To the makers of Vibrapods:

Just wanted you to know that I ordered your Vibrapod #5's to place under my amplifier. I was absolutely blown away. I expected to hear a difference but not a big difference. Imaging was better, sound more 3 dimensional and more air around the instruments.

I have been an audiophile for over twenty years. This is by far the best "bang for the buck" I've ever spent on audio equipment.

I am ordering more Vibrapods for the rest of my audio gear as well as for my Home Theater equipment. I could kick myself for not trying your product sooner.

Congratulations on manufacturing a product that actually exceeds ones expectations. You are hearing from one happy audiophile.

Sincerely,

GT

Vibrapod’s

Good vibrations.

Hi-Fi or high fidelity to me is an amazing hobby that often produces surprises as one moves further and further up the audio ladder. The product in question here can and will hardly be taken serious by many audiophiles or fans of high end gear. My reason for making this statement is that when you receive a pack of Vibrapod’s they could easily be mistaken as a gimmick or very fancy packaged rubber feet.
The amazing thing about these little vinyl pods is that they are designed as isolation feet to go under any piece of audio equipment and do exactly what they have been designed for, and that sole purpose is to isolate ones expensive audio equipment.

The designers were very clever in their design of these uniquely shaped little vinyl feet in that they have designed different density’s for different weights of components. In this sense the Vibrapod’s spread over a wide application of equipment ranging from super heavy turntables to the smallest of phonostages, the pods come in different sizes to carry different weights.
The argument or should I say the logic behind this product is to eliminate unwanted vibrations that might enter into ones equipment.

Louis from Le Range very kindly dropped of two sets for me to try out and give him an opinion as to what I think. I just need to say that I am not a tweak freak and also take a very skeptical stance on certain claims and tweaks, the ears are the only thing I trust.
Installation was a pleasure and had the pods were under my two Graham Slee phonostages in seconds, and I was soon ready to start my very skeptical assessment.
The pods don’t need running in so the differences one should hear, theoretically should be evident immediately.

I sat down and spun my first record and I was immediately taken back. I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Aimee Man’s voice came across with a very delicate and tangible sensation; the other interesting sounds on her record suddenly became a lot more apparent and I know this is a statement that gets made often, but I was hearing things I never knew existed on the record.
The pods have raised the level of clarity of my system and the bass levels just sound that little more refined and detailed, the record sounded more revealing and alive and had a sparkle to it that I always thought was lacking from the recording.
I moved on to one record after the after till very late into the night and without fail, I was amazed with every single recording.

In short the pods have helped in making my system a little more revealing and have increased the overall clarity of my system yet they have managed to keep the systems musicality in tact.
The pods have also deepened the soundstage and managed to create an overall bigger picture, the music is now leaping further from the sides of my Cremona’s.

These pods will not be returned, sorry Louis.
I have a few gripes however, as a result of their construction they are not adjustable, and they are also not the prettiest audio products on the block and sadly might never be taken seriously enough by some audiophiles.
The good news is that they are an absolute bargain and Le Range also offers a 30 day money back guarantee.

I call out to all skeptics like myself to try them and be amazed.

Cleansound.

I finally got around to doing a good A/B'ing with an audiophile friend of mine. I'm relatively new to audiophiledom but I've had 30 years of musicianship behind me so my ears are audiophile quality! My friend has been in the audio business in a mid to high hi-fi store for about 20 years, so I thought between the two of us we'd be able to articulate the differences, if any, the Vibrapods made.Well, I'd been playing my turntable set-up with Vibrapods under it for a couple of weeks now, getting used to the sound, but I haven't been able to make a real test until now. I had already played with Vibrapods underneath my inexpensive CD player and discovered quite an improvement (increased spaciousness, better defined) but hadn't yet been able to really test out these synthetic pucks.FYI, I have a VPI HW-19 jr with the Mk III platter; a Moerch UP-4 tonearm; a Sumiko Blue Point cartridge; a Cyrus II integrated amp; and Magnepan SMGc speakers.We played a variety of music, from Dylan's "Time Out of Mind," to Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" to The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" and "Please Please Me" albums, even the Reiner/Respighi "Pines of Rome." (This, by the way, was the first time my friend had heard my VPI table, so he was checking it out too.)After about an hour and a half a listening, we decided to remove all the Vibrapods. (I have 16 pods sitting underneath a 1/2 inch MDF board on which the turntable sits.) He's a big fan of Dylan and it's a well recorded album so we decided that would be the first.Surprisingly, his first reaction to listening to it w/o the pods was that it was MORE musical w/o the pods. I was hearing something different, however. I asked him what was more musical about it and he couldn't immediately put his finger on it. I heard, on the other hand, a more confused soundstage, less depth, less air around the instruments. I suggested we move right back to using the pods to make an immediate comparison. (It's always better to do an A/B/A rather than just A/B in order to make sure what you heard is, indeed, what you heard.)Another surprise: he liked it with the pods much better, and so did I -- MUCH improved soundstage, the air around the instruments had returned, everything was much more defined. An enormous sonic improvement for $96, at least as much sonic improvement as I got going from a $29 MIT 6 cable to a $400 Audioquest Emerald on my CD player.

Jeff Bellin

[now spinning The Door's Morrison Hotel ... I think it's a later pressing, gold labels, no butterflies]The background: I was over at Richard Foster's place participating in one of the infamous Classic vs. Originals shootouts, and managed to "steal" what seemed like a thousand of these rather indescript, non hi-fi'ish black footers for the price of ... a Phonogram review? For the manufacturing and product spiel, plus other insights, I'd rather point you to the excellent Vibrapod web-site (http://www.vibrapod.com) or to Bruce Kinch's review in Primyl Vinyl V3 #4 ("Revenge of the Pod People", also available on the Vibrapod website). The Vibrapod FAQ on the website is chock full of wholesome goodness, and without a doubt is meant as preventive medicine for you anal-retentive types. Oh ... I guess that includes me. And for you charitable types, 10% of all SALES go to 3 different Outreach Organizations.I'll be honest with you -- this is not *exactly* Phonogram material (I didn't get a chance to try these underneath my TNT Jr. turntable -- for obvious reasons, mostly because I don't have a shelf big enough to hold the turntable, and secondly because I don't sport He-Man muscles like Myles Astor), *but* I am using the Vibrapods in my primarily-vinyl-focused system. Sam has informed me in e-mails that he has produced better-than-Vibraplane (at least the 'planes from Kinetic Systems) results with an assortment of 'pods underneath his VPI Aries table. I hope to try this someday, but until I find a cure for procrastination and win the Mr. Universe contest...[dropping the needle on Dexter Gordon's A Swingin' Affair ... Classic reissue]Pre-Vibrapod invasion, I was using ALOT of Black Diamond products -- Cones, Those Things, Pits, Shelves, yadda yadda yadda -- as well as individual Sound Organization stands for *each* component. We're talking a major cash outlay. While the 'pods don't render those products worthless or inoperable, let's just say that I *preferred* the 'pods.For the price of a mint 1st label mono Blue Note or a white-gold label EMI you could more than likely 'pod your entire system. Of course, this is relative -- I STOLE mine.First of all, the number of 'pods placed underneath a component is based on the component's weight and the model of 'pods that you use (different models have different payload capacities). Placing the 'pods underneath components reduced the shearing (or slippin' & slidin') effect in horizontal plane compared to those "other" cones -- the main non-sonic benefit here is that components connected with stiff cables no longer have the desire to leap off my stand's shelves. This is a good thing.One other thing I noticed: once the 'pods are put in place, it took a little while for the Vibrapod magic to "kick in" -- give 'em a few minutes to settle.[wow, what's this? it's Sloan's Navy Blue ... Murderrecords]So where did I try these suckers? Well for starters, when 8 Model 1s were placed (in a rectangular formation) underneath my SF Phono 1 phono stage (22 lbs, which has special stock "feet" already), I was rewarded with a more laid-back presentation and much better separation of instruments, especially in those recordings where multiple voices were placed hard-left or hard-right. A more refined treble too. Eerily enough, I thought that, musically speaking, everything moved along alot more fluidly as well. Yes, Virginia, the 'pods can boogie.Podding the control and power supply boxes of my SF Line 2, gave pretty much the same results -- there was a gain in the purity of tone department, as well as better detail retrieval -- I could easily hear changes in inflections -- brush work on snares, vibrato on saxophones for example. Now here's the kicker: ambient information on records, like the decay of instruments in a recording environment became readily apparent. Cool.[wallowing in the Cleveland Quartet Complete Brahms String Quartets ...RCA VCS 7102]I guess I could continue with the blow-by-blow details with other components (tube amps, CD players), but I think (like I do right now) that its unnecessary, and that you want me to STOP BLATHERING.Ok, fine. But let me add this *one* last tidbit. The above experimentation lead to building what's called a Vibrapod Sandwich -- yum! -- where you place the 'pods in the middle of two shelves then put the component on the top shelf. From what I understand, this allows for slightly better distribution of weight across the surface of the shelves. But of course, being the evil mad scientist that I am, I just had to try it using some Black Diamond Shelves instead of normal MDF ones, adding some 3-4 more 'pods to compensate for the added weight of those heavy shelves. (Actually I didn't have any normal MDF boards around, so I just had to work with what I had around...) Heh heh heh. An improvement, but not by a whole lot -- the biggest improvement was in the transients. Everything sounded like it could stop on a dime.My conclusion? Well, the Vibrapods worked for me, and they didn't screw up the sound... which is what I should of said in the first place!- John

PS: Can I puuuuuuhhhleeeeeeze keep these things?

 

Those who of you who pay attention to my posts from the past might remember that I have the BrightStar Ultimate TNT base (a combination of the AirMass and the Big Rock for TNT). The addition of the TNT's flywheel of late has caused me to pretty much take everything down and re-think my turntable isolation strategy. It seems that there's a few people on the list with TNT Jrs as well, so I figured I'd post to the list, with my experiences. A re-arranging of my listening room prompt about a month ago forced a tear-down of the TNT and the BS system -- the sandbox had to be unfilled, etc., and I just didn't have the will to refill it after moving the turntable to its new spot -- 90lbs of sand is a royal pain in the ass. So, just for kicks, I listened to the table with just the [inflated] AirMass. It wasn't bad, but the bass was a little flabby and not as tight as with the sandbox. I can't emphasize the importance of physically damping and isolation of the TNT's stand-alone motor assembly (SAMA) -- attaching (with a 2" square Neoprene pad, but BluTak should work as well) a Black Diamond Racing 'Thing' to the bottom of the SAMA so that its feet don't touch the shelf lowered the noise floor and tightened up the bass. Neat -- you should try this sometime, if you have a turntable with an SAM. A couple of experiments ensued -- I tried 1 3/4" thick maple butcher blocks (from Ikea, no less), BDR 'Shelves' (as in TWO of them), and finally a combination of the BDR and Vibrapods. (The latter as a combination because I didn't have any big 32" x 20" MDF boards around) It truly is fascinating to hear the differences in performance across all the variations in composition -- anyone who says that a turntable support isn't important should have their head examined. By now you'll probably clue into the fact the best performance was derived by the last combination of BDR Shelves and Vibrapods (24 in total!) (...if it wasn't, I would have kept experimenting). The final configuration looked something like this (apologies for the ASCII graphics): BDR Shelf BDR Shelf

Graphics to be added later.

[top view, 'pods underneath the BDR Shelves] (where FW == flywheel, S == spindle of platter, P == pulley foot, O == TNT foot, and {1,2,3} == Vibrapod model#)

I'm still think that there MUST be a better way to set the Vibrapods up (by using higher number model 'pods, and by using less 'pods in general), but I was just using what I had handy (RSF seems to be hoarding his) in order to support the 100lbs of the behemoth known as the TNT. Enough already, what do these suckers do for the table? I noticed a couple things right away, namely: - better separation of instruments and voices; I perceived this as less congestion or 'overlap' of instruments -- maybe this is just better layering as per the next claim - a more distinct boundary between the above -- for example, the physical separation of the first violin and second violin sections in an orchestra is much better defined - a tightening of the bass, giving without a doubt the impression of "bass foundation" (or for the musically inclined, pedal points) - again, a lower noise floor -- instruments eerily just 'hover' in space, and small details (like hall decay, the rate of a soloists' vibrato, how musicians finish their phrases, the ring of vibraphones, etc.) are pulled from the groove A couple of other interesting things happened, which require more than a quick note: a) pre-Vibrapod I've always noticed that there was a 'sameness' in the presentation of instruments panned hard left or right in the speakers; now, instead instruments may come from slightly left, right or behind the speakers depending on the recording b) small changes in VTA are CLEARLY audible now -- the separation and 'air' (arrgggh, I've reverted to reviewerspeak again) between instruments tends to collapse when the VTA is mis-adjusted. (Before adjustments in VTA clearly altered the *tonality* of instruments, particularly in the bass department) c) I can now verify (and concur) with the manufacturer's claims that the 'pods don't work too well in conjunction with (passive) pneumatic suspensions -- while all of my 'claims' above are exhibited with the AirMass inflated, they IMO they are even greater differences with the AirMass deflated. Same results with my tube amp (which is resting over a air-filled camping pad). Not sure what voodoo is happening there... d) I've noticed that some late number EMI ASD's which I thought had mildly steely string tone, seem to have improved somewhat -- a little lusher than before (eg: the later Boult reading of Holst's Planets, and for no particular reason seems to be in my pet stack of records of late) e) while I hate to open this seemingly bottomless can of worms, Classic reissues (even those cut with tube amplifiers) now sound like there's something being sucked out of the midrange; my impression is that this is related to the lack of congestion -- could just be that I haven't spent enough time finding the right VTA settings for these records, though OK, time to wrap things up. One of the benchmarks I use for measuring improvements in the system is to compare it (on a musical enjoyment scale) to a system like Richard Fosters' (one of the perks living in the Toronto area). Not meaning to knock Richard Foster, but with the addition of the 'pods (plus the VPI flywheel, pulley system, and the Walker turntable power supply), my system is finally starting to approach the performance of his, and I'm *not* kidding. (I betcha he's laughing or rolling his eyes right now... or at least I hope he is, HAH!) Right now, the recreation of performances of large-scale orchestral work is simply breathtaking -- it's a blast. Next time: my experiences with the flywheel addition and the pulley system to the TNT Jr., maybe even a mini-review of the Nadja Salerno-Sonneberg performance of the Tchaikowsky Violin Concerto with the Toronto Symphony... (can you tell who's on a mini-vacation for the next week?) - John

 

OK, I'm gonna say this right at the outset.  You have created something very unique here.  I placed the pods under my Yamaha A1, Pioneer DVD/LD, RCA DBS Dish, and my Elite video processor.  Without any hesitation I can say, I don't believe the difference.  What the heck is going on here!!!!!! The pic on my Pioneer 60 incher has deeper colors and a much smoother more film like appearance.  In fact after I made the change I had to go back and check and see if my original settings on the video processor and tv were the same. The real give away, is the difference on the PRINT.  Sound strange?  Well the real test is when you see just print on your tv screen- if you can notice a clarity difference on that then you have something.  One other sure fire clincher for me was the blue color on the screen at the top of the RCA dish picture when changing channels---the depth of the blue just increased very noticeably.  It is also evident on just a complete blue screen (as when you are changing inputs). The smoothness was immediately eye catching. The audio difference for me was in a broader sound stage with both Dolby Digital and Pro Logic.  In fact some of the pro logic with the Yamaha and the l dish now sounds close to dolby digital. I've tried to be objective, but its tough because I don't have a logical explanation for the reason behind the improvements.  I'll leave that to you. I am going to mention these on a couple of HT bulletin boards that I look at, but there is the chance that I will be dismissed as a crank. At any rate my new credo will be:   VOODOO   FOR     ALL  !!!!!
Jeff Redcay PS   Feel free to send some doubters over via e-mail; I'll tell just the facts.

I'm very skeptical of isolation products. However, at $6 a piece I had little to loose.

Well, I have never heard such a sonic improvement with so little investment. Your product has exceeded even my wildest expectations. It is uncanny that depth, layering, bass response and sound staging is so affected by vibrations in the source component. I will soon be ordering for my pre amp and two bridged Rotel amps. For reference my system is: Rotel pre amp, two Rotel RB980 amps bridged, Parasound CDP2000 CD player and Impact Technology Vento Transmission line speakers, interconnects by Straight Wire and Kimber Kable. Speaker cable is Monster Bi-Wire with Audio Note Gold Bananas. With the recognition that the room is the 80% contributor to good sound, your product is a must.

Thank you,

Ken Vance

As I left the office with my bag of oven fresh Vibrapods my associate said, "Do you really think you'll hear the difference?" "No, but I'll feel better." Ever cynical.Went home and placed the pods under everything short of the turntable and my dog's butt. Wow! I am a believer. Bass definition is definitely better, punchier and cleaner, crisp yet not dry, piquante with a hint of mint,,,,. I'm hearing a substantial improvement in overall definition. They are great.I'm going to order more today for my son's system with enough left over so I can sprinkle more around my own system. I even put them under my power supply for the   pre amp's remote functions.The intriguing thing about this tweak is that handling the little pods you can really sense the physics involved. I've never been a believer in cones but these little shock absorbers are great.I'm not going to put them under my turntable. Had the NAIM salesman out for dinner a night ago and he was astounded with the sound of my turntable. I decided I would do nothing to interfere with what I've got now. Well, maybe I'll try some under the turntable. I can always take them out.

Bob