Hi John,
Um, kinda-sorta. What the data in this model says that, when the Gumby DAC is on the maple board, the Tenderfeet don't bring any
statistically significant improvement over using the stock Gumby feet.
But, there's a complication: this is known as a "confounding factor" in DOE-land: the maple board was resting on...the cork & rubber anti-vibration pads! So, they very likely had an impact on the effect of using the maple board, regardless of the footers under Gumby.
So, I have to figure out another design to "de-convolve" (i.e., separate out) the impact of the anti-vibration pads as a factor, separately. One way to do this modify the design so that the footers are evaluated at three levels (actually 3 discrete factors), instead of just two.
The other way I could do it is to use another type of footer under the maple board, e.g. hardwood blocks, the MIGs, or...use no footers under the maple board at all, etc. Then I could examine 3 factors instead of two and run the DOE at 2 levels instead of 3 levels for one factor, footers.
Still thinking about what the best design would be....
At, at the end of the day, I still have to listen to it. A key principle is you have to do a real-world test of your model. It could be that while the maple board may not reduce the transmitted power from vibration to the DAC, but it may bring other attributes or qualities that just make the system sound better. I can tell you my Denali 6000/S V2 sounds better on a nice piece of rock maple than it does just on the shelf or...on the living room carpet (where it sounds not very good at all...).
One way to think about this is: why are Stradivarius/Guanerius violins made in Cremona in the 18th Century prized for their sound over modern violins? Its because the wood the the violin's body was made out of in the 18th Century was made from wood from old-growth forests. Those forests don't really exist anymore, and the wood modern violins are made from is "new growth" forest and has a diifferent density and other qualities from "old-growth" wood.