Are any who made high-gain phonostages dealt with vibration damping tube sockets? Since I’m thinking not about my next generation of 85dB gain two-stages phonocorrector:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=2453 (second page)

I wonder what kind tube sockets I will be using in that beast. The 7788 is the highest gain pentode (with necessary bias), best sounding while having the lowers noise available. It is perfect for phono but with gain over 500 times it is better to put it on something very ‘not ringy”. In my former 7788-7721 I used Pearl Audio shock-mount tube sockets:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/PDF/PearlSockets.pdf

they were very good sonically but they were flimsy, made the layout uncomfortable and not as compact at it could be. Probably I will be unsung them again, only with better thinking this time. Stil; I wonder if anything ease available out there?

For instance I was wondering if anyone tried the Korean company Allnic?  They make very interning solution that called Absorb-GEL. Brits sell this gismo… expansive but who know how affective?

http://www.acoustic-dimension.com/absorb/absorb.htm

The TNT folks made writhe up about it:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/accessories/vibra_iso_pt9_e.html

but I still have no idea how it works.

The good part that I do like that the gismo might be used a supplement of any default socket…. I kind of like it. As far as I know no one sell them in US. So, here is the offer:  if some kind of freak takes on the Absorb-GEL then shot me an email - I would buy a pair of them to try. If they work then I do not see why I would not use the same solution at 6E6P for the super Mils HF channel as those tetrodes are “vulnerable” as well.

Paul S wrote:

If I did what I aimed to do this link will cut through the veil and take you straight to the particular soft, iso-mount $$$ sockets I have referred to. http://home.att.net/~chimeraone/axialtubesockets.html I don't know if they are still available, or if the type you want is offered in this series, but AFAIK these are the answer to your original question, and they are the best I know of at this time.

I called today to this guy and he was kind of strange. He told me that his sockets are the “best socked in the world” and how blesses I should be if I buy them. Somewhere in the middle of his conversation he said that he use the best drivers tubes the world and insisted that he will not be saying to me what the tubes is… although I did not even expressed any interest to know or ask. Then he began to sing me songs about his “best in the world special solder and his “best in the world special wire”. After all, he begin to explain to me that I should not worry about shock-mounting and wary about the sockets dialectic as his sockets have the “best in the world” sound and “highest possible dialectic coefficiency”. I felt kind of strange as I called juts to ask about the damn sockets and I did not need the freaking lectures. He informed me that without proper wire and special solder I will not be able to get benefits of his sockets.   I told that it is not my interest to be engaged in conversations about wires, soldering  or what it best in the world ….to which he felt… insulated, say that  he will not be sell me his sockets and hang up…

Well, I was looking at my telephone and was thinking: I am crazy or he is? Obviously after this conversation I did not mean to deal in any format with this guy but I also had absolutely no intention to insult him. I decided to stop over my pride  and to call him back. I told that I’m NOT calling him back to buy anything from him but to inform that I did not mean to offend him, moreover I said, if I do not have interest in his views about  “any other subject” then he should not be insulted: I just called to ask about the sockets and it was it. The guy went crazy insisting (!) that I was calling him back in order to convince him to sell me his tube sockets. I honestly asked him “what he was doing behaving like this” and he kept responding that he will not sell me his sockets.  It was too funny and too pathetic I wish his have a good day. Probably I should wish him to have less mediated day….

I wished him luck and I knew that with his attitudes I have no interest anymore in keeping him comfortable about himself. As far as I concern he can go fuck himself in the each pin-hole of his own socket. What an insecure, simplistic audio-psycho! However, the greatest misery of the episode is not that this Dennis Boyle (the guy who run the Chimera Company) is juts a person whom I caught during his PMS moments but that unfortunately his behavioral pattern is very common among the “self-appointed audio geniuses” about whom not one care.  Yes, it is difficult to find a small audio-maker without psycho disturbances…

I always do call and speak with people. This is Internet and they write whatever they want! I always would like to confirmer that behind the web proclamations there is something else then proclamations. BTW, this Denis sounded perfectly complement and reasonable regarding the subjects … until he began to  tell what I was not asking him….

I would not go so far claming that they are better or not “better in the world”.  Usually the people who go into this thinking are very specific people and I hardly have any interest even to talk with them.  Paul, we are talking about tubes sockets! What freaking criteria and what methodological procedures ever were used (who used??!!) to make assessment what socket is better, under witch condition and how really important all this crap is. The tube sockets have pure intellectual satisfaction and they could not have absolute comparative value. Your ML2 that sonically will wipe out the Denis’ 300B crap is made with tube sockets of $2 each, so what? BTW, I told To that guy that I never conducted any sockets evaluation and have no interest in it. He took is as a personal insult -  what is Moron!

I do presume that his sockets are OK, so what? There are dozen of others and with his attitude he lost opportunity to have me as his customer. The biggest point from this story is not even this Denis but the claims that his type of people make. The person goes into the death describing some very minute details of tube socket performance (!!!) but at the same time he dose in context of 300B, single driver speaker and the rests BS. This all very much reminds me the self-importance of apparently similar to that Denis company form Switzerland: Audio Consulting:

http://www.audio-consulting.ch/

They possess the same level of self-uniqueness and the same level of pomposity but you need to experience the Sound that they advocate and spend a few minutes with those people outside the subjects of silver transformers and beryllium cable elevators. I did and it was very … pathetic and very idiosyncratic. While I was hearing what that “Denis the Socket” was telling me I was experiencing almost deja vu feelings….

In the end there are a lot of things with which a person can entertain himself on audio. This Denis is perfectly within his constitutional rights to be preoccupied with his objective or imaginary perfection of his sockets … RELATIVE TO SOUND AS HE UNDERSTANDS IT. He also is perfectly within his constitutional rights to be preoccupation with his sense of self. Still, he juts an ordinary manufacture who supplies product to the market of demands.  Regardless if his products are good or bad he has lost a customer as I feel that LIVE IS TOO SHORT TO DEAL WITH IDIOTS.  He needs a different class of customers…Those customers who have needs to be told…  I’m sure that if they swap the mailing lists with Audio Consulting then they would find if very beneficial for business….

Anyhow, this train has come and gone and now let return this thread from the subject of human buzzing around the sockets to the subject of the sockets as If I will continue seeing the similar behavior among the DIY retailers then I will put in the phonostage the regular sockets … and I assure you it will work perfectly fine…

A few posts above, actually inn the install post of the thread, I have metioned the Absorb-GEL device. Well, I got them yesterday. They are expansive, something about 70 European dollars per pair, pleasantly made, reasonably designed and it looks like that they behave identical, or a very slightly softer to the Pearls sockets. The tube in the socket is gently flooding atop of some like jelly like substance, it has good stoppers that allow sticking the tube in and out, it is firm and it is very elegantly constricted in a very non-abusive package.

I would not claim that my tube sound better or worst with the Absorb-GEL proxy socket. I did listen it in this way and frankly speaking I do not think I will be intestinally research this subject – have no interest. However, sine the driver stage in my Melquiades is very fast RF tube, that does inclined to microphoneiks then I figured that such a devise make sense, and particularly at HF channel. It serves purely inertial satisfaction and it is possible that it is unnecessary. Still, those Absorb-GEL do make since to me and they do what they meant to do. I like it and when I go for my new 7788 phonocorrector I will use them.