Hi, Stehno!
I think your miths are a challenge to all of us to answer.
So i'm gonna try to answer to some of them in a random way. Don't forget to answer to my answers.
Ok, first
I said it recently in another post. It is not the devices. It´s the gear. Once you move it, you need to wait a little to the gear to calms down. You can hear differences immediately when you replace the feet or put some base to isolate vibrations, but i could swear that if you wait a little, changes may be more obvious.
Hi, Spock. Good to hear from you.
Vibration mgmt has to do with unwanted mechanical (and electrical) energy which is always present as is its ability / inability to travel. Unwanted energy is that which induces sonic harm to the playback presentation. True isolation, which nobody is able to practice, occurs in a moment in time i.e. in the blink of an eye. If we think of an elelctrical example where I desire to isolate electrical energy so the lightbulb in that lamp will never illuminate again, I take a pair of scissors and cut the lamp cord. Instantaneously, that lightbulb is isolated from the unwanted energy. No settling-in period. In the case of mechanical energy, whether it's traveling along an electrical wire or electrical object or the metal structure within a component is still mechanical energy traveling.
(It's important to remember that when electric current is flowing through an electrical object of any sort, that current flow will induce a mechanical vibration. And when it does, that electrical object is now generating a resonant energy or mechanical vibration and that elecltrical object also becomes an energy conduit for mechanical as well as electrical energy.)
The vibration isolationist inserts their vibration isolation object, say a footer sandwiched between a component and shelf, a type of racking system, footers under speakers, etc. If it's truly designed to isolate, the act of isolation will be instantaneous. Think of inserting a box of sand or kitty litter or sponge or Sorbothane under a component. These would be considered reasonable acts of isolation and once inserted mechanical energy's ability to travel away from its point source is either instantly greatly retarded or ceased entirely.
On the other hand, mechanical settling-in is the result of time and pressure. Sufficiently installing a rigid say metal footer under a component or speaker will always take time as a certain type of molecular bond occurs over time (and pressure) to improve its ability to transfer mechanical energy from one disparate object to the next. If we think of an architectual structure anchored to say a concrete slab foundation, we know from experience that structure never fully settles but continues to settle-in over time i.e. 1 year, 5 years, 50 years, etc. IOW, the act of settling never entirely ceases as various cracks in the drywall over time to substantiate that. And the more time and pressure is available the more congruent these normally disparate objects become and the more congruent the more resonant energy is free to travel.
Part of the confusion is that manufacturers of vibration mgmt products erroneously claim their products adhere to the vibration isolation methodology when in fact the often times rigid product actually promotes the ability for mechanical energy to travel rather than isolate.
At least theoretically, if I squeezed two pennies extremely tight into a vice and came back the next day to release the vice, the two pennies will instantaneously separate as they drop toward the floor. But if I wait 100 years and then release the vice, there would have been an oh-so-slight melding between the two pennies almost like a light weld so that they drop to the floor as one and might even remain as one after hitting the floor.
But another overlooked area is that with mechanical objects and their settling-in time, if there is any movement even at the microscopic level, then the act of true settling-in is greatly compromised and can indeed act a bit as an isolator. Why? Because if you place 3 spikes under a speaker and those spikes are tightly coupled at the sub-flooring, the mechanical energy generated by the speaker will cause it to move ever so microscopically on top of the spikes, hence never having opportunity to mechanically settle in. In contrast, if those spikes are tightly coupled at the sub-floor and fastened tightly to the base of the speaker cabinet, then over the next days, weeks, or even months, a truer form of mechanical settling-in occurs as the mechanical conduit (the spikes) improves over time - like the two pennies in a vice or the architectual structure anchored to the concrete slab.
But without the opportunity to tightly fasten the spikes to the speaker, the act of mechanical settling-in can never really start. So a product designer adhering to the isolation methodology erroneously will claim his product is isolating when in reality everything about the project including its design and materials are those used by say me who adheres strictly to the resonant energy transfer principles. But what the isolationist designer is unaware of is his inferior installation method (lack of tightly fastening his product) will cause it to behave more like an isolating product. But he doesn't know it. Confusing, eh?
But also to be clear, nobody is able to 100% isolate an object from all sources of vibration simultaneously (though many will go to their graves trying) just as nobody is able to transfer 100% of resonant energy from one disparate object to the next. Whether we actively partake or not, we're all practicing a hybrid of the two methodologies. But the more one leans toward true isolation, the more instantaneous the results.
Andy yes, you may indeed hear some differences immediately especially when decoupling. But my focus in actual improvements and I'm unaware of any improvements occurring the more true the act of isolating. Because the more true the act of isolation is adhered to the more the mechanical energy remains trapped at its point source (the components or speakers). Because one can isolate against a single source of vibrations (just not all sources) and when one successfully isolates an object against one source of vibrations, they instantaneously trap at least least one other source of vibration at the oject so that it must release all of its energy somewhere within its trapped spaces. In contrast, sufficient means of resonant energy transfer occurs over time. Time and pressure. The more time and/or pressure the greater the results.
