Isolation Platforms.

Vesicular basalt.

An excellent platform into which to render mechanical vibrations is a vesicular basalt slab. Bocchino Audio will supply such slabs to the following maximum sizes:

Thickness Centimetres	Maximum perimeter size  in centimetres	Maximum Area  in square centimetres	Maximum perimeter size  in Inches	Maximum Area  in square inches
6	43 x 25	1075	17 ins x 10 ins	170
5	43 x 30	1290	17 ins x 12 ins	194
4	43 x 38	1634	17 ins x 15 ins	255
3	43 x 50	2150	17 ins x 20 ins	340
2	43 x 75	3225	17 ins x 30 ins	510

43 cm is the standard width of most audio appliances. However other perimeter sizes are available provided they do not exceed the maximum area for the given thickness asked for.

Other dimensions are available on request.
Price is generally $AUD 199.00 per slab lightly arrassed on one surface.
The reason the Vesicular Basalt works so well as an isolation platform is because of the innumerable number of gas vesicles in the slab and the hardness of the rock matrix. These work to kill vibrations from transiting the slab and will also earth vibrations induced into the slab by the Mecado^TM.

TO MAXIMISE APPLIANCE ISOLATION USE MECADO'S BETWEEN THE BASE OF THE APPLIANCE AND THE ROCK SLAB.  And also between the base of the rock slab and the platform on which the whole assembly sits

And so it looks like this:

Platform
MECADO'S
Slab
MECADO'S
Appliance

This works well for electronic appliances and also for loudspeakers. this combination will offer the best isolation and deliver the maximum enjoyment. With loudspeakers, it may be adviseable to place an intermediary neat slab between the top surface of the VB and the base of the loudspeaker. Because of the numerous vesicles in the basalt their boundaries may be prone to scratching the base of the loudspeaker. A  ( 15mm - 20 mm ) granite or marble slab would suffice.

What about Granite and Marble?
Both granite and marble are dense and heavy rocks. Their density being similar to the vesicular basalt. But  marble has no displaced discontinuities in its matrix though granite has innumerable discontinuities that meld into each other at their crystalline boundaries. Hence sound is reflected around inside the rocks and is not rapidly dissipated, though somewhat more so in granite than marble. Vibrational artefacts still make it through the rock and it is only by virtue of their heavy mass that they deliver any dampening at all. Vesicular basalt on the other hand being of similar mass and density, by virtue of its vesicular structure, dissipates an exceptional amount of vibrational energy at the vesicle / matrix interface, of which  within the rock matrix there are many thousands.
The difference is immediate and quite audible.

Performance
The Vesicular Basalt Slab platform will outperform most, if not all, similar platforms made from exotic polymers, fibers and reconstituted stone as well as other natural stone costing upwards of thousands of dollars. This has to be the bargain of the century. A perchance discovery by a client who passed the information onto me as he was not interested in taking it further. After I tried it I was amazed at how excellent it performed just on its own. Arrange it as above and you will wonder why you ever paid hundreds of dollars for that carbon-fibre mat, or similar!

Below is an image of the slab, standard size 430mm x 400mm x 30mm: