. I have all my equipment supported on solid wooden cones that a local carpenter makes to my requirements. My speakers are ‘big’ and put a lot of energy in the room. If I put a record deck in the room with a glass of water next to the deck the water shimmers as the music plays and if I move about in the room or touch the table the water ripples in the glass. Put the same glass of water on the shelf supporting my record deck in the cupboard and there is zero movement and I can bang the shelf with my hand and the water just sits still in the glass.
Like I said - I am fortunate in this respect due to the construction of my house, by moving/isolating the equipment away from the speakers this was the biggest improvement, non equipment wise, to my system… You have no idea how much music and colour is being robbed away from the system with the speakers & equipment in the same room, acting as an energy storage trap. And, it isn’t just a mechanical device like a record deck that benefits from moving the equipment out of the room, electronic components do, too, they are microphonic and when you vibrate electronic components they produce small electrical signals from acoustic feedback which time smears the music signal passing through the system at the exact same time as it is being bombarded … Even equipment I’ve owned where the electronic cards and boards are isolated within the equipment and mega-heavy casework is used I can still clearly hear a huge sonic improvement when said equipment is removed from the listening room to my equipment isolation bunker!!
I’ve often thought to myself is it because I have this great isolation between equipment and speakers/room that I don’t hear massive differences in cables that others report/purport to ? After all, the cables are cycling the feedback crap through the wire, mixed in with the music signal in an endless loop.
Sandboxes, springs, rubber, sorbothane, pods, etc, etc. and all their resonant frequencies just attempting to address symptoms – but not remotely close the root cause of them.
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I usually do the exact opposite.
Although, as most of us, also I don’t know what exactly happens within the microcosms of vibration control, my impression is, that hardly any manufacturer (especially if he’s not limited to vibration control specifically, but a more general equipment manufacturer, supplying vibration control as an addon) even logically deliberates a more or less full concept within his products, at least not including environment, racks and floors. They either limit their concept to their part of the chain or just make a nice looking goodie for those who can’t judge the comparable performance anyway (not meant to anyone personally).
I think what one reads from a manufacturer who‘s not referring to the various dependencies, reads marketing only.
Very well written, Dirk. I wholeheartedly concur with the equipment out of the room scenario. I have my equipment located in an anterchamber of the main listening room. Equipment sitting on wall shelves, bolted to solid brick walls. This produced one of those WOW moments.
I had tried various stands and supports, decoupling and coupling, but moving the equipment out of the room made my system perform like it had never done before. We are fortunate to live in traditional build houses where we can attach our equipment to solid structures outside the listening room.
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@dirk Fascinating details about your home construction. Holy cow! I believe I read somewhere that your home was custom built? With the construction you just described, if you told me it was the Glamis Castle, I would believe you. Isolation and coupling, or vibrations management in general, is one of those mysterious topics with lots of otherworldly claims by manufacturers. The timing of this is perfect as I am now dealing with this very topic in my room - once again. I have tried so many damn devices it is nauseating. I have some pretty unorthodox speakers.
Each enclosure is separate: Bass, mid-bass, midrange, tweeter, super tweeter. What I found is each of these enclosures were coupled by nature of their design and configuration. The big bass enclosures were causing vibrations all the way to the top. I am in the process now of providing isolation stages between each stack. I want to figure out a way to couple the bass enclosure to the floor, then create the isolation between each stack in hopes of keeping the mids and highs clean and pure. I kept it simple and just placed some Herbie’s Big Dots in between each stack. I should have known it would not be that easy. So now I am going to try some IsoAcoustics ISO-Pucks between the bass/mid-bass enclosures and the mid-bass/midrange enclosures. I don’t want to alter the overall height of the speakers to much due to the time alignment built into the overall design.
Your anecdote of the perplexed Well Tempered representative is amusing! I think I am safe in assuming most of us have had an identical experience with some verbose “house of cards” company rep. As you mentioned, much of this stuff is difficult, if not impossible to disprove so there is an inherent urge to push the boundary with claims and statements veiled as science or fact.
Dirk, I am really intrigued by your house/room design. I am also curious as to what “engineering blocks” are. I have never heard that term. I assume it is commercial-grade material? All I know, when the next asteroid shower threatens life on earth, I will be making my way to Scotland in search of Dirk’s Lair! 
I also really dig the idea of a separate room/chamber for the gear. Despite our best efforts to address movement in floors and racks, large amounts of sound energy will always take their toll. I often enjoy playing music at concert levels which generates substantial energy in my room, especially with those large bass drivers. Do you have extremely long cable runs?
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