More Prototypes from Les Davis

Les Davis, who has created the constrained layer damping (CLD) material I talked about after my trip from Australia, has just sent more more prototypes of his new footers to try out. As you can see from the photos, Les has been playing around with colors, patterns and even thicknesses. His latest assortment includes CLD footers of different thicknesses--three layers, four layers, five layers and even six layers.

The idea is that we've pretty much confirmed that the material works, and Les has conducted plenty of A/B listening tests to confirm that this isn't just another hi-fi tweak that only works if your system is resolving enough, or if your ears are good enough. As I've mentioned before, our initial tests were conducted with a rather modest source--an old Arcam CD player that probably only retailed for a few hundred dollars when new. (Those modest Arcam players, by the way, employed the stellar Ring DACs, so they always sounded exceptional for the money.)

Now I have to determine if the sonic improvements can be increased even more by adding layers of CLD material. We do know that the overall sound of the system improves if you keep adding footers to all of the components. Back in Sydney, we started off with four footers under the feet of the CD player. Then we added more material under the amplifiers we used (Tara Labs, Einstein and REDGUM). Finally, we added CLD footers between the Brigadiers Audio BA2 monitors. With each addition, the sound improved incrementally. The CLD footers made our test system sound fuller and with a greater wealth of detail.

We all made the comment that "more music flowed through" with the footers in place--I've since read in an equipment review that the flowing music description has become a huge cliche, so I will refrain from using it in the future. But you get the idea, I hope.

These additional tests will help Les to determine the finished product. Will he offer the CLD footers in different thicknesses, at a proportional retail price? I'm using a very resolving system to determine that--the new flagship Unison Research Unico 150 integrated amplifier, the equally new Unison Research Unico CD Due transport/DAC, my Trenner & Friedl ART monitor speakers, the PureAudio Vinyl phono preamplifier and my Unison Research Giro turntable/arm mated with a Transfiguration Axia cartridge. All cables and power management are from Furutech. I've settled on this system over the last few weeks because it is unusually resolving and allows me to hear deep into recordings (another audio cliche, by the way).

The different colors and patterns are just Les having fun. I had one person at CES ask me if the footers would be available in different colors and patterns, and Les told me he could do anything the customer wanted. He's still considering how to finish the footers, but he's already determined that wood and metal sandwiches may look attractive, but they lessen the impact. So he might be close to a finished product for now--he's experimenting with laser cutting so that the edges are neat and professional.

That kind of makes Les' footers a no-BS kind of audio accessory, I think--you're not paying for anything that doesn't affect the sound. Besides, when you put the footers under amps and digital sources, you can't see them. Plus, and this is an important point, keeping it simple allows Les to sell them at a very, very reasonable price. So this will be a tweak for the masses, something just about everyone can try!

Just Arrived...Les Davis' CLD Prototypes

Mere moments after I finished my next Vinyl Anachronist column for Perfect Sound Forever, where I mentioned Les Davis' CLD material, I received a package in the mail from Australia with the first batch of footers that I will try to bring to CES next January. Les Davis sent me 32 pre-cut footers in two different sizes. The smaller round set, I presume, are for placing under the feet of components, and the larger square pieces are probably meant for placing under loudspeakers, especially between bookshelf speakers and their stands.

Again, these are prototypes, just the actual CLD sheets Les manufacturers and not a finished product. After hearing the sonic improvements of these sheets back in Sydney, I recommended that Les find a way to package them in an attractive way, perhaps sandwiched between pieces of wood, aluminum--anything attractive so that audiophiles won't mind placing them in a visible location on their equipment racks. My only concern was, of course, that the outer casing did not diminish the effects of the CLD material.

Now that I have them on my rack, I think they're visually interesting in their raw form. When you place them under amplifiers and CD players and basically anything in a big rectangular chassis, the thin footers disappear from view. When placed where they can easily be seen--in this case under my Unison Research Giro turntable and the Unison Research Phono One phono pre--they're still not obtrusive and I don't mind their presence at all. Perhaps an outer ring may enhance their appearance, but I don't want the price of these footers to increase exponentially just so they'll be pretty.

After just a couple of hours of listening, I still heard the same exact sonic improvements in my current system that I did with the Einstein/Brigadiers Audio/Arcam system back in Sydney. Using the wonderful, lovely-sounding Analogue Productions reissue of Dean Martin's Dream with Dean, I noticed a rather disjointed feeling between Dean and his backing band, which to me suggested that they were not recorded in the same space. There's a real center-fill problem with the band itself--guitar way over to the right, drums and bass way over to the left, with Dino smack dab in the middle.

Once the CLD footers were placed under the amp, turntable and phono stage, Dean and his band returned to the same studio space. The overall sound became more coherent, and more seamlessly blended from top to bottom. The footers also fleshed out the bass in the recording with more woodiness, more bloom. I removed the footers and listened once more (this is the best way to detect sonic improvements through changes in the system as well as minor tweaks) and I immediately felt like I was missing something. Dean's voice was a little drier, a little more distant.

I'm going to experiment with these footers a little more, testing their effects on system combinations that are both more resolving and less so. I'll come back with more findings in a few days.

The Chronicles of Sydnia, Part 5: Les Davis and Constrained Layer Damping

About a year ago I was hosting an exhibit room at one of the hi-fi trade shows--I'm about 99% sure it was RMAF 2014--and a salesperson from one of my dealers came and sat in my room and evaluated our system. He came away quite impressed with the sound, which is a good thing since he sells our products to his clientele. Before he left, he recommended one thing--I should use footers and vibration control from a particular company in order to "sharpen" the sound of each component.

When I priced these products I was a little dismayed at the high cost of just a single set of footers. And I was supposed to stick these under every single component I demonstrated? Whew. I was going to have to cut down on cigars in order to find the budget to include these products so CCI could have that advantage over the other exhibitors--who were also using these products as well.

Flash forward to this year's RMAF, from which we've just returned. While there, I noticed the aforementioned footers in what seemed like every other room. The word was out--if you're serious about audio, you need these expensive thingies. I found myself in one of the better-sounding rooms at the show, where the actual designer of the footers demonstrated the sonic differences with and without his product. There was no doubt about it...with the footers in place, the noise floor lowered and the overall sound was fuller and more detailed. I was sold, except for one thing; I'd heard a similar demo in Australia the month before with another product that was more modest in looks, and therefore potentially more affordable.

The man in the photo above is Les Davis. Les has been in and out of the audio game for many years. He's a gifted musician as well as an audiophile with excellent hearing. A mate of Brad Serhan and David Allen, Les wanted a few minutes of my time so that I could hear the effects of a new damping material he had developed using constrained layer damping techniques. While in Australia, I heard about constrained layer damping many times--Brad uses this design concept to seal the cabinets of the Brigadiers Audio BA1 and BA2 loudspeakers.

Les, however, has taken the concept one step further. He showed us a simple sheet of his material, which we then cut up into squares to slide under the components of the system we used to evaluate the voicing of our two speakers. The sheets looked like aluminum foil that had a distinct grid-like pattern stamped into them. First we placed a sheet under the Arcam CD player we were using. We heard those same gains in clarity, frequency extension and detail. We then placed a sheet under the Einstein integrated amp that we had all grown to love during the development of the BA1 and BA2. We heard even more gains. Finally, we placed sheets under the Brigadiers Audio BA1, which you can see below. What I thought was one of the greatest speaker designs I've heard in quite some time became even better--deeper, clearer, more coherent.

I told Les that he was definitely on to something. After the demo, Les and I talked about everything under the sun, including our favorite music. Les, who is British and grew up during that stellar era of UK music in the '70s and '80s, had quite a bit in common with me, the kid who was totally into the LA punk scene back in the early '80s. You know, SST bands like The Minutemen, Husker Du, Meat Puppets and Black Flag.

So what is constrained layer damping? I'm not an expert at this point, but I'm learning so I'll proceed with caution. (Both Les and Brad can offer a more eloquent explanation, I'm sure.) CLD is used for damping and vibration control in a number of technical applications. CLD usually consists of a three-layer sandwich of damping materials--a base layer, a damping layer and a constraining layer. The alternating layers then dissipate all vibrations as "low-grade frictional heat."

Brad's use of constrained layer damping is applied through the use of birch-ply construction in his cabinets, with a specialized adhesive between the layers. Les' approach adds even more damping--as we saw with the initial demonstration, each layer of CLD improved the sound in an almost linear manner without diminishing returns.

The differences, as I said, are not subtle. We did extensive A/B comparisons and everyone in the room heard a difference. Those differences, as I said, were almost identical to the improvements I heard in Denver a few days ago. CLD is not a gimmick--it's effective engineering applied to our hobby. So I told Les, "this is something people should know about." So I told Les that I thought he should start applying his sheets into a finished product, one that could implement the sheets into an attractive footer between attractive pieces of wood, or metal, or anything that would not dilute the impact of CLD.

After a few weeks, I started thinking about Les' sheets and how I want others to hear what this material can do for their systems. So I'm hoping to sneak a few little squares under our Opera and Unison Research system at CES in January. I'm also eager to try the CLD sheets in my own system at home.

So this is one of those unexpected developments--an Australian encounter with something that I think could be great. Les is going to manufacture some CLD gaskets to fit around the drivers inside the cabinets of the BA1 and BA2 and we'll see how that affects the sound of a speaker I already feel is outstanding in every conceivable parameter. So if you come visit us at CES (room 29-110 at the Venetian), hopefully I'll have some of Les' fantastic CLD sheets on hand so you can listen for yourself.