Subbass and electronics

[Guss]

Since I moved all my electronics in the same room, I wonder if subbass and vibrations can hurt my equipment if the sub is pushed high. What do you guys do to reduce vibrations effect on your electronics?

[Bull]

Vibrations won't 'hurt' equipment in the long term.
But mainly decks[turntables] may make the tone arm jump and CD players and Minidiscs may skip.To resolve this mount turnables on 1 inch rubber or acoustic foam or get pro carts if your using turntables.For CD players and Minidisc mount them on an inch thick piece of rubber or acoustic foam or use special dampened 'feet' under each 'foot' of your equipment.
Really heavy vibrations like vibrations which shake the walls and makes your windows buzz loudly will make the CD player or Minidisc jump unless it's got some kind of anti-shock system.
For turntables using a pro cart like the Shure,makes it almost impossible for the stylus to jump.
Well it really depends how much sub bass is vibrating the room,and how strong the floor is.
Weak wobberly floorboards = hifi rack shakes and vibrates from bass and can cause track skipping.Eg loose wooden floorboards.
Whereas a strong rigid floor wouldn't really vibrate anything standing on it.Eg concrete floor or thick wooden floorboard secured properly with no wobbles,warps,shrinkage,or holes or creaking either.
You might think the floor doesn't matter but don't forget your hifi rack or cupboard or 19 inch rack sits on it and will absorb vibrations much more if the floor is wobberly.

[7V]

The biggest cause of mechanical vibration is the coupling between the speakers and the floor. This is usually due to the use of spikes. The main function of the spikes is to keep the cabinets still as the drive units cones move. I can't believe that the function is to vibrate the floor - all floors are different and their behaviour is unpredictable.

With this in mind, I have stopped using spikes and have moved to trying to isolate the speakers from the floor whilst still maintaining stillness. Mechanical vibration has been greatly reduced.

The other potential problem area is from 'airborne vibration', I think that the amount of energy here is very low but the main negative effects occur when the equipment acts as a Helmnholtz resonator and resonates at certain frequencies. At these frequencies a small amount of energy can have a large vibrational effect.

Both mechanical and airborne vibration have to be dealt with and the connected areas of speaker/ground and equipment/rack/floor interfaces need more study.

[Guss]

Yeah I think Im more concerned by impact directely delivered by woofers. I guess the only way is to keep my stuff away from my sub.

[rolfy72]

I killed my hard drive with subbass...now keep sub away from metal computer table, I had the little sub enclosure strapped to one of the legs!(yep its a DIY table too)
The repairer had never seen hard drive this badly scratched before "not bad for a little 8" sub he reckoned"
Now he has one!

[7V]

Originally posted by rolfy72
I killed my hard drive with subbass...now keep sub away from metal computer table, I had the little sub enclosure strapped to one of the legs!(yep its a DIY table too)
The repairer had never seen hard drive this badly scratched before "not bad for a little 8" sub he reckoned"
Now he has one!

Reminds me of the time my digital clock had a fight with a negative ionizer (sadly it died in the battle).

What was it that damaged the hard drive, the sound vibration or the magnet?

[rabbitz]

I use a platform under the CD player and DVD player. Just 18mm thick MDF with half a squash ball glued to each corner. Cuts out a lot of vibration to the source.

[Guss]

Originally posted by rolfy72
I killed my hard drive with subbass...now keep sub away from metal computer table, I had the little sub enclosure strapped to one of the legs!(yep its a DIY table too)
The repairer had never seen hard drive this badly scratched before "not bad for a little 8" sub he reckoned"
Now he has one!

Hmm, since I brought my computer in my room there is a big ''ASH-TACK'' at startup, it seems to be a mechanical problem. Anyway we're curently moving where a dual 12'' would be considered as illegal so I will be building a smaller one say a single 6 1/2 maxpentivent. And I never broken anything in my room with my sub, but I almost killed my neighbors cat .

I think I could build an hifi rack too, I bet MDF still the best material to use, right ?

[rolfy72]

Originally posted by 7V

Reminds me of the time my digital clock had a fight with a negative ionizer (sadly it died in the battle).

What was it that damaged the hard drive, the sound vibration or the magnet?

It's the Vibes mate!
The platters had nice scraped pattern where the heads were resonating against them.
I was testing the new sub(back then) using the puter, hit 40hz, screen went black didnt even get the blue screen of death...Bugga!