Carbide Audio

Carbide Base Vibration Isolation Feet

Market

Consumer & Commercial Products

Product

Carbide Audio Base Vibration Isolation Feet

Challenge

To build the best isolation footers for audio with the following performance criteria:

• Isolation in all six degrees of freedom
• Adjustable to accommodate a wide range of equipment weights
• Low natural resonance frequency to effectively isolate the lowest audible frequencies, specifically base frequencies that are the most difficult, yet most important, to isolate

Solution

Vibration control is a growing segment of the home audio industry. Audio vibration isolation feet are commonly used under loudspeakers to decouple them from the floor to minimize room structure noise, which can blur music information in the mid-range and bass. They are also used under audio electronics such as turntables and amplifiers to isolate them from structure-borne vibrations. This minimizes the harmful effects of microphony whereby mechanical vibrations are transferred into electronic noise.

The Carbide Base isolation footer is a hybrid design utilizing Sorbothane, Inc. viscoelastic material combined with ball bearings rolling in curved raceways. The result is a highly effective isolator for loudspeakers and audio electronics that surpasses the competition in terms of isolation and damping, particularly at low frequencies.

Carbide Audio’s solution to achieving these criteria was to utilize Sorbothane® material in the form of a very low shape factor, meaning a substantial portion of the surface area on the part is free to bulge outward when vertically compressed. This allowed for a natural resonance frequency lower than many of the previous designs utilizing viscoelastic material in a thin, constrained layer. The use of such a low shape factor is aided by the patent-pending design of the housing that the Sorbothane® material sits in. The housing progressively braces the material as it bulges to prevent buckling and provide a more progressive spring rate while simultaneously allowing a substantial surface area to remain free to bulge.

Sorbothane® material also has an exceptionally high loss factor which exceeded our expectations for damping performance. Additionally, because the Sorbothane® material is available in different stiffnesses (durometers), we can offer customers the ability to change the installed color-coded viscoelastic according to the desired supporting weight, thereby satisfying the adjustability requirement.

Rolling ball bearings were added to achieve a lower natural resonance frequency in the horizontal plane. Additional Sorbothane® material was strategically incorporated to improve the damping of these horizontal movements.

It is not just the effectiveness of the Sorbothane® material itself that has enabled this product to be successful, but also the engineering expertise of Sorbothane, Inc. in producing and rapidly prototyping parts in the required dimensions and formulations.

For more information about Carbide Audio and its products, visit carbide.audio.