These are highly engineered audio
equipment platforms that have been
specifically designed for Decware tube
gear.
These Audio Focus Platforms get their
name from their ability to turn
vibration into heat instead of moving
it from one place to another like a
solid block of wood. The result is
noticeably better image focus, and
bass control.
If you read
about how these actually work,
you're going to want one.
- Steve Deckert / DECWARE
top view
bottom view
Options
These platforms come in different
sizes to match our amplifiers. Our
larger sizes may work with other brands
as well.
For example, we have five sizes that
cover all of our amplifiers /
preamplifiers.
Size A - 8" x 13-1/4" x
2-7/8" Size B - 10" x 17-1/2" x
3" Size C - 11-1/2" x
13-1/4" x 2-7/8" Size D - 15" x 18-1/2" x 3" Size E - 15" x 20-1/2" x 3"
If you have a Decware amplifier
selecting the size is easy, just choose
your model number when you get into the
shopping cart.
Most of our amplifiers come in
hardwood chassis, so we offer the same
hardwoods here to match.
They are:
Maple, Walnut/Sapele, Oak, Cherry,
African Padauk and custom woods.
You can get the platform by itself as
shown below, or you can get
it complete with our cones and pads,
pre-located for your specific Decware
amplifier as shown above.
Zen Audio Focus
Platform shown in maple.
The
cones are hardwood with brass tips
and locate into the platform ready
to spike into the bottom of your
amplifier chassis at the exact
correct locations. The pads that the platform sets
on are made from 1/2 inch thick
Sorbathane that has the correct
stiffness and diameter to support
and isolate the platform.
Zen Audio Focus Platform shown
in Sapele
How it works
With these platforms it is
about loading, which means having having
an amplifier with some weight setting on
it.
There is no "tuning" with this design
because we are not trying couple mass to
change the resonant frequency of the
vibration, but rather using the platform
to absorb the vibration and turn a
substantial portion of it into heat.
(exploded
view)
Unlike a solid block of wood which can
only move vibration from one point to
another, or lower the frequency of
vibration by coupling its mass to the
audio component, the Zen Audio Focus
Platform absorbs vibration equally
from both the amplifier that sets on
it and from the audio rack that it
sets on. The vibration is
greatly reduced leaving what it
absorbed as heat in the composite
resin core.
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST SOURCE OF
VIBRATION IN A TUBE AMP?
Many people think that vibration
control platforms are to prevent
vibrations in the audio rack from
entering the amplifier, and that is a
small part of it yes, but do you
realize that the 50/60 Hz vibration
from the power transformer in a tube
amplifier is 10 to 100 times greater
than any air born or seismic
vibrations that will ever collect in
your audio rack? Assuming of
course that you didn't set your
amplifier on top of the subwoofer!
Yes, the power transformer is your
main source of vibration in a tube
amplifier, and the tubes themselves
are the specific thing in a tube
amplifier that you want to keep from
vibrating.
So, you have to recognize the source
of the your problem, the transformer,
and then identify the path it takes
through the amplifier chassis.
Once you have done that you can locate
the perfect spot to couple the chassis
of the amplifier to your
platform.
If your amplifier has a bottom plate,
be it wood or steel, and you have
placed your footers there, you have
turned your bottom plate into a
weighted spring sending as much
vibration back into the denser part of
the chassis as goes down through the
footers or cones.
The highest mass of any chassis is the
corners... the exact corners.
That means to collect that vibration
you have to have a point on the top of
an upside-down cone embedded into the
exact corners of the amplifier chassis
to couple the most vibration into the
platform.
Once you have done that, you want to
absorb the vibration, not move it into
a solid block of wood expecting it to
somehow fade away.
Since we are an amplifier manufacture,
we know exactly where the vibrations
are in our amplifiers and the best way
to reduce them.
Using tube dampers, to reduce
vibration after it has entered the
tube is not as effective as reducing
the source of the vibration entering
the tube in the first place.
That is what the Zen Audio Focus
Platform does...
Watch the video to see it in action!
HOW IT WORKS CONTINUED:
In the diagram above you see two thick
plinths.
The plinths are made from solid
hardwood. The particular wood used
will typically be the same wood as the
amplifier chassis is made from. The
most common being Walnut, Maple, Cherry,
Oak, African Paduke, and Ash.
The top plinth is solid while the bottom
plinth has a 4 inch hole through it's
center. Coupling the two plinths
together is an 1/8" brass ring that
creates a fulcrum so that the corners of
both plinths can flex against.
The composite resin plug is made from
epoxy resins, quartz, aluminum, brass,
iron, and copper in a proprietary
blend. This completely fills the 4
inch hole in the bottom plinth as well as
the ring with a super high mass that bonds
the two plinths together so aggressively
that they can not be forcefully separated
under any condition even with tools.
Since the composite resin plug bonds with
the wood so deeply, the lower plinth has
considerably more mass than the top as the
plug's mass becomes part of it. This
is what creates the co-mass-layer-damped
system that keeps the corners from
resonating on their own and what creates
the heat.
The platform works equally well to absorb
energy from the top as it does from
the bottom. In fact it's so
effective that you may get better
performance from setting it directly on
the audio shelf as opposed to using
isolation pads under it depending on the
mass of your audio shelf.
This platform is
hand built in the USA by DECWARE.
Try this platform in your own home for 30
days and if you're not completely tickled
with the improvement in sound, send it
back for a full refund less a 10% restock
fee.
