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Good spacers for stacking gear?

I travel a bit for work and have a collection of hotel keys that can be stacked to finite thicknesses.
 
I received my vibration blocks today from spec. They work great, provide extra spacing and look nice enough that they appear intentional and not an after thought. Dealing with Spec was super easy and they shipped quickly.:banana: Thanks guys for the tip!:thmbsp:

Oh yeah, and they were cheap!!!
 
I'm now stacking my Denon 5900 disc player on top of Parasound HCA-1000A amp. I pulled out 4 of my custom made (I made them years ago) wood blocks to provide spacing. The internal heatsinks of the Parasound are still causing temps to rise inside to 110 degrees F or greater. Not good. That is with about 1.5 inches of added spacing from my wood blocks, or about 1.75 inch between the top of the Parasound and the bottom of the Denon thanks to the Denon feet. Check the parasound manual, and it says that 6 inches are needed inside a rack with the front open. My stack is freestanding so it doesn't need 6 inches, but probably at least 3.

Most of the solutions described here provide about one inch. I suppose I could stack 3 hockey pucks (3 looks doable, 4 looks dangerous). I went to a Michaels craft store and they had 3.5 inch blocks (but sadly, the store I went to only had 3 in stock, and the Denon needs one on each corner I think). Now I see online stores with 3, 4, and even 6 inch cube blocks. I'm going to try the blocks I have (and get another one from another Michael's tomorrow for that purpose) but if it doesn't work well I'd step up to 5 inches, which is about as big as I'd want to get because the cube also directly blocks airflow.

http://www.craftparts.com/blocks-squares-wooden-blocks-cubes-wooden-c-209_212.html
 
charlesp210 said:
I'm now stacking my Denon 5900 disc player on top of Parasound HCA-1000A amp. I pulled out 4 of my custom made (I made them years ago) wood blocks to provide spacing. The internal heatsinks of the Parasound are still causing temps to rise inside to 110 degrees F or greater. Not good. That is with about 1.5 inches of added spacing from my wood blocks, or about 1.75 inch between the top of the Parasound and the bottom of the Denon thanks to the Denon feet. Check the parasound manual, and it says that 6 inches are needed inside a rack with the front open. My stack is freestanding so it doesn't need 6 inches, but probably at least 3.

Most of the solutions described here provide about one inch. I suppose I could stack 3 hockey pucks (3 looks doable, 4 looks dangerous). I went to a Michaels craft store and they had 3.5 inch blocks (but sadly, the store I went to only had 3 in stock, and the Denon needs one on each corner I think). Now I see online stores with 3, 4, and even 6 inch cube blocks. I'm going to try the blocks I have (and get another one from another Michael's tomorrow for that purpose) but if it doesn't work well I'd step up to 5 inches, which is about as big as I'd want to get because the cube also directly blocks airflow.

http://www.craftparts.com/blocks-squares-wooden-blocks-cubes-wooden-c-209_212.html
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That amp needs to be out in the open so it can breathe. Put the Denon under it if you have to.
 
kevinmasters said:
I often want more circulation than the "feet" on the gear has. I have fashioned a few different quick fixes from stuff lying around and got to thinking that others had probably done the same thing.
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Got any tennis or squash balls? Either cut in half is a cheap alternative.
 
The OP had two needs: additional ventilation clearance, and vibration isolation. While the HVAC pads he used did provide the ventilation clearance, one should note that vibration isolation is pretty much nonexistent for that product, when loaded with audio equipment.

The brochure is woefully light on specifics, but I've spec'd pads like this, and the all-rubber ones, for studio construction projects. The brochure states "designed to withstand 50 lbs.", which more than likely means, it won't perform it's intended job of isolation unless you load it to nearly 50 lbs. Put 10 lbs. on it, and it might as well be a chunk of wood. Good for ventspace, bad for isolation.

As I recall, Mason Industries' brochures did a good job of outlining the design considerations for isolators like these. Weigh your target equipment, determine your problem frequency band, and choose wisely.

The OP's pads would provide some isolation if they were placed under the whole rack of equipment, or under a significant stack of 200 lbs. of stuff. But if he's after TT isolation on a hardwood floor, for example, it's probably not compliant enough at the right frequency to do a good job in that application.

(Not trying to stir things up... just trying to save some folks trial-and-error time/effort.)

Chip
 
+1 for hockey pucks. Tried various things and these do as well as anything.

Maybe showing my age but, hit the toy store and pick up a set of those wood blocks used to teach kids the alphabet. Only negative maybe if you have a young'in needing that block containing the letter "E".
 
I just ordered a case of 48 DiversiTech E.V.A. Anti-Vibration Pads, 2" x 2" x 7/8", about $ .49 ea. This is 48 pads for about the same price as 4 of the same pads from SQ Products - ISOL-Pads.

http://www.sq-products.com/sq_isol_pads.htm

If they don't work out, we have our washer and dryer up on the second floor and they should help quiet their noise somewhat;-)
 
I just cut some new 3/4" rubber heater hose the length I want. The very small footprint leaves plenty of room for ventilation. I've used some very small wood blocks before too. I used a black magic marker on the front ones.
 
FWIW, I use those inexpensive hard rubber 1/2 thick 2"X 2" brown or black carpet protectors for furniture feet for the 2 sunroom`s Velodyne 400 watt powered floor firing 15" subwoofers feet because the sunroom`s floor is 1`X 1` tile flooring, doing so isolates the metal caps on the subwoofer`s wooden feet, and keeps the subwoofer from wanting to wander around when that stereo system is cranked up.
Cheap and effective.
 
kevinmasters said:
I really really like those, but I wouldn't consider them cheap at $25 per unit. I'm still looking for other creative and inexpensive options but may just end up back at the Iso-pad! Thanks a ton!

K
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Rubber furniture caps or floor protectors used them to set turn table a little higher for better air flow ace hardware $6
 
I use Diversitech Wagner isolation footers. You can get them off eBay.

NAD_1700_(1)_small.jpg
 
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