Balls out? Precursors for ball-bearing footers include Symposium's Rollerblock, the late Aurios and Grand Prix Audio's carbon-fiber Apex. They use/d more exposed thus easily replaced spheres. Now their hardness and sphericity became novel concerns. Hifistay's balls-in execution resembles Finite Elemente's Cerabase, that of Tungsten Grooves and Stillpoints. KAT Audio's Terminator employs ball bearings in the vertical axis. Either way, supplementary explanations mention mechanical energies being converted to frictional heat so nobody sees actual motion wobble. Viscoelastics from EquaRack, springs, Audio Physic's magnetic footers, Wellfloat's cantilever/hanging pendulum or Boenicke's floating wire suspensions are alternate approaches. Hifistay aren't averse to combinations. Repurposed from atomic microscopy is Minus K's active technology in Döhmann's Helix One Mk2 turntable. Here suppression of micro resonances is key since they're magnified a thousandfold by subsequent phono-stage gain. Today's options in this field are legion.
Life was easier when stock rubber footers on components and spikes under speakers were all we had. So there's zero implied compunction that it couldn't stay that way. Keeping things simple can be its very own reward. Playing footsies is like the final polish on a car that's had a recent tuneup, alignment, new tyres and runs on premium gasoline.
Enter loud bass. It's vibration control's bogey not boogie man. The louder we play particularly bass-heavy music, the stronger the acoustic and mechanical energies our playback creates. We move more air and sink more reactive energies into the floor. Logic dictates that any reduction in mechanical cross talk now gets more audible so devices like today's win in relevance. If we do small bandwidth-restricted computer speakers at background levels to hear ourselves think at work, the tempest in our tea cup might barely cause any ripples to fret over. And that's key. This stuff is supposed to be fun. Personal entertainment. It's not supposed to create stress over bearing chatter or race stiction. It's not the folks with the most toys who win. It's those who enjoy themselves the most. If seasoning your sound with resonance control footers increases your pleasure, Hifistay's catalogue clearly deserves your attention.
This page from their portfolio shows one of their earlier spike decouplers under six high-end speakers..
Hifistay's main resonance-attenuation solutions and points of pride after having worked this sector for 20 years are these:
