BLUE HORIZON SANCTUM ISOLATION PLATFORM

Beware ‘bad’ vibes

Everything vibrates, period. For the audiophile, this is a serious challenge, since
vibration affects the delicate audio signals in virtually every hi-fi component.
Vibrations move through the floor, the furniture and the air to enter audio equipment
via the feet and chassis. And of course the equipment itself generates further
vibrations.

These ‘unwanted’ resonances raise the noise floor in turntables. They interfere with
the vibration-sensitive crystal oscillators in computers, DACs and streamers. In disc
players, they cause the error-correcting circuitry to work overtime while in both valve
and transistor amplifiers, they jangle the microphonic components. All of which
serves to degrade the quality of the audio signal at various stages in its journey from
source to ear, ultimately constraining the optimum performance of the overall system.

Component isolation

Blue Horizon’s new Sanctum isolation platform is specifically designed to isolate
individual high-performance components such as turntables, DACs, preamplifiers,
power amplifiers, CD players and streamers from all sources of unwanted vibration.

The platform’s construction brings together a selection of carefully chosen materials
from opposite ends of the elasticity spectrum, combining them in such a way as to
dramatically reduce resonance evenly across the audio band, which effectively:

• Lowers distortion across the audio spectrum
• Improves detail, clarity and tonal neutrality
• Improves bass definition
• Delivers wide open and deep soundstages
• Enables more expressive dynamic contrast and shading to be revealed.

The platform shelf is made from high density fibreboard (HDF), favoured for its
mechanical stability. Unlike woods with a fixed grain, HDF does not expand or
contract with climatic changes.

The HDF shelf is precision-machined in five places: four recesses, one at each
corner, and a circular central hollow designed to eliminate any standing waves within
the shelf itself.

Each of the four corner recesses features a complex isolation foot made up of three
key elements:

• A dense compound of cork, rubber and leather, whose ‘chaotic’ construction,
which randomly combines materials of varying density and elasticity, is ideal for
breaking up resonant frequencies.

• A ‘visco-elastic’ polymer (meaning that it exhibits properties of both liquids and
solids), which combines shock absorption and good memory with very high
vibration isolation and damping characteristics over a very wide temperature
range.

• A precision-machined spiked aluminium cone.

Each isolation foot’s complete assembly is held in place by an outer ring which
prevents the individual parts from dropping out when the platform is being lifted into
position, but which decouples once the Sanctum is in place, leaving the platform
freely floating on the isolation feet.

To protect furniture surfaces, the Sanctum comes with four 5mm spike protection
feet, which additionally provide further resonance control by introducing an additional
material boundary (solid brass, in contrast to the aluminium spikes).

The Sanctum comes in two finish options: matt black or matt white, both scratchresistant
and easy to clean.