Stillpoints Ultra SS under my Magico Q3's
 

I have used Symposium Tungsten Rollerblock footers under my components for several years, with good results. Over time, though, I’d become intrigued with the concept of Stillpoints after reading all the positive reviews - many of them right here on AA. Where there is so much smoke, there must be fire, right? So when I had finally gotten around to setting up my audio system, following a recent move, I was surprised to learn my antique home’s floor consisted of only one layer of 1.2” tongue and groove heart pine! A conventional two-layer system with 3/4” sub floor under a 3/4” hardwood, provides far superior damping characteristics. So, despite the fact I was happy with the sound I was getting in my new listening room, I decided to give Stillpoints a try under my Magico Q3’s, because I couldn’t stop wondering if I might not be loosing some resolution to resonance transfer from the antique single-layer flooring my system was installed on. It’s that audiophile thing - no matter how good it is, it can ALWAYS be better!

Alon Wolf, the designer behind Magico speakers, in response to growing user interest in aftermarket footers, reportedly said that Magico speakers were “designed to terminate into the floor", not be “isolated” (on footers). With all due respect to Mr. Wolf, all installations are not created equal, and with its antique floor system, certainly not mine!

I swapped out the elegant factory footers for a set of Ultra Stainless Steele footers. I choose the USS footers over the Ultra 5’s, judging the USS, with its complete “technology pocket”, full adjustability, and relatively reasonable price, to be the sweet spot in the lineup. Also, it fits nicely under my slender speakers, where the bulky Ultra 5’s would protrude beyond the cabinets. I was careful to level the speakers while adjusting each corner for equal load, making sure that all feet were separate from the cabinet bottoms and each “hat” was adjusted away from the footer housing. I used factory threaded adapters for stability, so the “hats” were oriented towards the floor.

Results? My first impression was actually negative! I seemed to have lost some of the wonderful liquidity I referred to in my "K-01x Listening Impressions, ” thread on the AA Esoteric board. But, my attention quickly shifted from what I might have lost, to what I was definitely gaining in this trade - amazing amounts of new information! More micro details, better-defined leading edge transients, deeper, cleaner bass, richer tonal presentation and a huge improvement in quality and quantity of spatial and ambient information. As I listened to first one recording and then another, I realized the Stillpoints under my Q3’s had transformed my system sound!

Next, I tackled my digital front end; four USS footers went under my K-01x, taking the place of three Symposium Tungsten Rollerblocks. The system was quieter still, the presentation was more upfront, soundstage grew in width and depth and there were more details with no apparent additional harshness!

The one place I always thought I might use the larger Ultra 5 footers was under the K-01x, so I switched out the four USS footers for three U5 footers on threaded adapters. Here, I noticed an immediate increase in harmonic richness and overall refinement of sound over the USS footers.

Then I removed the three Symposium Rollerblocks from under my G-01 clock and placed the four USS footers I had just removed from the bottom of the K-01x. I was absolutely floored - the extent of improvement was at least as great and possibly more so than what I had just experienced placing the footers under the K-01x!! Details, details, details! Improved rhythm and decay. There was still more ambient information, more tonal richness. The sound was awash in the sonic cues that make recorded music sound real.

I have since added USS footers under my mono block power amps and preamp, and Ultra Mini’s under my server and power conditioner. All were previously floating on Symposium Tungsten Rollerblocks, and while I would not claim the same degree of benefit in all cases as those above, all improved overall system performance to a degree that I felt justified the investment.

I’ve realized substantial improvements in overall coherence, rhythm - bass lines have a new urgency and solidity, and drums now have a distinct tonality. Piano, my single favorite instrument, is alive with rich, clean harmonics, clearly-defined attacks, and natural decay of sounds.

I listened to; “Sinatra, Live at The Sands” with the Count Basie Orchestra / Reprise /1966 / arrangements by Quincy Jones (RB). Sinatra’s first live recording, a fabulous time capsule, beautifully recorded. The band is arrayed across the front of the room with Sinatra in dead center. The recorded soundstage sounds spacious though, interestingly, the hotel stage was notoriously cramped. Horns explode, big, brassy and percussive in their delivery. This was Basie’s road band in top form, honed from countless nights of touring, and swinging relentlessly behind Sinatra. Sinatra, holographic in presence and holding court in "his room", was in great voice and spirits that night, and the audience responded with enthusiastic appreciation, surrounding me in my listening room as if I’m right there! The seas parted the night they made this recording 50 years ago - its all so perfect! What a performance, and what an exciting experience hearing it on my newly-Stillpointed system!

"Miles, Sketches of Spain"/ Columbia Legacy Edition /1959/ with Gil Evans (RB). This is surely light jazz, but it is also beautiful, and Mile’s spare improvising is tasteful and appropriate. Concerto de Aranjuez, played on my Stillpointed system, features a broad soundstage, incredibly holistic-sounding instruments, immediacy - it sounds as if I’m seated in a chair next to Miles - and even the acoustical aura of the individual performance space surrounding the individual instruments! The incredibly quiet background allows for degrees of micro detail I’ve never heard in my system before. The hand percussion is tunefully metallic, woody, palpable, and each occupying its own clearly-delineated space on the soundstage.

Saint-Saens Organ Symphony No.3 / BSO / Munch / Analogue Productions Living Stereo / 1959 (SACD). An Analogue Productions re-master. Playing this recording previously, the organ would sometimes be lost in the full ensemble passages. Now, when playing the new AP remaster through my Stillpointed system, the organ is always clearly delineated from the rest of the orchestra - even the lowest pedal tones are distinct and tuneful. There is an enormous soundstage with fine separation and clarity, and the orchestra is bathed in lush Symphony Hall acoustics.

Rimsky-Korsakov / Scheherazade / Reiner / Chicago SO/ Living Stereo by Analogue Productions (SACD). A RCA Living Stereo recording from 1960, that is possibly the finest Scheherazade performance and recording to date, and this new Analogue Productions remaster is the best yet. This recording is always an exhilarating listening experience; wall-to-wall soundstage, fabulous performance space acoustics, breath-taking dynamic swings, clarity, and section work that jumps out from the orchestral whole with rich sonority. On my Stillpointed system, all those qualities that make it such a satisfying audiophile recording are enhanced significantly; strings shimmer with newly-revealed overtone and attack textures, the brass section steps forward and plays with a brilliant sheen, deep bass and percussion section work have a new-found depth and impact. Nothing overbearing, and no harshness - I have to remind myself I’m listening to digital!

The revised Stillpoints line has been on the market several years now, so what I’m saying here is hardly ground-breaking. It took me some time to decide to try Stillpoints, though. I reasoned my system was already well - isolated and considering the significant investment involved, Stillpoints seemed an unnecessary excess. But, now that the Stillpoints are installed, I am hearing sound quality I didn’t know my system was capable of! We all know system isolation is essential to good sound, but the Stillpoints have been transformational, their benefits for me, profound. My system performance has been elevated, not by a level, but by an echelon. No mere tweaks, Stillpoints are foundational to my audio system. Ted.

Fantastic write-up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Ted... What an outstanding review! I'm so glad you are experiencing what countless others have; Stillpoints are revolutionary.

Ted.......Fantastic review and a joy to read. Thank you for giving us the full treatment.

Thank you all! ...and as I listen to music right now, the pleasures all mine...! Ted.

Ted, in retrospect, do you think your first impression of the loss of liquidity could be attributed to having to get accustomed to the clearer sound?

Mchydro, Yes, I think you are right. A clearer, but also a more populated sound! Ted.

Ted, thanks for your outstanding Stillpoints review. Floating my system on Stillpoints has unlocked the sonic gates for me as well!

Thanks Steady339. They are remarkable devices. Ted.

Ted, your avatar reminds me of my father, who was a very fine alto sax player and music teacher. He loved jazz and Charlie "Bird" Parker. Do you play sax?

Roger

Roger, I did play alto for years, and may return to it once I have time to begin playing again hopefully in the next year. I have been a member of this board for seven years, since its inception, and you are the first person to ever ask me about the avatar! Did your Dad record? Who was he? In addition to my music studies in school, I studied with another great altoist, Lee Konitz, a contemporary of Bird. Yes, I am a big fan of "Birds"! It is sad that few people even know who Charlie Yardbird Parker was anymore. Ted.

Ted, I remember my dad telling us that he played in a well-known big band from the L.A area before he married and started a family. For the life of me I just can't remember the name of the band leader he played for.

My father was Music Supervisor for the Bakersfield City School District for over 30 years. I remember him always having a ton of private music students at his music studio in our home, studying sax, clarinet, and flute. I do remember that David Benoit was one of his outstanding students who made the big time. Also, he led his own dance band combo for many years. Unfortunately, he never recorded to my knowledge, with the exception of one religious album.

Roger

Thanks for filling me in. i also came from a musical family, both parents sang, played instruments and were active in musical theatre. I've always been grateful for having that background, because my life has been richer for it. Ted.

Ted, about Charlie Parker: My dad told us about "Bird," that he was a genius and that he and many other musicians looked up to Parker's awesome technique, improvising creativity, and important innovations in Jazz.

Dad also told us stories about how Parker was always pawning his horn and that he saw Parker perform once in L.A. Dad said Bird was very late coming out on stage. Everyone was calling his name, and when Bird finally came out, he blew a flurry of very fast notes for a few seconds, then passed out on stage to everyone's disappointment. Tragic that Parker struggled with addiction and died at age 34. Miles Davis said something like, You can summarize Jazz in four words, "Louis Armstrong Charlie Parker." I think Miles meant that these are the two guys who were the innovators in Jazz and who taught other musicians how to play Jazz music.

Also, in correction to my other post, it was Bob Benoit, David Benoit father, that played guitar in my Dad's combo. I don't know if David ever studied music with my father.

Roger

Wow. I think I need to try Stillpoints in my system. :scratch2:

What's the most critical component? Speakers?

Speakers first. :yes:

Roger, yes, Satchmo and Bird were probably the two most important players in jazz, overall. Its not to say, though, when you appreciate how personal and individual the art of jazz improvising is, that two guys said it all. There have been many great jazz artists, of course. But you could certainly say that, more than most, they were responsible for laying the "foundation" for much of what followed them at their respective times. Then there were the modal and atonal players who came later; Coltrane and Coleman being two key players or founding members of those schools. We live in a time when there is still a lot of good music coming from the world of jazz, just not much of anything really ground-breaking. But there is always tomorrow, isn't there? Ted.

Carlos, with your beautiful system, and enjoyment of classical music, I would certainly encourage you to audition Stillpoints under your speakers, first, then your sources. Let me know what you think! Ted.

Sounds good, Ted. Thanks for the tip (and the compliment).

In terms of greatest impact, Stillpoints suggests speakers, then amps followed by power conditioner and front-end electronics.

I'm thinking an active power conditioner reaps greater benefit than a passive one.

I remember AA user audiot servant speaking v. highly of Ultra5s under his 20.7s. I suspect Stillpoints could have an adapter to fit with your Mye stands. Yes, the Ultra5s are pricey but become a permanent investment that you can keep across component changes. You might be able 'to get away with' Ultra5s under the panels with UltraSS on the back braces, but I don't know anyone who has tried that approach. It would be worth a quick e-mail to John or Paul at SP to discuss.

After that four UltraSS under your Pass mono-blocks. You could do these first; I found the impact under my amps almost as great as that under the speakers. But I suspect that may be somewhat component dependent. Of course amp stands designed for isolation are another option.

Different components and systems will respond accordingly but it is rare that proper isolation fails to bring positive gains.

Thanks, Tim. I'll look into this upgrade.

Isolating speakers is something that seems counterintuitive to me. You want the cones (or membrane) - especially bass cones, to be able to reverberate very quickly. This means the cones have to change their direction of travel very quickly. The best way to do that is for the cones to be connected to a rigid cabinet that in turn is solidly anchored to the floor. Hence most speaker companies provide spiked feet for carpet use. I know speaker cabinets are rigid more for avoiding resonance than anything else, but the need for spikes tells me speaker companies have found their products to perform better if they do not move with respect to the floor in any way. Isolation by definition needs to provide the means to blunt the initial impulse of the sound wave either impinging on (or being launched from) your audio component.

In thinking it through with the concepts I'm familiar with, perhaps Stillpoints and other isolation accessories improve the higher frequency tones and retract ever so slightly from the bass tones when used with speakers. The reason I think that is because higher frequency drivers move much faster by definition than lower frequency drivers. Given the relative weights of these drivers with respect to the cabinets in which they're mounted, the isolation of the cabinet from the floor may lessen cabinet resonances for the higher frequency drivers. The bass drivers on the other hand may experience subtle doppler effects that detract from their ability to provide as defined of a tone compared to a cabinet that does not move from the floor - however slight this movement and affect is.

That said, this is all conjecture on my part. I know my fellow audiophiles here have good ears and I believe in the sonic benefits being reported. So that leaves me no choice but to acquire some and hear for myself with my own speakers! :D

Interesting thoughts; FWIW, my most expensive speakers did not even come with spikes, SF Aida's and TAD R1's :)

Ylee, I agree with your point about speaker manufacturers' need to control cabinet resonance for the sake of clearest possible sound reproduction, but as far as any doppler effect compromising the deeper bass notes with speakers using isolating footers, I will only address my own results, and can say I heard deeper and better-defined bass from my speakers with the Stillpoints installed. The Stillpoints are designed to dissipate the energy as heat into the device itself, without interacting with the floor. My results led me to the conclusion that when using the factory spikes on the floor system in my home, due to apparent resonances in my floor that evidently added to cabinet motion and compromised my speakers' ability to resolve, I was unable to enjoy the same degree of resolution with my system on factory spikes as on Stillpoints footers. The benefits were not subtle. As audiophiles, we are all interested in optimizing our system's abilities to reproduce sound as accurately as we possibly can. No two rooms or systems are identical, which helps to keep things interesting, and so YMMV, of course. Good luck, and keep us posted! Ted.

What's the difference between the Ultra SS V1 and V2?

zorronj… Welcome to AA! :wave:

Ultra SS v1 is long discontinued. Ultra SS v2 is the improved, current new version.

I used Ultra 6 V2 under my Vitus SIA-030 amplifier and MSB Reference DAC unit. Ultra 2s are screwed into the CNC machined chassis of the MSB Powerbase unit.