- Vesicular basalt.
- Selected Slate
An excellent platform into which to render mechanical vibrations is a vesicular basalt slab. Bocchino Audio will supply such slabs to the following maximum sizes:
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- 43 cm is the standard width of most audio
appliances. However other perimeter sizes are available provided they do
not exceed the maximum area for the given thickness asked for.
Other dimensions are available on request.
Price is generally $USD 289.00 per slab lightly
arrassed on one surface.
The reason the Vesicular Basalt works so well
as an isolation platform is because of the innumerable number of gas vesicles
in the slab and the hardness of the rock matrix. These work to kill vibrations
from transiting the slab and will also earth vibrations induced into the
slab by the MecadoTM.
TO MAXIMISE APPLIANCE ISOLATION USE MECADO'S BETWEEN THE BASE OF THE APPLIANCE AND THE ROCK SLAB. And also between the base of the rock slab and the platform on which the whole assembly sits
And so it looks like this:
Platform
MECADO'S
Slab
MECADO'S
Appliance
This works well for electronic appliances and also for loudspeakers. this combination will offer the best isolation and deliver the maximum enjoyment. With loudspeakers, it may be adviseable to place an intermediary neat slab between the top surface of the stone slab and the base of the loudspeaker. Because of the numerous vesicles in the basalt their boundaries may be prone to scratching the base of the loudspeaker. A ( 15mm - 20 mm ) granite or marble slab would suffice.
What about Granite and Marble?
Both granite and marble are dense and heavy rocks. Their density
being similar to the vesicular basalt. But marble has no displaced
discontinuities in its matrix though granite has innumerable discontinuities
that meld into each other at their crystalline boundaries. Hence sound
is reflected around inside the rocks and is not rapidly dissipated, though
somewhat more so in granite than marble. Vibrational artefacts still make
it through the rock and it is only by virtue of their heavy mass that they
deliver any dampening at all. Vesicular basalt on the other hand being
of similar mass and density, by virtue of its vesicular structure, dissipates
an exceptional amount of vibrational energy at the vesicle / matrix interface,
of which within the rock matrix there are many thousands.
The difference is immediate and quite audible.
Slate
Slate has long been known to act as an excellent isolation platform.
Slate is metamorphosed mudstone! It has many many layers. Depending
on how and where and over what time frame it was formed determines the
nature of the many layers in thickness and fineness of their cohesion.
Bocchino Audio has finally located an excellent source of Ancient
Slate: over 850 million years in the making and ultra fine layering.
Formation of this source of slate took hundreds of millions of years and
the matrix is very stable.
Almost any size is available. The slate surfaces are machined //
milled to exacting tolerances. Standard size is 17inches wide x 18 inches
deep and 1 5/8inch thick ( 430mm x 400mm deep x 30mm thick ). Bocchino
Audio experience in specifying surface finishes for many variety of stones
in the past enables the Slate to be presented for use to satisfy the fussiest
audiophile.
Heavy and stable Slate makes an excellent platform for installing
any audio appliance: Especially disc player ( cd or vinyl ) with Mecado
isolators top and bottom ( where applicable ).
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Performance
The Vesicular Basalt Slab or Slate platform will outperform most,
if not all, similar platforms made from exotic polymers, fibers and reconstituted
stone as well as other natural stone costing upwards of thousands of dollars.
This has to be the bargain of the century. A perchance discovery by
clients who passed the information onto me as they were not interested
in taking it further. After I tried both stone types I was amazed
at how excellently the both performed. Arrange them individually
as above and you will wonder why you ever paid
hundreds of dollars for that carbon-fibre mat, or similar!
Below is an image of a Vesicular Basalt slab, standard size 430mm x 400mm x 40mm:
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