Brass Weights
Heavyhat brass weights placed on top of almost any audio or video component will improve your system's sound (and image quality) significantly. Digital components improve even more than analog. This includes speakers, amps, preamps, phono stages, turntables, home theater receivers, power supplies, power conditioners, CD/BluRay players, DACs, satellite/cable boxes, streamers, servers, routers, modems, computers and hard or solid state drives.
Early in Pierre's brass footer R&D for our Vibration Control System, he found putting weights on top of components and speakers almost always resulted in a satisfying magnification of the footers’ good effects. The weights help suppress resonances in equipment or speaker enclosures and they increase the contact pressure of the footers below.
We tested lead weights head-to-head against brass ones of equal mass. Much to our surprise, the brass sounded much better than lead—and much better than lead of twice the mass. The very high internal damping of lead (which leads to the dead “thunk” when you tap it) kills the dynamics and "sparkle" of the music, even though intuitively it seems like suppressing vibrations through really heavy damping would be very helpful. Experimenting further with other weight materials—steel, ceramics, marble, granite, bricks, carbon fiber, etc.—showed that, as with footers, brass was by far the best sounding material.
The best sounding shape proved to be well radiused cylinders. Our flat bottom original Heavyhats worked well but Heavyhats V.4 are even better due to their reduced contact area. Micropoint Heavyhats rest on three tiny points and are our very best weights. Those tiny points are more expensive to machine, so we offer both options.
Experimenting with the amount of weight and placement pattern of the weights leads to even further improvement. We recommend adding Heavyhats one at a time. Sound will continue to improve until you hit a point where adding just one more dramatically deadens the music.
Our Heavyhat Sets include one 1½" lb. weight and two ¾" lb. weights, made from the same optimized alloy brass used for Mapleshade footers. We find this is a good starting point for one component. You can also order individual large and small Heavyhats a la carte.
