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In the beginning, there was music, and images…
| It began with the thing itself, and this event caused a sound, or an image, or both. Pure, original, undistorted, and natural, spreading out like waves, through time itself. In its own way, perfect. Then, someone asked: why could we not have it forever - why could we not capture and preserve it, like a genie in a bottle.
And so we did, as people with names like Cros and Daugerre found ways to capture sound and light patterns, and put them "in a bottle." But when we opened the bottle to experience it again, we found that the experience had changed. It was not the same; it was only a dim shadow of itself, distorted, and only crudely related to the original.
It seemed that the Genie would not be captured.
Then, "High End" came along- and High End was just another name for the quest for the Holy Grail- a desire to have the original experience again, as it was; a yearning for immortality for those things we consider beautiful and timeless. It is a wish, borne of the conviction that the things that are perfect should not die.
And while there are a few problems to solve before we realize our dream, the "High End" comes closer to fulfilling the promise every day, with claims of new and better performance, not just with components, but with accessories that promise the enhancement or refinement of the performance of these components.
How is one to separate what is false from what has validity?
There are only two methods: Personal experience and logical analysis. While the Reviews section reports personal experiences with our products, "Technology" will attempt to present aspects of very basic physics in an attempt to explain the processes at work in Symposium products.
Our designs are guided by years of professional experience with live sound as well as state of the art audio and video equipment, but we feel that this is not enough to gain the trust and respect of our valued customers and friends. And so, Symposium maintains a serious commitment to and awareness of the reasons why we may be hearing and seeing - or not hearing and seeing- improvements in performance.
Usually, it's easier to design with just one's ears as a guide. But just as we prefer to use a roadmap when we travel in order to find out if where we think we are is really where the rest of the world knows we are, we strive to understand why our products cause the kinds of improvements they do against a framework of scientific analysis. If we understand why something is happening, it can help us to go in the right direction tomorrow. Maybe.
And that's what "our technology" is about.
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The Science of Vibration Control
Vibration control, or "isolation," as it is often called, is a science, not a guessing game.
The fact that vibration can and does affect the performance of sensitive circuitry doesn't have to be proven; it's a known and accepted fact. Shake any circuit hard enough and its performance will suffer. The more delicate the signals involved, the more critical the application of isolation and drainage devices becomes. In high-end audio and video, the critical thresholds of discernible distortion are being lowered daily, as the resolution capabilities of modern equipment soars.
But how should one approach vibration control? Is it just a matter of "softening" the vibration from the outside world? Most people have experienced driving on a winding, bumpy road in a car with a soft suspension and in a car with a stiff suspension. The stiff suspension gives better control over the car, while the soft suspension gives a smoother ride. Stiff or soft? It depends on the driver, and his or her purpose in the car. If it's just to preserve your derriére, you'll prefer the soft suspension. If you want to control the car better, however, the stiff suspension is the way to go. It's fairly straightforward if you want one or the other. But what if you want both? That's a little more difficult to achieve.
There's a parallel to this simple analogy in the world of vibration control, because there are two approaches and disciplines which must be mastered in order to realize our goal of theoretically vibration-free operation. They are each equally important; we call them drainage and isolation.
In the future, we plan to develop and improve this section with a more-or-less comprehensive analysis of the issues and aspects of vibration control. Please check back periodically for updates. Meanwhile, we offer the following initial pages for your edification and consideration, and suggest you start with the introductory discussion about Symposium concepts of isolation and vibration control.
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