this video is on a very interesting line of isolation products
designed to improve the performance of audio and home theater systems
like many specialty audio companies harmonic resolution systems or hrs for
short was born when a very talented engineer
decided to quit their day job and apply their skills in an area no one
had thought too much about mike latvis the chief engineer at hrs
has been designing isolation equipment for commercial aircraft
military aircraft and missile defense systems for decades
as a holder of several u.s patents his credentials on isolation speak for
themselves he looked around at the products on the
market in the late 1990s and there were very few products
addressing the audio world directly he shared his early work he was using in
his personal system with some very experienced audio experts in
hamilton ontario they immediately wanted to know how they
could get some for themselves and hrs was born
we can tell you from experience the difference in some systems can be
shockingly good the first time we heard one of the
isolation bases we really could not believe our ears
hrs produces a complete line of noise reduction products ranging from
affordable products to large-scale custom stand systems
all of the products are designed to exacting standards with materials
that are meant to last a lifetime if you want to read more on hrs isolation
products be sure to click the link in the description to be taken to the full
review on audioadvice.com now let's get started
we're going to focus in this video on the more affordable products
and help you understand which might fit best for your system
so why is isolation so important if you enjoy sitting in front of your music
system and getting that feeling of the artist being right in the room with you
a very low system noise floor is one of the critical elements that can take your
experience to a new level many audio companies that make really
good gear go to great lengths to reduce noise within the components
as they know how important it is to system performance
some vibrations are airborne and some are coming up from the floor to your
equipment all of the components that touch the
musical system are very sensitive to noise
it can disrupt damage and mask the intricate detail of a musical
performance vacuum tube gear for example is so
sensitive if you lightly tap one of the tubes in the signal path with
a pencil eraser you'll hear a high pitched ring through
your system the same holds for phono cartridges the
digital circuits used for clocking and dacs are very sensitive
as are capacitors in the signal path to prevent
vibrations coming up from the floor into your gear
you need something to completely isolate them from external disturbances
hrs makes a full line of isolation bases and custom structures to hold the bases
with patented technology using custom elastomer compounds and structural
materials with unique properties to dissipate
energy before it can reach your equipment
hrs discovered that if they designed the isolation system to work within a small
weight range that would allow the gear to do a better
job than if they just had one material and model made for all
kinds of gear this is why you'll see many options on
their bases and you can even later get them modified for a different weight
range should your gear change for airborne vibration you need to find
a way to keep your gear from being susceptible to noise coming
directly to the component through the air hrs uses a combination of
constrained layer damping feet under the equipment
and constraint layer damping and mass loading plates on the top
to make it less likely your gear will micro vibrate with the airwaves coming
from your speakers the team at hrs uses some pretty serious
tests and analysis equipment along with rigorous listening tests
during the design phase of every piece they make all hrs equipment
is made by experienced professionals in the u.s
with all final assembly done by local craftsmen at their factory in buffalo
new york now let's take a look at the products
they produce for each category the hrs line of products to reduce
chassis noise consists of two parts the nimbus system
and the hrs damping plates the nimbus system is actually made a two parts
the nimbus coupler and the nimbus spacer
the nimbus coupler is a very special high tack proprietary hrs polymer
with very specific geometry stiffness and energy dissipating characteristics
this custom material was developed by mike latvis working with a polymer
chemist he had worked with for three decades on many high performance noise
related projects after dozens of custom material trials
and hundreds of listening tests the nimbus coupler became a reality hrs
makes different size spacers you use with the nimbus couplers
to make sure that all that is touching the shelf is the nimbus
system and not the component feet the idea is you buy a complete nimbus
assembly which is two couplers and one spacer to get the height that
you need these complete assemblies are from $142 to $159 each depending upon the
height and you need four of them however being
the type of equipment geeks that like to figure out how to get the best bang for
the buck we ask why can't you just remove the
component feet and use four single nimbus couplers this adds up to
180 dollars as opposed to close to 600 using four the whole assemblies
so this is a naim cd player and as you can see the nimbus coupler is a little
bit shorter than the foot so it's not going to work right
but the foot's got a little allen wrench in the center of it so all you have to
do is remove that then you want to place the four feet in
kind of the four rectangles here and it'll make an amazing difference on a cd
player if you don't want to do this you can of
course just use the appropriate height nimbus assembly to raise your component
to clear its feet but five minutes and a screwdriver or
allen wrench will save you around four hundred dollars
once you get them properly positioned you can tell even by just putting your
hand on your component that it feels much more dead and less
likely to pick up airborne vibrations than before we do
hear bigger improvements on front-end components than the power amp
which makes sense anything that happens to the signal
in the beginning gets amplified by the rest of the system
the next part of the hrs chassis noise reduction system
is to use their damping plates on top of your component
these plates come in black or silver to match your gear and are available in
three sizes and two thicknesses once again the question comes up as to how is
the best way to go the answer is get the biggest plate that
will not cover up any ventilation holes we feel the dpi 2 .7 inch thick models
work really well and the thicker ones called dpx provide
even more noise reduction hrs has a huge range of isolation bases
for high performance audio equipment some of them are super heavy and cost
over four thousand dollars for the base alone
but for the person with components at the extreme end of high performance
audio they offer a big improvement they recently introduced a new more
affordable base called the e1 like all hrs bases there are a variety
of sizes to choose from also as with all of their isolation
bases every single one is designed to work
with components within a specific weight range so you can perfectly match
it to your gear and your listening environment the
plinth uses a new constrain layer damping system hrs developed for the e1
and it's housed in a beautiful billet machined
aircraft quality front the e1 then uses custom press
resin fabric composite top and bottom plates coated with a highly scratch
resistant outside surface with special feet on the bottom to
further reduce vibrations the smallest e1 that will easily fit
most components and turntables is around eleven hundred dollars
while that is by no means inexpensive it can work
wonders for some components especially turntables that are picking up vibrations
from your speakers and creating acoustic feedback we've
used this space to take turntables that fed back so badly you could barely turn
the volume up to change it into a system where you
could crank things up as loud as you wished
it's really pretty amazing just like the nimbus products we think you'll hear the
biggest difference from source components out
turntables cd players DACs phono preamps and preamps seem to benefit the most and
of course anything with tubes inside to match up
the best d1 for your system first choose either a 17 by 19 inch size
or 19 by 21 inch size there are then four weight ranges to
choose from which are called out on the audio advice website
and you'll never be stuck with the wrong weight as it's a simple matter to later
change out the feet to get the weight that matches your new gear
with all of their patented isolation techniques hrs has come up with two
great record clamps that like their isolation bases are
designed to go with two different turntable platter weights
both have a proprietary polymer that decouples the record weight from the
spindle the adl short for analog disc light
is made from a custom designed damping polymer and a billet machined
heat treated aluminum alloy it is machined down to less than
one-one thousandth of an inch tolerance for both perfect alignment and balance
that's pretty impressive it only weighs 315 grams so it can be used on any
turntable even those with spring suspension
systems the adh or the heavyweight is the same design
but uses a non-magnetic stainless steel alloy
this one is designed for turntables that have a platter heavier than 15 pounds
the improvements with these weights is huge in some systems
resulting in less surface noise more dynamics
better separation of instruments and much more clarity
no matter which of these components you decide to try they are designed to
augment each other so you can't go wrong starting with any of them
if you're the type of person who likes to really sit in front of your stereo
system and be drawn into the musical experience
you're the type of listener that will appreciate the improvements these hrs
products can offer the only drawback is they are addictive
once you hear the improvement you'll likely want more
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