"As you mention, the bearing raceways in the lower portion of the footer are flat. Small viscoelastic bumpers damp lateral movements and keep the device centered. These flat raceways are hardened steel. This lower portion already works well due to its high level of horizontal damping so the Diamond version leaves it unchanged."

"The new upper Diamond section instead uses concave raceways but their geometry is different from many previous roller-ball isolators. Our races have a large curvature radius so shallow concavity. Think of a ball rolling in a race like a pendulum swing. The effective length of the pendulum is dictated by the difference between the radius of the raceway curvature to the radius of the ball bearing. The larger the difference, the longer the pendulum period hence the lower the resonance frequency."

"A low resonance frequency is required to isolate low frequencies. We make these raceways as shallow as we reasonably can so the device isolates effectively from just under 10Hz to above horizontally. Once you have the footers you might see how the upper portion moves around slowly when stimulated. This is due to its low resonance frequency."

Central jam bolt to secure upfacing bolts for mounting the footer to a component.

Proper engineering relies on measured confirmation and Carbide Audio also own those testing tools of their trade as shown below. "You want to insure that a component rests on the stainless steel top center of each footer so it can move freely in response to vibrations. If the component has bolts or other protrusions on the underside which might interfere, use one of the included spikes (each footer includes 3) to point up then set the component on those spike tips. This will clear underside protrusions. Some customers do this anyway claiming better sound thanks to the rigid coupling of the spike tips. The Diamond version's top threaded hole is made from our highly damped TwinDamp material for this purpose. Simply resting the component directly atop also works great, however."

Shake it, bubba.

To test the Diamond's efficacy under a component, I had what I thought was a telling challenge: park a Denafrips CD transport atop the big downstairs sub which sits between Qualio IQ speakers. Though that sub literally floats above the floor on a Boenicke SwingBase via wire suspension, its top still transmits vibrations from dual 15-inch woofers. Making their recipient a disc spinner promised at least in theory a wider before/after delta. A long AES/EBU cable could travel back to the DAC on the sidewall rack. I had a plan. But was it any good?