Tweaks are aplenty in this industry, some that work, and others less so. But when it comes to reducing vibration, I have been a longstanding believer.
At T.H.E. Show @ Newport, HRS introduced the Vortex feet. I was impressed at the impact that they had on various T+A components in Sunny’s High End Audio Video room during some quick listening.
Newport peaked my interest, so I naturally had to try Vortex feet under my Dan D’agostino Stereo Momentum amplifier which rests on a HRS M3X isolation base (shelf). In my experience, the addition of the Vortex feet was almost more impactful then the introduction of the HRS isolation base in my listening room. The Vortex feet shouldn’t be used by themselves and instead are designed to work with the HRS isolation base. Basically the addition of the Vortex allowed me to hear everything the base could do.
Back to the High End 2017, as I was roaming Hall 4.1, I managed to get a sighting of Michael Latvis, Chief Engineer at HRS. I needed to introduce myself and get the scoop on what black magic is going on inside those Vortex feet?
What crazy voodoo is Michael Latvis doing? Why was the impact of the HRS Vortex feet more significant then the original configuration of just a HRS M3X isolation platform? Here is what Michael told us…
“There is a lot of airborne vibration that impacts our audio components. When the airborne energy hits the chassis, it is sitting there and its ringing. You can see it on an accelerometer. We just wanted to give it a place to go.”
He wanted to develop a method to easily drain that energy away from your components.
“We are going to approach this differently and we are going to pull this energy out, get rid it and not let it come back.”
Sounds great, how does it actually work I asked? Here is my summary of what Michael explained :
- The vortex feet takes that energy from your chassis and dissipates it
- The top of the foot is a custom compound that doesn’t ring
- Below that compound is a stainless steel housing that is very efficient at moving energy
- On the other the side of the stainless diaphragm is a cavity, that helps push the energy to the outside of the feet, allowing it to dissipate
- Remaining energy continues down to foot
- All along the way, energy is being pulled away to dissipate it
- If any energy bounces back up, it goes along the same path again, and once again gets dissipated
Michael closed out saying:
“The theory was, let’s give it a path and along the path we are going to suck the energy off of it. By then time the energy goes down (to the bottom of the foot) and wants to bounce, it is very reduced or non-existent. It worked. It worked better then we expected. By the 3rd iteration of the compound on the top I knew we had something special.”
If you have HRS isolation bases / racks, give the Vortex feet a whirl.
–Mohammed Samji
